What are every ones thoughts on this? I feel a lot is riding on next season. We must improve. Get top 4 and it could revolutionize us. Get at least close and we can be positive. Fail to improve and we could slip further, struggling to attract top players or a top manager.
He may have a point, lets wait and see what happens. http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/footba...ampions-834339
Makes a good point. Recent example of what can happen without ambition is Villa. A team that were on the verge of breaking the 'top 4' a few years ago, but a lack of ambition from the owner saw them slash the wage bill, stop spending, sell their best players, lose a manager who was actually good for them (MON), hire a terrible manager from a relegated rival and its all culminated in a season where they have played some of the worst football in the league and come very very close to being relegated. Money goes hand in hand with ambition and has done for the last 20years. Without spending its very difficult to move forward.
I think Newcastle and Everton show what can be achieved without being silly; granted Newcs got very lucky with the sale of Carrol but they have sold well and bought even better. Everton or more accurately Moyes have worked miracles really, a good manager is more important than money or rather a good manager is better than a bad one who buys poorly.
Tottenham. How much has Redknapp spent on that Tottenham squad? They were bottom when he took over, starting badly for the second year running, but already had Bale, Lennon, Modric, Dawson and King. All be it younger versions.
Dont buy the Everton stuff. Not saying what Moyes has done isnt good for Everton, he's kept them going and kept them in the top 10 despite having almost no money. But what have they achieved in the last 10 years, **** All. 7 years ago they got CL football and got knocked out straight away and since then... Nothing of note. They have stability but no Ambition, We want more. Newcastle are a different thing altogether. They fleeced us for far too much money, if we had told them to go **** themselves and waited till the summer to buy Carroll, then Newcastle would be no further on than they were. What Newcastle have done well is re-invest the money and thats down to the fact they have an excellent scouting network and are really tough negoitators. Man City have spent half a Billion and only just won the league on the last day. Not saying we have to spend that much to get back to CL and we should drive hard bargins for everyone we buy, but not buying players this summer would be a huge mistake
Not saying I don't want us to be ambitious but I do think a better balance than say Everton and Man City can be relatively successful. As long as the backbone of a team is relatively secure then you don't need tons of money spent. I think our backbone is much improved since Dalglish has been in charge, yes largely the backbone is the same players he inherited but I would say Skrtel is now one of those as is Suarez. Reina, Agger, Skrtel, Lucas and Suarez is pretty decent and relatively young for their positions, undecided if Gerrard can really adapt but you could argue he can be added to that list. 3 quality signings and a couple of canny bargains and I think we are looking very good without huge investment!
Oh come on...Everton are doing great, yes, and Moyes deserves massive credit for what he's done without funding, but they're going nowhere. Newcastle gambled on injury prone players and it paid off. Other clubs didn't fancy the gamble because of their medical history. They aren't some super, far advanced scouting agency (Cisse was a quality find though), they're just lucky their players didn't get injured when Ba/Ben Arfa/etc could all have ended up the same way as Marveaux...in the treatment room for most the year. Pardew did great in getting the playstyle nailed on, but they had a large slice of luck with those players. Liverpool need another 40-50mill investment from the owners to push on to the top 4, but it's more difficult now to break into that group with the emergence of Tottenham and City in recent years plus the probability of Chelsea spending outside their means once again and United's determination to regain their title from City. We need to show ambition to improve, certainly, but not to the extent of what some other big clubs will do. We just need improvement, not drastic and fast surgery.
Not sure if your arguing with me, somebody else or yourself! My point about Everton is that although I agree they are not improving in terms of league position the fact that they have not slid down the table like many others who have stopped spending or even others who continued to spend but badly is incredible. All this is down to fantastic management and brilliant youth set-up, any other club wiuld have slipped out of the league before now. The fact that they regularly finish in 7th or 8th shows what is possible; hell their spending is worse than frugal. The point I am trying to make by using Everton is that with a conservative investment they could easily be in the champs league, as long as you have the base of good youth set-up and good mangement.
Probably with myself... I don't think Everton have any shot of reaching the top 4 unless they get taken over by some serious investors - a la City. They're a hard working, well organised team full of average but determined players with a few good players mixed in. Minor investment won't improve them much, it'll just solidify their position as a top 10 team but nothing more. I also wonder if Moyes could cut it at a bigger team with more funds available or if he's just another O'neil type manager who can take a team to a certain level...maybe he'll get an opportunity to show that at some point. Point is, he's good for Everton at their level, and he'll keep them at that level.
Newcastle and Everton have done a good job to reach their respective league positions, and with limited resources compared to Chelsea and Man City. While this may work for the odd season, you have to remember that a few of the Newcastle lads are now targets for the bigger clubs, therefore Newcastle have to offer better contracts to entice them to stay. Money plays a big part in this game now, and you need to have a lot of it to be successful for a long period of time. Using your limited resources efficiently may get you stability (ala Arsenal, Everton) but the big spenders are the ones who win i.e Chelsea, Man Utd (a few seasons ago) and Man City.
Yes you are right that especially in Newcastles case you wonder if their recent success can be sustained. The point I am making though is that Newcs or Everton really have less of a quality backbone than we have and thats why I say with a conservative investment it is possible to get in the champs league for a start. Lets not forget we were all hoping(not expecting granted) to have achieved top four this season or at least given it a greater go, huge investment is not needed. Anyway I thing we are debating a false issue really because the Hamman article sounded more like ambition towards management than buying.
I agree that we have a very good strong spine and our squad is more than capable of finishing above Everton and Newcastle. The difference was that they brought in strikers who put away the chances. Jelavic and Cisse - scored crucial goals which propelled them.
Yeah they turned out to be cracking signings, however I am pretty sure when Jelavic was mentioned on here as a possible signing for us most were saying 'please no". We made a mistake in Jan possibly but perhaps what was available was not really good enough, we will never know.
Personally, I didn't think he was good enough but for £7m, it would have been worth the risk. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
