Zero

"a club of our size, income, fan base" means absolutely nothing if we didn't invest $ into players. Look at Liverpool, look at Spurs, look at their squad, look at their spending.

Let's be honest. The REAL position people here expects are 5TH. Probably Wullie is the only one who will admit this though.

Would you be satisfied if we got 3 more wins this season, everything else the same? That's the difference between 16th to 8th.

I understand DL says "at the least", is probably trying to dampen expectations and may secretly have higher ambitions himself, but it's just the thought of it being a case for celebration. It's also the fact we could have still finished 10th on the last day of this season if results had gone the right way. By no means would that have made it a successful season. I'm sure "top 8" was the previous benchmark as well, but could be wrong As for this season's table it was madness, so many clubs were in the Relegation 'Dog Fight' until the 2nd/3rd last week of the season. It was packed accept for the 2 top teams and the small chasing pack underneath. Premier League is average and the teams are similar (probably a discussion for another thread). I'm just trying to understand the vitriol towards everything at the moment, as it really is everything. No Statement - Rage. Statement - Rage. Could it be that they've (somewhat) sensibly reassessed targets for next season based on this one, and suggested that next season Top 10 is the least they'll accept going forward (and then they'll change when things improve)? Where do you guys honestly see us as a club? I doubt anyone would reply to this post, Chris.

Depends on whether you think we should balance our spending i.e. no extra money from Ashley.

Just fuck off bastard. Coloccini you better prepared to retire now if you threaten to leave or quit again. Under absolutely no circumstances a player is allowed to do this.

Those players should have arrived 6 months earlier. They need time to settle down and incorp to the team.

A deal? Or just "we got no money so please join us for free" again?

A new striker (Bony for me) would be enough. Instead we should bring in 2 wingers. We bloody need some natural wingers as both HBA and Gouffran are not real wingers. In addition, a new right back, a new CB, another one if Colo leaves, a new defensive midfielder if Tiote leaves. That would be ok. A new GK backup would be more than welcomed too. Elliot is just fine. So in total 5-6 new players. Krul (New Backup) Debuchy (New Backup) Colo (Mbiwa) Taylor (New Backup / Williamson) Santon (Haidara) Tiote (Perch) Cabaye (Anita) Sissoko (Vuckic) HBA (Marveaux) New Winger (New Winger) Cisse (Bony, Gouffran) Disposal: Harper, Simpson, Jonas, Amalfitano, Gosling, Shola, Obertan (if we sign 2 wingers, or else I'd rather keep him) Loan Out: Tavernier, Sammy, Shane, Bigi, Abeid, Campbell

The key isn't whether he would be sacked now --- another poor run early next season will seal his fate. The key is what players we could get in this summer. We bloody need more reinforcement.

Why ? To reinvest in several other players. Just like we bought Cabaye, Santon and Cisse with Carroll's money. Would be a massive miss, but that's the way to get stronger and stronger without breaking the bank.

To be honest, if there is a bid over 25m for Cabaye, we should sell him. Just like what we did to Carroll / Spurs did to Carrick.

Have you always known he was s**** then, or where you as impressed as the rest of us during his first season? To be fair to Ronaldo, he's never really rated him as anything more than a squad player.

There are only two jobs in England that are really feasible for Rafa --- Everton and Newcastle. Given Rafa's Liverpool background, we actually got the highest chance. Sad that those 2 cunts won't sack Pardew.

So do I. Next target please.

No problem then

It sounds strange but i do think the team we were able to field out last year has better quality on average. Tiote, Cabaye and Colo were incredible last season, Ba, Cisse and HBA just cannot stop scoring goals, and Krul were having a career year as well. Most of them were free from injuries and always available for league matches. I'm not having that at all. Cabaye and Tiote had good games and bad games. Tiote had far more bad than good, actually. But it was ignored because we were getting goals and winning games. We have the best defense when we got Colo, Tiote and Cabaye together. As an individual Tiote didn't play well, but our defense deteriorated a lot when we played Guthrie instead of Tiote last season. Defense was the key for our 5th position, that's why I included Tiote there. Not this season though. A complete disaster.

Read all the posts before replying, please. Don't tell me you agree with hobshobs that relegation was not the lowest point in recent times.

Beren, that's not a fantastic squad. I would never call a squad "fantastic" with Shola and Obertan as "covers". My point is, last season we were fucking lucky to have most of our core players available and so even if we have to play the likes of Sammy and Obertan our system/performance was not massively affected. You should agree with this. We were able to put out a better team last season due to luck. This season we have a better squad but we were unable to put out a better team on average (nevermind Pardew's idiotic prudence). Our squad is fucking thin that without Colo/Cabaye/Cisse we are done. This is not a fantastic squad, never. And the ultimate criticism lies on Ashley and Llambias, who refuse to gave Pardew long-dued resources until the last last moment. Just to clarify, Pardew deserved the sacking because he should do a lot better even with the injuries. I would not argue for this. But then I definitely would not agree that "this is the lowest point ever". To say "we avoided relegation with this squad" is a lower point than "relegation a few years ago" is fucking ridiculous.

It sounds strange but i do think the team we were able to field out last year has better quality on average. Tiote, Cabaye and Colo were incredible last season, Ba, Cisse and HBA just cannot stop scoring goals, and Krul were having a career year as well. Most of them were free from injuries and always available for league matches.

This is our squad for the relegated season: Given, Beye, Coloccini, Bassong, Enrique, Jonas, Barton, Nolan, N'Zogbia, Owen, Martins Covers: Harper. Raylor, Saylor, Cacapa, Guthrie, Duff, Smith, Geremi, Butt, Lovenkrands, Ameobi, Viduka, Carroll Ignored: Milner, Xisco, Edgar I don't think it was that shit on paper as well. However we all knew what happened.

Do you ever read things and take it in? I said "With the squad he's got to hand he is easily the worst." Pointless trying to converse with some on here. Zero by name, ZERO UP TOP obviously Easily the worst? With a squad that we were even forced to play the likes of Sammy and Shane last Christmas? Simpson as center back cover? Jonas as left back? And the all mighty Ameobi as our only cover for Cisse? With only Obertan as our real winger? With 3 french imports who are thrown to the fire without any time for settling down and adjust to the league? Are you serious? Out of interest which squad in recent times is better than the one we have? On paper it looks like this year is the strongest. In fact it isn't, due to the factors I've mentioned above. I even forget to mention we got a captain who suddenly become "homesick" and tried to engineer a move away during January, and then further missed a few months after a stylish-but-meaningless acrobatic clearance. You know what without Mbiwa we definitely would be relegated, imagine it's Williamson at the back instead of Mbiwa. Last year we were fuming that we only got Raylor as our back up side back. This year in many occasion we even hoped Raylor's there instead of Jonas. Oh yea we can have a starting eleven that looks invincible (in which I agree) but what's the cover for them? shits and/or amateurs.

Do you ever read things and take it in? I said "With the squad he's got to hand he is easily the worst." Pointless trying to converse with some on here. Zero by name, ZERO UP TOP obviously Easily the worst? With a squad that we were even forced to play the likes of Sammy and Shane last Christmas? Simpson as center back cover? Jonas as left back? And the all mighty Ameobi as our only cover for Cisse? With only Obertan as our real winger? With 3 french imports who are thrown to the fire without any time for settling down and adjust to the league? Are you serious?

I can't believe that someone think we are even worse than the relegated season.

Why not Wilfried Bony then?