The Next Step?

[chicken_badge]

Fabulous post MK

For me, the last 7 years have been a general upwards journey for the club. Since we made Jol manager we have climbed from "sleeping giant", alongside Villa, Everton and Saudi Sportswashing Machine, to being established as secure top 5, CL-place challengers. The emergence of City has changed the landscape, but then again so has the decline of Liverpool (and relatively Arsenal as well).

I have felt that a European Superleague, in one form or the other, is inevitable. Not my choice Quite how it will work, I do not know, but maybe Platini's suggestion that six teams from the Premier League may qualify for the CL is anothet idea of the direction we are heading. Being established as one of the top sides in the country, over a 5, 10 year period is going to be crucial. And as we can see from Saudi Sportswashing Machine, Leeds and Liverpool, a place at the top table can be lost. So a stable club, at every level, is crucial. That means no harpooning the wage structure, it means getting that stadium built, and it means no wacky managerial appointments.

Top priority is Nothumberland Park. We need to keep the pressure on Harringey and Boris to get that stadium built. Until then, ENIC and Levy will keep the ship steady but for us to get a buyer, or even just that extra money, we have to be able to seat 50,000 fans.

Business otherwise seems to be sound. Decent kit/sponsor deals, involvement in the Far East and the US. Maybe the Middle East is the other untapped region for us.

On the playing staff front a improvement is needed. Quality forward in for Adebayor if he goes. A good young talent like Rhodes, or if not one of the pickings from the relegated sides for Saha (I'm thinking Yakubu). Gomes out, new young keeper in, and CB needs an awful lot of work. We can't carry Gallas, King, Nelsen for a season, especially with their senior salaries. Caulker surely has to be retained within the squad, and we also need to look big in Europe.

But other than that, we're in great shape there. Lots of young players coming through, and with the training ground well on the way and a successful youth set up we are in a good place.

Manager is a question, the problem is when you change the timing has to be just right. If we are bottom come November, sacking Harry isn't the answer if there is no quality replacement out there. In a similar manner, if Mourinho loses the Madrid job at Christmas Levy has already learnt you can get your hands burnt big time by tapping up other bosses. Harry isn't going anywhere, but that's not such a bad thing. He has proven that he get us playing and performing like a top 4 side.
I just hope Levy has a secure plan for replacing Harry.... Not important if the fans know what it is, but I just hope that bald genius is ready.

So it is a case of "as you were" not to say we are overachieving right now, but it's about stability. I think realistic targets for 2013 would be:

* Building on Stadium begins
* Bale, Modric, Lennon, Walker, Sandro, Kaboul happy at club and still playing well
* Quality keeper and striker brought in
* Top 4 finish
* CL quarter finals - with no hammerings!
* FA Cup or League Cup

If we were sitting here in a years time with all that I'd say we have made massive progress, yet it's all achievable.

 

[milo]

For me, the last 7 years have been a general upwards journey for the club. Since we made Jol manager we have climbed from "sleeping giant", alongside Villa, Everton and Saudi Sportswashing Machine, to being established as secure top 5, CL-place challengers. The emergence of City has changed the landscape, but then again so has the decline of Liverpool (and relatively Arsenal as well).

I agree, I consider the 2004-05 season to be the beginning of us turning things around. Pleat's caretaker half a season was painful but we needed to go through it. Arnesen's clear out and new signings in the summer of 2004 was exactly what we needed and the beginning of our modern success. There have been down points along the way but over all this has been a good eight years and we are in a stronger place now than at any other time during that period. The downside of that is that I do not think that we can go a lot further without a new stadium and continuing to challenge whilst paying for that is going to be very difficult.

 

[mudshark]

The perennial problem has been cycles of boom-bust, whether in terms of transfer coups only to be followed by loss of key players without replacements, so that we're forever juggling the pieces of an incomplete jigsaw, or whether early-season promise followed by late-season collapse.

The next step? The new stadium is clearly a priority in this respect, because it should enable us to compete in terms of wages and stop taking one step forward and two steps backward. We were challenging at the very top of the league a few short weeks ago, and now, all of a sudden, we're 20 points behind. If we had a system that we didn't have to keep reinventing every time we lost a key player to injury or suspension, and we had sufficient like-for-like cover to carry us through the rough patches without feeling it was inevitable we were going to drift through certain games dropping points to relegation fodder, we'd probably still be right up there. The next step, for me is the STADIUM , along with a SYSTEM, and a SQUAD of players who may or may not be superstars, but are at least good enough to play it, and are trusted to be so.

Failing that, we need Rorschach to pay a little visit to certain officials who, I calculate, have cost us at least 7 of your English points this season.