From now to next May your expectations

[Phil from the upper holte]

Avoid relegation

Only kiddin. I was kind of lookin forward to the season and I had come around to the idea of keane and maybe Piennar or someone to play in midfield and I was hoping Milner would stay.

The Mon fucked off and I was kind of pleased but also worried about the situation were in now, Ie who we going to come in and manage. The candidates were poor & If we do get Houllier I think he is the best of a bad bunch.

However we needed to strengthen before start of season and we didn't. It's obvious even to a blind man we needed a striker. We now can't till Jan at earliest. Maybe we can get a loan deal but I fear its going to take time to ajust to a new man/methods. I hope we can get top 8 and a cup run but its gonna be tough.

I just hope the whole season isn't going to be a complete right off as I kind of fear now.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

It doesn't matter how often you say it, it still won't be true. £60m net spend on the playing squad going into our 5th season under Randy Lerner is not a huge spend, it is a below average spend for a top 8 team.

I thought we’d spent approximately £120 million gross and £80 million net and are the third highest spenders overall in the past three or four seasons, with a bigger wage bill than both Everton and Spurs?

He's using the Milner money to make us look like paupers, which is not the case.

...

I was using the actual amount of money we have spent in a conversation about the amount of money we have spent. That seems logical to me.

Logical would be acknowledging the fact we never had the chance to spend this summer, thus your line "£60m net spend on the playing squad going into our 5th season under Randy Lerner is not a huge spend, it is a below average spend for a top 8 team" being absolute bollocks, as well you know or are you going to suggest that the £20m Milner money would never have been available?

[Dante Lavelli]

I am expecting the unexpected. 

By that I mean that the predictability of MON has now gone so we have the randomness of Houllier to look forward to.  Different formations.  New favourites and outcasts within the squad.  Transfer speculation with foreign exotic sounding players.  Basically new stuff to talk about on H&V.

On the pitch I reckon an 8-10th place finish.

[west sussex villan]

It's taken so long to employee a new manager, that I would expect us to do very well, as surely the reason it has taken so long to bring in a new manager is that such a good manager was hard to find.

[Ian.]

I think Dante has got it right, expect the unexpected! After the West Ham game, the buzz, good feeling, the confidence erm the 6-0 thrashing.
Well, were sat in fourth, our new manager has his work cut out. We have a very good squad, so he has a head start from when MON took over.

Yep I'm going to expect the unexpected.

[WALTERS WARRIORS]

If Houllier can bring in some unknown French or whereever amazing striker on loan and a similiar tough holding mid fielder think we could hold onto another 6th spot ........

[eamonn]

6th would be an over-achievement (like it was last year).

Was it? Par for the course I'd say.

[VillaVillaVilla]

Some times out of the darkest day comes the light. I'm ignorantly optimistic  I see us hovering in the 5-7 spot much of the season then managing to back into the 4th spot down the stretch! I predict that ultimately there will be turmoil in the Man City camp and a league slide for Spurs. The door will be open for Villa, the team who's coach fucked off right before the season, the team who were blown out by newly promoted Newcastle early in the season, the team who hired the 63 year old "best man" of the least inspiring list of candidates to manage the club. I predict Hollywood ending.  Then I wake up and realize we are 8th. But damn that dream was sweet.

[pauliewalnuts]

I'd take 8th-10th rather than 6th-8th if we could actually play a bit of football this season.

I don't really know what Houllier's "style" is likely to be, but I find it hard to believe it won't be better than the soporific experience which was watching MON's Plan A at home the last two years.

[pauliewalnuts]

It doesn't matter how often you say it, it still won't be true. £60m net spend on the playing squad going into our 5th season under Randy Lerner is not a huge spend, it is a below average spend for a top 8 team. Just as our wage bill is not high for top 8 team, it is below average. The area of finance where we have a serious deficiency compared to the other top 8 teams is in revenue and/or investment.

Do you really believe that ?

I see where the General is coming from when he says some fans don't listen to anything or believe anything he says.

I also wonder if I was the only one who ever criticised what Mon did

Do I still believe what? The amounts of money we spend and how that relates to the other clubs in the top 8 isn't an article faith, it is factual, objective information available to all.

Spending £120m over four years is a huge amount of money but isn't a huge amount relative to spurs who have spent more than that in only 2 years. Belief doesn't come into it.

I know you stubbornly refuse to understand the importance of the word "net", but you can not ignore it.

Spurs "net" spending in the last five seasons is 90m.

If you're going to use figures like them spending 87m in 08/09 then you also need to acknowledge the fact that they raised 67m in sales that year, too.

[*shellac*]

6th-8th.

As for Cups, one thing for sure is we won't get knocked out in the 3rd round.

[Chris Smith]

It doesn't matter how often you say it, it still won't be true. £60m net spend on the playing squad going into our 5th season under Randy Lerner is not a huge spend, it is a below average spend for a top 8 team. Just as our wage bill is not high for top 8 team, it is below average. The area of finance where we have a serious deficiency compared to the other top 8 teams is in revenue and/or investment.

Do you really believe that ?

I see where the General is coming from when he says some fans don't listen to anything or believe anything he says.

I also wonder if I was the only one who ever criticised what Mon did

Do I still believe what? The amounts of money we spend and how that relates to the other clubs in the top 8 isn't an article faith, it is factual, objective information available to all.

Spending £120m over four years is a huge amount of money but isn't a huge amount relative to spurs who have spent more than that in only 2 years. Belief doesn't come into it.

I know you stubbornly refuse to understand the importance of the word "net", but you can not ignore it.

Spurs "net" spending in the last five seasons is 90m.

If you're going to use figures like them spending 87m in 08/09 then you also need to acknowledge the fact that they raised 67m in sales that year, too.

Imposing timescales on the spending is an artificial limitation. It's the amount spent on the squad available for the manager to choose from that is the only really valid measure.

[Villa'Zawg]

It doesn't matter how often you say it, it still won't be true. £60m net spend on the playing squad going into our 5th season under Randy Lerner is not a huge spend, it is a below average spend for a top 8 team. Just as our wage bill is not high for top 8 team, it is below average. The area of finance where we have a serious deficiency compared to the other top 8 teams is in revenue and/or investment.

Do you really believe that ?

I see where the General is coming from when he says some fans don't listen to anything or believe anything he says.

I also wonder if I was the only one who ever criticised what Mon did

Do I still believe what? The amounts of money we spend and how that relates to the other clubs in the top 8 isn't an article faith, it is factual, objective information available to all.

Spending £120m over four years is a huge amount of money but isn't a huge amount relative to spurs who have spent more than that in only 2 years. Belief doesn't come into it.

I know you stubbornly refuse to understand the importance of the word "net", but you can not ignore it.

Spurs "net" spending in the last five seasons is 90m.

If you're going to use figures like them spending 87m in 08/09 then you also need to acknowledge the fact that they raised 67m in sales that year, too.

I understand net spend perfectly well thanks. I simply chose to post a gross spend example in this instance. I could have used a net spend comparison just as well and the conclusion in relation to Malcolm's "huge spend" is just the same

You've chosen to highlight the net spend figure, which is fine. The fact that Spurs whose squad were in 5th on 65 points five years ago, have spent £90m net (I'll assume your figure is correct) and Villa whose squad were 16th on 42 points five years ago, have spent £60m net, is another good example to demonstrate that it isn't appropriate to categorise Villa's spending as huge. Not when Spurs are spending 50% more.

[Ads]

But aren’t you comparing our net spend with Spurs’ gross spend? If you’re using the same figures as Paulie is, then surely its £60 million to £20 million plus whatever they spent last season?

[pauliewalnuts]

It doesn't matter how often you say it, it still won't be true. £60m net spend on the playing squad going into our 5th season under Randy Lerner is not a huge spend, it is a below average spend for a top 8 team. Just as our wage bill is not high for top 8 team, it is below average. The area of finance where we have a serious deficiency compared to the other top 8 teams is in revenue and/or investment.

Do you really believe that ?

I see where the General is coming from when he says some fans don't listen to anything or believe anything he says.

I also wonder if I was the only one who ever criticised what Mon did

Do I still believe what? The amounts of money we spend and how that relates to the other clubs in the top 8 isn't an article faith, it is factual, objective information available to all.

Spending £120m over four years is a huge amount of money but isn't a huge amount relative to spurs who have spent more than that in only 2 years. Belief doesn't come into it.

I know you stubbornly refuse to understand the importance of the word "net", but you can not ignore it.

Spurs "net" spending in the last five seasons is 90m.

If you're going to use figures like them spending 87m in 08/09 then you also need to acknowledge the fact that they raised 67m in sales that year, too.

I understand net spend perfectly well thanks. I simply chose to post a gross spend example in this instance. I could have used a net spend comparison just as well and the conclusion in relation to Malcolm's "huge spend" is just the same

You've chosen to highlight the net spend figure, which is fine. The fact that Spurs whose squad were in 5th on 65 points five years ago, have spent £90m net (I'll assume your figure is correct) and Villa whose squad were 16th on 42 points five years ago, have spent £60m net, is another good example to demonstrate that it isn't appropriate to categorise Villa's spending as huge. Not when Spurs are spending 50% more.

You chose to ignore the net because it sounds far more dramatic that way.

You mention Spurs spent 50 percent more net, but this ignores the harsh reality that, this summer, we didn't have a manager in place to do the spending - he'd left at the point at which he would usually start to spend.

As for Spurs squad being 5th five years ago, how about that same squad being 11th 3 years ago?  Or 8th two years ago (below both us and Fulham)?

And why just Spurs, how does our spending stack up against Everton's?

There will always be someone spending more money than us, that's a fact, but to pretend we haven't spent a lot of money in a period when we've found ourselves amongst the highest spenders in Europe seems a bit, well, wrong.