But that's the thing... thinking that we would do anything better than mid-table this season was certainly unrealistic, in my eyes. With all the upheaval at the club, with the past seasons of unrest and mediocrity and inconsistency, with all the changes that have happened and all the ones that need to happen still, a top-6 finish this season would have been downright miraculous. A top-8 finish would be a serious uphill struggle. Even top-10 will need determined effort. But I'd say, based on what Allardyce has said and done so far, that we should not be focusing on our position in the league as an indicator of success for this season. We should be looking for significant improvement in our defensive performances over the course of the season, and that's really pretty much it.
Allardyce obviously made the decision to focus primarily on strengthening our defence this summer, since it's generally been our weakest area. He brought in Viduka, Barton, and Smith to kind of pad out the front/attacking mid areas but didn't really work on strengthening our attack, because generally it's in much better shape than our defense was. Except for those 3, every signing we made was either a defender or a defensive mid. Some may argue that he should have been looking for more options up front instead of focusing almost exclusively on shoring up the back, but I don't necessarily see it as a mistake. I see it as a long-term strategy. A somewhat risky one, but a strategy nonetheless.
I'd expect Allardyce's plan for this season was to focus on defensive improvements, trying to stop us from leaking goals and organizing our back line and in dong so, trusting our existing midfielders/strikers to get enough goals to give us a semi-decent league finish, a stance which I think is backed up by his deliberate efforts to play down any speculation of a top-6 finish this season and by quotes about needing several years to really implement his plans for Newcastle. I'd say he's not going to be looking at a high league position this season as an important goal, merely shooting to finish slightly better than last season. What he's really looking for is a tighter defense that works as a team and concedes fewer goals. I really think he'd be happy with even a 12th or 13th place finish as long as our defense looks competent and composed by season's end. If we do finish top-10 or even top-8, so much the better. But if we don't, it's not a huge problem as long as we show definite signs of improvement where we need to.
Fix the defense this season, worry about the midfield and attack next season. Don't try and rig a half-ass solution to all our problems all at once. Focus on them one at a time, fix them completely, and then move to the next. Incremental steps forward. I'm just not sure most fans are patient enough for it. It's an unpopular viewpoint, I'm sure, to think that we shouldn't be focusing on pushing up the table, but I think that putting too much emphasis on results undermines efforts to really address the underlying problems with the team. Don't make it about must-win games, make it about improved performances in target areas. If we do that, then the results will come in due time. Assuming we're patient enough to let Allardyce see things through, that is...
Totally agree.
Cheers mate!
