You cant possibly see not winning the title as unacceptable?
I don't think anyone on here expected us to win the title. There were some people who hoped we'd compete for the title... But I suspect a high percentage of those wouldn't have expected us to win the title if we were 4 points in front with 1 game to go, the FA would dock us 5 points for something or Howard Webb would show up for that last game and red card our entire squad, abandon the game and demand Bale go to Old Trafford along with all the points his winning goals got us during the season.
The other extreme is the top 4 at the start of the season. Emirates Marketing Project were tipped by many to become champions, Man United are obviously going to compete in every title race until at least a little while after SAF retires, Chelsea had a new manager because they went 1 year without winning the title. The last team is the mysterious Arsenal team which we never finish above, no matter what. So at the start of the season, most people thought it was us against Arsenal for 4th and they were the favourites, mostly because they always find a way.
Saudi Sportswashing Machine wasn't on anyone's radar and I don't think anyone was worried about Liverpool as far as 4th goes, but Liverpool were expected to compete with us for the league Europa League place if we were way off Arsenal. Everton were expected to do their usual "you can have half a season headstart" thing, so they were also expected to compete with Europa League places, but only if the point total to finish in 5th place was going to be significantly lower than 4th.
Before the season began, I think most people would have taken this. An "easy" run in for 4th with all rivals having harder run ins. The fact that we're going into this with no form/confidence/etc isn't something we'd have anticipated, most may have expected Chelsea to be in 3rd instead of Arsenal, but anyway, it would have looked really good.
But if we had a 30 point lead over Emirates Marketing Project and Man United with 10 games to go and lost the title on goal difference, that would be an epic failure. 3rd or not, throwing away that type of lead is harder to forgive than going all the way through the season and finishing 6th or 7th.
If we had Messi for 2 seasons and he scored 90 goals in the first season and 2 in the second season, we'd be disappointed with his second season, despite him scoring 92 goals in 2 seasons.
I get the impression that you're looking at the final position of the season from the point of view of someone at the start of the season. Many people aren't doing that, many people are looking at sections of the season, trying to get the full story rather than just catching the beginning and the end. I'm not saying your way of thinking is wrong, it's a level headed positive way of thinking. But our way of thinking is that the first half of the season was a huge success and the second half of the season is likely to be a failure. Parts of a season can be a failure, and specific scenarios can be failures.
If you have a huge lead over 3 teams that aren't better than yours and finish 2 of them, that's a failure. But in that scenario you'd get a free headstart rather than having to earn it.
There is one huge thing that's changed for me since the beginning of the season. Arsenal sold Nasri and Fabregas. Ok, RVP hasn't been injured all season, which is a huge change from his usual inability to play for more than half of a season, but they are even weaker than they were before. Arsene Wenger did spent a lot of money and buy players to give himself a squad, but it's a still a very small squad of worse than average players. Their best signing was either Arteta or the Ox, either way, that does not replace Fabregas with world class talent.
Chelsea had this manager that didn't lose domestic games, he didn't lose home games, he won everything, he was amazing. 35 million to bring him in and he was this great tactician that had worked under Mourinho at Chelsea so knew the players.
He played a high line despite not having the players to play it, he had to play Torres who was a handicap rather than a 50 million pound striker, the entire Chelsea team went downhill fast and at this stage, we should stop thinking of them as the Chelsea that Mourinho built and consider them that Chelsea's ugly cousin. That Chelsea is not the Chelsea I expected to compete for the title earlier this season.
Manchester United have done far better than I predicted as I didn't know they'd bring back Scholes midway through the season or that Jones would be such a good utility player or that Evans would have a far better season than he had last season. I felt their squad had weakened significantly, but I didn't expect to compete with them anyway.
Emirates Marketing Project were stronger than I expected over the first half of the season. I hadn't been watching much Spanish football, so I didn't see Aguero often (at the world cup, his father in law didn't play him much), so I didn't know if he could replace Tevez (I thought Tevez would leave rather at the start of the season). I didn't expect them to blow everyone away, but I didn't really expect to compete with them either.
But when we were way ahead of Arsenal (the Arsenal that had I think their worst start to a season in years, including the 8-2 and horrible results until after they lost to us, Chelsea (the laughable team they had become) and Saudi Sportswashing Machine (who have been doing exceptionally well, especially with one of their CBs missing for over half the season), at that stage, I feel expecting to finish above those three teams was justified, the points gap was insane.
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As for the actual thread topic, my expectations depend on the manager. Each manager has a different style. If Mourinho came, I'd expect him to try to win things and mostly care about the short term, I'd expect the first season to be a bedding in period and the second season to be the best season the club will have for years, if he stayed then I'd continue to expect good seasons and not expect a ton in the future. I'd also expect our home record to be insane.
A good season depends on money spent and what the teams we're competing against. If 2 promoted teams win the lottery and buy the Barca team and the Real Madrid team, it doesn't matter if we have our pick of the rest of the players in the world, it's hard to expect much against that, although with Mourinho it might be possible to finish above Real Madrid if he make a team our of the rest of the players in the world.
But if we had Mourinho and the other teams somehow don't strengthen, but we do, I'd want to compete for the title and to do well in the Champions League (meaning keep progressing until we meet Barca, Real Madrid or another really good team, but I'd want to compete against any team other than Barca and Real Madrid.. I'd hope that we'd compete against those two, but if we lost 5-0 over the two legs, I wouldn't be upset, like I would if we lost 5-0 over two legs against any other team. (Even Bayern, United or City are not 5-0 better than us over two legs.)
My main expectation with Mourinho would be to try to win every game and to seriously compete over every domestic game. (If we somehow got hammered, it'd be forgivable, but until Barca met Real Madrid, he hadn't lost by more than a couple of goals, so I wouldn't see us mauled by Premier League teams and walk away thinking nothing could be done. Unless we had a couple of players sent off.)
There are sacrifices but that's what they're for.
Note: I don't actually expect Mourinho to come to us, we might have had a slight chance if we'd competed for the title and given him 75 mil to spend, but even then it'd have been dreamland if he agreed to sign.
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By contrast, if we got Wenger...
No, I don't want Wenger, I know Wenger doesn't want us, he's just a good example of another style.
I'd expect him to prepare for the future at the expense of the present (the opposite of Mourinho), I'd expect youth to be brought in, but I wouldn't expect him to buy players very often anyway. He might snatch some teenage boys, but that'd be it. I would expect him to build a team greater than the sum of its parts, but I'd expect him to make very frustrating team selections. I'd expect our players to be played out of position, I'd expect a predictable substitutes pattern and I'd expect a lack of a plan B. I'd expect a stubborn manager that plans for the future yet somehow overachieves with his teams. But I wouldn't expect him to build the best side in the world, I wouldn't expect him to buy players that we'd desperately need, I wouldn't expect him to have a large squad or to have a good system for player wages. I would expect him to sell our superstars.
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The above two are successful managers, if we went for one that relatively untried, I might be disappointed with the manager and lower my expectations because of that. For example, if someone made a random fan the manager, I wouldn't expect epic things, but I would completely disagree with the appointment.
But if you're winning 3-0 against Barca at halftime, maybe even 4-0, you'd expect to not lose the game, but it'd be Barca, so maybe some people wouldn't see losing as unacceptable. 4-0 up against Arsenal, Saudi Sportswashing Machine or Chelsea at halftime and I'd expect to win. 11 vs 11 against a team that's not a world force, you shouldn't lose from that point... That's why a draw would look like a failure. Even against Madrid or Barca a draw would be a disappointing result given the first half, but against Arsenal that would be really bad.