Congratulations on the win tonight. It may have been a very poor Coventry side, but the chances still have to be put away, however easy they may seem (ask senor Torres for further details), and the defence keep awake until the final whistle blows. Anyway, onto the purpose of this thread. Being a 'budgie', I normally err on the side of caution, ie. last season I would have settled for a top 10 finish. Never in my wildest dreams did I think we would achieve what we did. What about you chaps though? 1. What WERE your hopes at the start of the season? 2. What ARE you hopes for the season now? 3. What will you consider and acceptable position come the end of the season? 4. Would a cup run be beneficial to you? I would be very interested in your replies. Will be watching your results with great interest. I genuinely hope you do well this year, but that will not stop me from having a 'slight; smile if things do go a tad wrong sometimes.
1. What WERE your hopes at the start of the season? Possible auto but deffo top 6. 2. What ARE you hopes for the season now? Possible auto but deffo top 6. 3. What will you consider and acceptable position come the end of the season? Top 6, any lower and i shall be gutted 4. Would a cup run be beneficial to you? Winning is a habbit so i guess it wouldn't hurt!!
To kind of indirectly answer your question - my hopes for this season were never huge. We lost McAuley, Norris and Wickham - and of course our player of the year Bullard went back to Hull - and it looked very likely we'd be weaker this season than last. Jewell has incredibly and unquestionably managed to improve on the staff but in doing so has signed pretty much an entire new first team. I have said time and again that anyone who expects instant results is kidding themselves - but what we do have now is a solid base on which to build. We are still short in some areas - GK is on a recall loan - Edwards is not a RB - need a couple more finishers. It has never been about the short term for me and I don't think it is for the club either. What we have are the resources to be a club challenging for Europe. That's where we belong, that's where we'll be - but within ten years. Season on season I want to see an improvement in our football. Roy Keane was too much about results and not about playing well to get the results. Today was encouraging because it proved that we have players as good as if not better than any others in the division, including West Ham. If they play their hearts out like they did today we can beat anyone. My expectations though are that we will finish just outside the play offs this time around. We are building a good team though and next season I think we'll win the Championship.
1. What WERE your hopes at the start of the season? Top 8 2. What ARE you hopes for the season now? Still top 8, but really anywhere where have a realistic chance of getting into the play-offs come the run in 3. What will you consider and acceptable position come the end of the season? top 10 4. Would a cup run be beneficial to you? Always, Against high profile teams if we win it'll be a massive confidence boost, Lower league teams would, presumably, give the squad a chance to challenge and impress
1. What WERE your hopes at the start of the season? Progress only - decent football and a top 10 finish. 2. What ARE you hopes for the season now? dampened. A win against a poor Coventry side does not turn our season around - Hopefully it will be a start but top half and decent football are my new hopes 3. What will you consider and acceptable position come the end of the season? Top half, a bit of entertainment and some signs that we can actually compete next season 4. Would a cup run be beneficial to you? League is the most important aspect. If we can get a bit of confidence and some cash from a glamour tie then all well and good but not really bothered either way
After reading some of your thoughts on your team's performances of late, I thought it might be interesting to ressurect this thread. Comments please fellers, and have you changed your minds at all from what you first thought?
1) start of the season I wanted to see signs of progress and some decent football 2) now I want us to fight for a win. It seems we cant do tight losses. Once we concede one we look likely to concede 20! 3) I would ideally like to see us finish top 10 but I would settle on mid table nothingness but without any eye brow raising defeats (3-0 or more against average teams) given our current situation 4) dont care too much about the cup. We have financial backing so we dont need a cup run, although I imagine ME would like to make us more financially viable. Would prefere to see the youngsters play in the cup and see if any of them deserve a few first team minutes
top half top half top half no While not as positive as some others all I really want this year is to not be looking over our shoulders at relegation. Had too many seasons of wanting too much and decided to set my sights lower. Any higher than 12th will make me happy and feel that we are at least moving in the right direction.
To be fair I think the season is pretty much going the way I thought it would. Although I am surprised by some of the heavy defeats and I was also a little surprised about our 6 game unbeaten run and how well we played during that, I was concerned that in a way we were progressing to quickly. Saying that though some of the results throughout the division have been very surprising, like Blackpool etc. I'd be happy with just seeing progress over the season and am predicting a good run towards the end, unless the playoffs are too far out of reach although that will only be if we go on a really bad run. I think its definitely going to be a topsy turvey season as it has been so far. I would be dissapointed, especially with the personnel Jewell has recruited if we finish below 10th.
Seeing all the doom and gloom on this board, I thought it would be interesting to see what your views are now, before the game, when feelings might be running a little high, depending on the result. Good luck for tomorrow's game chaps......
Well prior to the season with the squad we assembled I could see no reason for us not to get play offs. As bad as we have been, fortunately other sides have been terribly bad and some how ( don't ask how ) we're only 7 points off the play offs. My immediate hope is 6 points this week, end of.