A lot said about how our revampd team might end with a top ten finish - what about targeting winning one of the cups?
The bookies still have us as fourth favourites to go down, that's still got to be the main objective to stay up. We may have finished last season in 11th place but until we beat two teams who were arguably on the beach, it looked very dodgy for a while. Next year if we do well and build the squad stronger still then an assault on a cup comp might be on.
Survival in this division is paramount. The difference will be, for me, whether we achieve that showing a bit more flair, invention and "pazazz(?)" than last year. If we can, then I shall consider that a good season
I think cups are a nice idea, but at the moment league survival is the first target. Cups are a good opportunity to rotate the squad, and I'd rather we were putting out a weaker side for cups than league games. Cups are also a good opportunity to blood the youngsters. I'd rather we went with the attitude of putting out a side that should be good enough on paper to get a result in a cup game, and include some fringe players. You never know who you might get in the cup, I'd rather we didn't go all guns blazing against league one sides to the detriment of our league form, only to be drawn against Chelsea/United/Citeh, etc in the 5th round.
Comfortable survival will suit me fine. Bed in the newcomers, build confidence, establish the playing style, get the entire squad competing for selection, then next summer strengthen further.
I'd say being in the top division for 2 seasons warrants a full attempt to get a trophy from here on in. If you can't do it now then I don't see what difference it makes in any other future year.
I agree totally. But league survival is the cake - a cup run is just the icing on top, the way modern day football shapes up, sadly
Think of the memories that Swansea and Wigan fans have from last season - I was quite young when we won the milk cup and i'd love some new memories like that.
Not knocking what you say at all, but twelve months down the line, that 'trophy' will belong to someone else - it will be gone, memories.....history League form will enable us to continue signing better players like Fer, RvW, whereas a cup run sadly won't.
So why bother at all? Whats the point in signing better players? Those memories that sit with Swansea and Wigan will last far longer than any Premiership survival money we earn.
I would much rather we use the cups as a perfect way to blood some of our up and coming youth team players, like the Murphy twins, Morris, Toffolo, Wyatt, etc We now have Cat 1 status, in terms of a legacy, nothing is stronger than producing academy players of high quality. We should all be very proud of the FA Youth Cup victory and what this might herald 3/4 years down the line. Cup wins...ask Birmingham or Wigan, whether they would trade their wins for PL right now! Top 10 and improving our squad to at least 11 players of Europa League standard is the next priority
Is it really either/or? I know Wigan makes it look that way, but they didn't get relegated because they were distracted by the Cup. They went down because they just didn't perform for the first three quarters of the season and had too much ground to make up. As DH says, the luck of the draw also has a lot to do with winning a cup. Let's just do as well as we can and see how things look once we get past January.
I would say that we now have much greater 'depth' in the squad and hopefully we will get a few cup games to give the fringe/younger players an opportunity to show what they can do - please don't let's have another 'Luton' debacle. PL survival really has to be a priority and any other success 'the icing on the cake' as others have said.
So in the last 3/4 years, both Birmingham and Wigan have won a cup - and European football, but been relegated largely due to the massive number of games played and any injuries/suspensions collected as a result. That in itself is not a problem for Chelski, Man Citeh, etc as they have a strong enough squad to rotate but retain quality. Lesser clubs like those I mentioned and NCFC don't and so to me the pursuing of silverware can aait a couple of years until we're established enough to afford and sustain a decent second string.
I think that would be the case whoever we had signed.Norwich are just a little team in the minds of most people.As I pointed out before though the largestnumber of bets are being placed on sides other than Norwich.This suggests that we are not considered value for money at 3/1.
The FA Cup would be great as we've already got our name on the League Cup. It would depend on how many points we get at each stage of the FA Cup, then I'd imagine it would be assessing the risk. We've not had a decent FA Cup run since the Dave Stringer years.
Personally, I would love to get to Wembley at some stage in my life and watch Norwich but I'll enjoy it when ever it happens. This season it would be a bonus but I think we will be just going for survival. Lets face it we were fortunate to survive last season and I am slightly concerned that pre season, I am seeing déjà vu on the goal scoring front. Whilst the signings so far look encouraging, how they will perform in the premier league is not clear. Not convinced with Becchio and feel we need some quality Prem experience in. Cisse/Defo that sort of level. Hooper may be worth a punt but again not convinced there. Now I know it is of course early pre season and there is time but it needs sorting otherwise getting to final will not be a target , more likely surviving.
@surgeryman I really don't understand your saying "Let's face it we were fortunate to survive last season". In what way were we fortunate? What was this good luck that made all the difference? We played 38 games like everyone else, and finished 11th. Does the table lie? In what way? Were Wigan unlucky? Were Newcastle, Villa, and all the others who survived but finished below us lucky? Had we finished 15th instead of 11th would we still have been lucky? Sorry, but all this talk of us having been lucky is nonsense IMO.
. Be negative why don't you. We are in to two games of pre season so to make a statement like that about our scoring is ridiculous. We were not "lucky" to escape relegation last season, we were in a comfortable 11th place
