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Expectations for 25/26

what are you expectations for 25/26 season


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With Ange, I think I would have insisted on minimum 5th place in the league. Season 3 with significant investment and loads of time to embed a system across his entire squad meant that expectation should have been high in his case. What I'm looking for with Frank is slightly different. It's probably 2 things:

First of all is to have an accelerated process to embed his tactical system. That includes unscrambling all the players heads on stupid tactics like Ange's deep offside trap. That won't happen overnight with this set of players but I hope Frank can keep it simple for them. I hope his principles are delivered in a way that the players can get their heads around them quickly and we see results.

Secondly, I hope that Frank builds his system in a way that any 2 players switching places doesn't disrupt things in the way we saw with Ange. I hope to see some seamless rotations making everything so much stronger. If Frank can do that, and then give them the platform to even switch up tactics in games, then we will see a very different Spurs.

So I'll probably look for these areas before I set expectations. My instincts are saying we will finish 5th and get through to the knockout stages of the CL though. The domestic cups are a lottery so can't really call them.
 
The 2 best teams in the europa finished 15th and 17th in the prem.

I’m willing to bet you money in the high two figures that neither of those teams will be finishing 15th and 17th next year or anywhere close.

I’d say the same thing to United fans. If they’re talking about getting back to top 8 I’d say they need to raise their expectations. They’ll make moves for Amorim, he’ll have a pre season bedding his system and they won’t have to balance European commitments.

Our squad is better than theirs. But regardless taking this season’s league finishes when both teams had a lot of obvious context around them and assuming those teams would be anywhere near as bad next season is just highly fanciful.
 
I’m willing to bet you money in the high two figures that neither of those teams will be finishing 15th and 17th next year or anywhere close.

I’d say the same thing to United fans. If they’re talking about getting back to top 8 I’d say they need to raise their expectations. They’ll make moves for Amorim, he’ll have a pre season bedding his system and they won’t have to balance European commitments.

Our squad is better than theirs. But regardless taking this season’s league finishes when both teams had a lot of obvious context around them and assuming those teams would be anywhere near as bad next season is just highly fanciful.

You think the other teams in the europa didn't have to play in their league aswell? They'd have more motivation to win it than utd or spurs.
At the end of the day, the 2 best teams in the europa were only the 15th and 17th best teams in the prem.
 
You think the other teams in the europa didn't have to play in their league aswell? They'd have more motivation to win it than utd or spurs.
At the end of the day, the 2 best teams in the europa were only the 15th and 17th best teams in the prem.

I’m just saying I don’t think either Spurs or United will be anywhere close to those positions next season and I don’t think those positions were true reflections of the quality of their squads last season, or the potential they have going forward. You’re welcome to disagree.
 
I’m just saying I don’t think either Spurs or United will be anywhere close to those positions next season and I don’t think those positions were true reflections of the quality of their squads last season, or the potential they have going forward. You’re welcome to disagree.

The league doesn't lie. Their positions reflect how good they were that season.
Next season may (hopefully) be different.
 
You think the other teams in the europa didn't have to play in their league aswell? They'd have more motivation to win it than utd or spurs.
At the end of the day, the 2 best teams in the europa were only the 15th and 17th best teams in the prem.

FWIW I think the Frankfurt away tie showed how motivated we were but also how much Frankfurt wanted it too. You could tell that was probably as important as the final in a lot of player’s minds. When Solanke scored the penalty the whole bench stood up and roared, and the Frankfurt players were highly competitive in their challenges too.

We were extremely motivated to win it, we got through some really hard matches to get there against good teams.
 
I’m just saying I don’t think either Spurs or United will be anywhere close to those positions next season and I don’t think those positions were true reflections of the quality of their squads last season, or the potential they have going forward. You’re welcome to disagree.

United really depends, they are talking a big talk about bringing players in, so far they have Cunha, they probably need 5 or 6, which I suspect is heavily dependent on getting some/most of Rashford, Sancho, Garnacho, etc out the door. There is a very real scenario that United fail to get enough in/out, Amorim fails to adapt to PL and is gone by Christmas and they finish 14th-17th. Not sure if it's likely but certainly not impossible.

For Spurs, 20 years of data says, top 6, for 20 years outside of end of manager seasons (3 times?), the squad and resources provided by club is good enough for that, and new managers who get a pre-season are almost 100% on that (too lazy to double check). I expect Frank will be given a marque signing plus a couple others, it will be good enough. How far above 6 will probably be more dependent on other clubs (do Villa, Saudi Sportswashing Machine, Chelsea sustain/push on)
 
United really depends, they are talking a big talk about bringing players in, so far they have Cunha, they probably need 5 or 6, which I suspect is heavily dependent on getting some/most of Rashford, Sancho, Garnacho, etc out the door. There is a very real scenario that United fail to get enough in/out, Amorim fails to adapt to PL and is gone by Christmas and they finish 14th-17th. Not sure if it's likely but certainly not impossible.

For Spurs, 20 years of data says, top 6, for 20 years outside of end of manager seasons (3 times?), the squad and resources provided by club is good enough for that, and new managers who get a pre-season are almost 100% on that (too lazy to double check). I expect Frank will be given a marque signing plus a couple others, it will be good enough. How far above 6 will probably be more dependent on other clubs (do Villa, Saudi Sportswashing Machine, Chelsea sustain/push on)

Saudi Sportswashing Machine, villa and forest are upsetting that model by spending. Psr isn't worth a toss when you can sell your womens team for £200m.
We'll see.
 
United really depends, they are talking a big talk about bringing players in, so far they have Cunha, they probably need 5 or 6, which I suspect is heavily dependent on getting some/most of Rashford, Sancho, Garnacho, etc out the door. There is a very real scenario that United fail to get enough in/out, Amorim fails to adapt to PL and is gone by Christmas and they finish 14th-17th. Not sure if it's likely but certainly not impossible.

For Spurs, 20 years of data says, top 6, for 20 years outside of end of manager seasons (3 times?), the squad and resources provided by club is good enough for that, and new managers who get a pre-season are almost 100% on that (too lazy to double check). I expect Frank will be given a marque signing plus a couple others, it will be good enough. How far above 6 will probably be more dependent on other clubs (do Villa, Saudi Sportswashing Machine, Chelsea sustain/push on)

Interesting and fair points.

You mention an expectation of Frank getting a "Marquee" signing; can you give examples of who you would class as that if we signed them?
Also, going back to recent summer windows (and no further back than, say, 2019 after the stadium opened) which players would you class as "Marquee" signings at the time?
 
United really depends, they are talking a big talk about bringing players in, so far they have Cunha, they probably need 5 or 6, which I suspect is heavily dependent on getting some/most of Rashford, Sancho, Garnacho, etc out the door. There is a very real scenario that United fail to get enough in/out, Amorim fails to adapt to PL and is gone by Christmas and they finish 14th-17th. Not sure if it's likely but certainly not impossible.

For Spurs, 20 years of data says, top 6, for 20 years outside of end of manager seasons (3 times?), the squad and resources provided by club is good enough for that, and new managers who get a pre-season are almost 100% on that (too lazy to double check). I expect Frank will be given a marque signing plus a couple others, it will be good enough. How far above 6 will probably be more dependent on other clubs (do Villa, Saudi Sportswashing Machine, Chelsea sustain/push on)

Yeah don’t really disagree with any of that. I guess I’m more bullish on Amorim but who knows what happens there.
 
Interesting and fair points.

You mention an expectation of Frank getting a "Marquee" signing; can you give examples of who you would class as that if we signed them?
Also, going back to recent summer windows (and no further back than, say, 2019 after the stadium opened) which players would you class as "Marquee" signings at the time?

In this case, what I mean is, it's not brand name, it's a 60M-70M type player vs. 2-3 40M players, established player vs. another upcoming. I expect Frank will get a player that will probably break our transfer record again. So Solanke, Richi, Romero (yes, I know he wasn't a record) are the last big ones.

The obvious example right now is outbidding United (if that's to be believed) re Mbeumo.
 
Saudi Sportswashing Machine, villa and forest are upsetting that model by spending. Psr isn't worth a toss when you can sell your womens team for £200m.
We'll see.
Villa is going to be very tight without CL. They'll have to sell someone, if not sometwo. Forest are OK, but not at the level where they can spend like they did. And the barcodes were rescued by the fact they qualified for CL, but that still doesn't mean they have tons of spending room. They'll probably go through another season like 2023/24 where their league form dipped trying to juggle both league and CL. These are all teams that are teetering on the edge and need CL qualification to move forward. Else it's one step forward two steps back.

And also don't forget that, they may be able to meet PSR, but meeting UEFA's FFP is an entirely different proposition. If that affects their European participation, they'll have a hard time making any significant progress, unless they can massively increase their matchday and commercial revenue like we did. And I just don't see them being able to do that to the extent needed so that not qualifying for Europe will be irrelevant. They're going to be on again off again for some time and won't be able to use the same accounting tricks Chelsea did, as both the FA and UEFA have wisened up to them. Not to mention that these tricks can only be used once; then you have to come up with something entirely new and they'll run out of tricks eventually.
 
Villa is going to be very tight without CL. They'll have to sell someone, if not sometwo. Forest are OK, but not at the level where they can spend like they did. And the barcodes were rescued by the fact they qualified for CL, but that still doesn't mean they have tons of spending room. They'll probably go through another season like 2023/24 where their league form dipped trying to juggle both league and CL. These are all teams that are teetering on the edge and need CL qualification to move forward. Else it's one step forward two steps back.

And also don't forget that, they may be able to meet PSR, but meeting UEFA's FFP is an entirely different proposition. If that affects their European participation, they'll have a hard time making any significant progress, unless they can massively increase their matchday and commercial revenue like we did. And I just don't see them being able to do that to the extent needed so that not qualifying for Europe will be irrelevant. They're going to be on again off again for some time and won't be able to use the same accounting tricks Chelsea did, as both the FA and UEFA have wisened up to them. Not to mention that these tricks can only be used once; then you have to come up with something entirely new and they'll run out of tricks eventually.

They can both sell their womens teams for £100m+ to themselves. Or their training ground. Or future tv revenue. Or something else

They'd be idiots not to. Chelsea have shown the way.
 
They can both sell their womens teams for £100m+ to themselves. Or their training ground. Or future tv revenue. Or something else

They'd be idiots not to. Chelsea have shown the way.
Haven’t the PL just closed that “loophole”? After the horse has bolted of course.
Or maybe I’m mixing it up with some other too-late-to-matter directive.
 
Villa is going to be very tight without CL. They'll have to sell someone, if not sometwo. Forest are OK, but not at the level where they can spend like they did. And the barcodes were rescued by the fact they qualified for CL, but that still doesn't mean they have tons of spending room. They'll probably go through another season like 2023/24 where their league form dipped trying to juggle both league and CL. These are all teams that are teetering on the edge and need CL qualification to move forward. Else it's one step forward two steps back.

And also don't forget that, they may be able to meet PSR, but meeting UEFA's FFP is an entirely different proposition. If that affects their European participation, they'll have a hard time making any significant progress, unless they can massively increase their matchday and commercial revenue like we did. And I just don't see them being able to do that to the extent needed so that not qualifying for Europe will be irrelevant. They're going to be on again off again for some time and won't be able to use the same accounting tricks Chelsea did, as both the FA and UEFA have wisened up to them. Not to mention that these tricks can only be used once; then you have to come up with something entirely new and they'll run out of tricks eventually.

I think the age profile of Villa's squad might count against them eventually especially if they lose Ramsey and Rodgers. They will have to churn quite a few in the next couple of years to refresh these players.
 
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