Your own expectations.

Interesting question for the mags fans given their worries about the squad and injuries which will no doubt happen through the season.

Do you spend money on 2-3 players in January to go into your first team or do you look to try and get a couple of loans to beef up the bench for when injuries happen and therefore not breaking up the continuity for now in the team?

 

No brainer for me spend money on 2-3 players, as loan signings don't always have the heart for the team they are representing, when you bear in mind Rossi was useless for us and is now one of the best strikers in La Liga. Plus if they are good signings its less players to worry about in the summer.

 

Trouble is we could sign players for the first XI, but arguably it'd only be a LB that could get in the team. Santon can't get a game at the moment, and I wouldn't drop any player right now. So if we signed players they'd be on the bench. I'd get a couple of decent loans to cover during the ACoN, and buy a new LB. That'd see us good until summer then we could reevaluate.

 

Surely that meant at the start of the season there was pressure on us not to get relegated! Two years ago Colo and Jonas weren't part of a team, it was a bunch of players and most of them weren't interested in fighting for the cause. I think I can forgive two new signings for not rallying the whole team around and keeping us up. They didn't bottle the Championship which everyone expected to be an enormous banana skin for us (conveniently minds were changed once we'd easily won the league however!) so I don't think we've got a load of serial bottlers on our hands. Are you suggesting that when the players walked out onto the pitch against Arsenal there was no pressure on them to get a result simply because nobody was expecting them to? Or playing away to Sunderland when the player that scored four of the six goals against them last season was now playing for West Ham?

We're talking about top flight professional football here. There is constant pressure on every club, player and manager in the league in some form or other from all angles. I think it only eases once you have secured a position or if you're team is so desperately terrible that there is no hope of survival, which applies to absolutely nobody yet.

 

Yes but in the long run we will need a bigger squad.

 

[video=youtube;u8Eb73MRkRU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8Eb73MRkRU[/video]

 

.

 

Yes top 6, highest finish since 2004 and back in Europe I expect this season to be a good one.

 

There is no doubt the expectation next season will be greater than before this season. That is normal. Then we didn't know how good these players were, now we do. I think any additional pressure will be far outweighed by the feel good factor. And to be honest that pressure only becomes too much when you can't back it up. There is no reason to suspect that we won't back it up next season. The only thing that would seem likely to derail that would be mass sales. That being the case, expectation would go down again. We can't really lose as far as I can see.

I think most would expect us in and around the top 6 again next year. That is realistic based on the current squad we have and ethos of building the club.

 

At the start of the season with the lose of Barton and Nolan I thought we would struggle and thought we would be down about 13th.
We have had a marvellous season and credit has to go to Pardew and the player's, also grudgingly MA who will probably balls thing's up some way along the way.
Next season expectations will be greater but already I am looking forward to it.

 

Why has this re-appeared?

 

didn't even note it as an old thread to be honest

 

"I see us finishing 7th/8th and I'd be very happy with that, finishing 6th (or higher) would be an incredible achievement.

I can see MON steadying the ship a little, Sunderland finishing lower mid table (11th-14th)."

I was right about Sunderland at least.

 

Yet I'm negative?

 

Now, given that I have never gone in for the usual "Xyzzy are the neighbours therefore, I want them to do badly" I have always wished Sunderland to do well. I would rather see football stronger in the North than in the South so I would be happy to see a strong Sunderland.

And I would like to hope that MoN does the trick. He's a big name manager and I am pleased to see him in the North rather than in the Midlands or down in London and the more big names and the more focus that this end of the country has in footballing terms the better the long terms prospects will be for all of us.

 

Because we've done better than anyone on here predicted perhaps?

 

cbra- the point of the article is still relevant then.

 

To us lot it is.

 

Hope you aren't mixing up the point of the thread with the context within which it was set.