Realistic Expectations

[Rudy65]

Worth digging this up again because I think one or two us are getting a little carried away with where we should be. Created by the start we had, some of the results and individual performances. But at the start of the season, if someone had a crystal ball and told us that having finished 4th bottom on the last day of the previous campaign, after 23 games we'd be sitting above Tottenham, Arsenal and Wolves, 4 points back of Everton and the champions Liverpool, the latter with 2 games in hand, not one of us would have believed it.

Irrespective of the past few games where we have been a bit up and down and squeezed in something like 7 games in 25 days we have had a superb season with 15 still to go where in all likelihood we will finish just around where we are now. Finishing in the top 10 would have beyond most of us interms of our realistic expectaions at the start of this season.

All fair points, but it's just so dispiriting seeing us enter into another period where the football is dire after such a good start to the season. From feeling we can beat anybody on our day to wondering where the next win is coming from.

Totally agree with this. I don’t mind losing some games, and Leicester are decent, but the performance overall was poor and has been since NYD. Something isn’t right. Maybe it’s just confidence or we are just plain knackered. Smith has options but he doesn’t use them. If we finish below 10th I will be really disappointed

[ROBBO]

We are safe so the big worry we usually have isn't a problem, it was unrealistic to expect top six, while we are a much better unit there are weaknesses in midfield and attack that needs sorting. The owners will have had a taste of whats possible so expect they will spend big this summer.

[danno]

We’ve added some real quality in both boxes. But it’s a squad game and we don’t have much strength in depth. I’d like to think next season our bench will be much stronger, and we’ll push on. We have done a lot in two years already, from the playoff final only Mings McGinn and Grealish are still starting regularly.

I’d be fairly happy with a top ten finish this season.

[ez]

It's going to be a season where our fate isn't hanging in the balance on the last day. We've not had many of those in recent years. Mid table was expected and that's what we're going to get. It's next season when the bar is raised that it gets exciting. I can't wait.

[Toronto Villa]

A number of the sides above us, and some below have had several years of investing consistently in very good players. That’s often what it boils down to. We have one of the top players in the league in Jack, but then after that our record buy is a kid who last season was playing in the Championship. The rest of the squad is made up of players who are maturing, developing and punching way above their weight. We have good quality, not great. Some will become great, in other cases we will need to buy those players to replace those who are not good enough.

Leicester once they won the league invested and reinvested really well with CL money and funds they received by selling some of their best players. They also have a manager now who has matured himself at the top level. We don’t have that, and it might take Dean another 5 years to get there. Remember Rodgers came into the PL in 2010. He’s developed, and failed and learned and succeeded in that time.

We are probably 3 seasons away of bringing much better players in from really being consistently challenging for a top 6 spot. And in that time Jack will likely be sold also. But we are on a very decent trajectory now despite the recent bumps in the road.

[Three Spires Villa]

It's going to be a season where our fate isn't hanging in the balance on the last day. We've not had many of those in recent years. Mid table was expected and that's what we're going to get. It's next season when the bar is raised that it gets exciting. I can't wait.

Yep

[SoccerHQ]

Worth digging this up again because I think one or two us are getting a little carried away with where we should be. Created by the start we had, some of the results and individual performances. But at the start of the season, if someone had a crystal ball and told us that having finished 4th bottom on the last day of the previous campaign, after 23 games we'd be sitting above Tottenham, Arsenal and Wolves, 4 points back of Everton and the champions Liverpool, the latter with 2 games in hand, not one of us would have believed it.

Irrespective of the past few games where we have been a bit up and down and squeezed in something like 7 games in 25 days we have had a superb season with 15 still to go where in all likelihood we will finish just around where we are now. Finishing in the top 10 would have beyond most of us interms of our realistic expectaions at the start of this season.

All fair points, but it's just so dispiriting seeing us enter into another period where the football is dire after such a good start to the season. From feeling we can beat anybody on our day to wondering where the next win is coming from.

Bit melodramatic, we've won 3 of the last 7 which is roughly in line with what Everton have done and better than Spurs and Liverpool.

It's a season like no other where consistant form is very very tough for anyone other than Man. City.

Performances gone flat but think it's a combination of the manager getting a bit lazy/complacent again with his selections and also not having enough v likes of Leicester and West Ham which indicates we haven't got enough about us to finish in top 6 which is understandable.

I'd have been more than happy to finish 12th this season but I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting a little bit more considering how we've played for most of this season. Our defence is still one of the six best in the division which is incredible considering how bad it was last season and we're doing o.k in attack aswell despite having only one proper striker in the squad.

Would be hugely disappointing to finish outside top 10 now. Very preventable aswell as we'll create a decent buffer again to those below if we don't lose to Wolves and Leeds and beat Newcastle and Sheffield United. Even without Grealish we do have some decent other players in the team now and they should be capable of that points haul. DS needs to properly set up midfield though rather than just playing the usual ones though.

[garyellis]

Like everyone on here I do not want this season to just fizzle out but at the beginning of the season I would have taken in a heartbeat our current position. Some of the stuff we have played this season has been exceptional, now we need to work on the consistency. Regarding next steps I was thinking yesterday, watching the kit stealers how much would Bowen and Benrahma give us extra than say Trez and El Ghazi?
Those type of signings are very much now within our range.
If you lose your best player its got to have an impact so how we adapt without Jack for a while will be interesting. My Arsenal mate reckons without him we are relegation level. I don't agree given our other recruitment but we may well find out how much as a team/squad we have progressed in the next few games.

[Risso]

Bit melodramatic, we've won 3 of the last 7 which is roughly in line with what Everton have done and better than Spurs and Liverpool.

Or to put in another way, 3 of the last 10, which doesn't sound quite so rosy, is just slightly better than relegation form, and is 16th in the form table.

[WarszaVillan]

Our form is not good at the moment. But that's why we're eighth and not top four - teams in that position inevitably have a bad run at sometime. But Smith has to shake things up and try something different to get us winning again, otherwise we'll be slipping down the table before long.

[dave.woodhall]

Bit melodramatic, we've won 3 of the last 7 which is roughly in line with what Everton have done and better than Spurs and Liverpool.

Or to put in another way, 3 of the last 10, which doesn't sound quite so rosy, is just slightly better than relegation form, and is 16th in the form table.

Or five of the last twelve, which is much better.

[Toronto Villa]

Bit melodramatic, we've won 3 of the last 7 which is roughly in line with what Everton have done and better than Spurs and Liverpool.

Or to put in another way, 3 of the last 10, which doesn't sound quite so rosy, is just slightly better than relegation form, and is 16th in the form table.

10 games since December 28th. We were shut down in that period of time for 2 weeks due to Covid so our schedule was even more compressed. 4 of those games against the current top 4, another against Chelsea. We played well in that span of time and more recently look knackered which is hardly surprising.

[Des Little]

It's going to be a season where our fate isn't hanging in the balance on the last day. We've not had many of those in recent years. Mid table was expected and that's what we're going to get. It's next season when the bar is raised that it gets exciting. I can't wait.

Exactly this. I can see a massive Summer in store at B6.

[Toronto Villa]

It's going to be a season where our fate isn't hanging in the balance on the last day. We've not had many of those in recent years. Mid table was expected and that's what we're going to get. It's next season when the bar is raised that it gets exciting. I can't wait.

Exactly this. I can see a massive Summer in store at B6.

Agreed and connected to what i was saying above. We need a number of windows where we bring in better players. We will need to break our transfer record several times to progress. West Ham spent more than we paid for Watkins on a squad player in Benrahma.

[SoccerHQ]

Bit melodramatic, we've won 3 of the last 7 which is roughly in line with what Everton have done and better than Spurs and Liverpool.

Or to put in another way, 3 of the last 10, which doesn't sound quite so rosy, is just slightly better than relegation form, and is 16th in the form table.

Fair enough but we did have a very tough period of fixtures, Chelsea, Man. City and Man. United all in a row. We won the winnable games more or less over xmas which will probably be the peak of our season.

In previous times when we've finished even 6th we'd had runs like that where we've had poor ends to the season like under O'Neill.

We are only five wins off what we got in 07/08 season.

Read elsewhere that the points we have now would've had us 5th after 23 games last season but the odd nature which is giving teams so many more away wins than on average is inflating so many points totals.