For fudge sake 4th would've been enough any season you cant move the goalposts and say he hasn't achieved his objective. 4th was the goal and we got it. So unfortunate how it's panned out.
CL qualification was the objective.
At the start of the season, he might have been told to get 4th, but that was a rare mistake from Levy. (Jamie said his dad was told to get 4th.)
But, halfway through the season, everyone knew certain things:
#1: Chelsea were underperforming on an epic level.
#2: Arsenal were having their worst season.
#3: Saudi Sportswashing Machine were doing well, although they suffered when they lost half their squad to the ACON, before they signed Cisse too...
#4: Liverpool were the same old Liverpool, destined for midtable, especially without Lucas.
#5: Due to Chelsea being brick, everyone found out that if Chelsea won the CL, they'd steal the qualification place from the 4th placed team.
We were way ahead of Arsenal at that time too. But we knew... This wasn't Rafa's Liverpool with Alonso, Mascherano, a fit Gerrard, an on fire Torres or anything... This was an Arsenal team that sold 2 left backs, their captain and the replacement for their captain in addition to other things, this was a Man United that had lost Van Der Sar, Scholes, Neville, etc and De Gea was dropped for Lindegard, Emirates Marketing Project were looking amazing at that point, I'll admit. Saudi Sportswashing Machine didn't have Cisse yet, so no one was really scared.
You can't say Harry was tasked to finish 4th when Chelsea had beaten Barca in the first leg of their tie? Surely, at that point you can't ignore Barca getting 5 red cards in the home tie and Chelaea winning the final due to a penalty. You can't rely on other teams...
Chelsea were one of four teams left in the competition and had won the first leg, fudge turning a blind eye to that.
In a normal season there are more than 2 good teams in the league.
When Arsenal drew with Norwich, we only had to beat Villa (a team of around mid table Championship quality) and Fulham at home, so we had an opportunity then, when we knew Chelsea were in the final.
But further back, we had an insane number of chances to do better.
If the CL final had been in March, 4th would have been deemed disappointing and 3rd would have been the target. 3rd, 4th, 5th or 6th is only important due to CL qualification, so CL qualification was the target. Sure, the extra 800k from league placing is nice, but the ?ú36 million from the CL as well as the prestige the CL brings and the effect that has on a club's brand is the target.
The point of all of this is to be able to challenge for League and CL and you can't challenge for the league without money, you can't challenge for the CL without being in the competition... If in 5, 10, 15, 20 or 25 years we still haven't even challenged for one of the big 2 pieces of silverware, then what is the point?
Not reaching the CL this year just set us back significantly, the managers and players we can get, the brand, everything just went back a bit. We're looking to build a stadium, we want sponsors... Even though this year's CL final was held at the "football arena" because the CL doesn't like anyone else being named, everyone called the stadium by the sponsor's name... That's one example of naming rights working out, we're currently competing with Saudi Sportswashing Machine for someone to buy naming rights for our stadium, what sets us apart from them now? Saudi Sportswashing Machine's stadium is already there?
Look at Hazard earlier in the season, telling everyone he wanted to go to Spurs instead of Arsenal (we were way ahead of them on points), ok the Manchester clubs are both interested, so he narrowed it down to one of those, but that's a footballer for you. If it is not the dream to play for Liverpool, Man United, Real Madrid or Barca, then they look at where the club is, what it can pay and stuff like that.
We aren't going forwards, we're going sideways and we're not getting CL money as we do it. Sure, our stadium will be ready in a few years, but Liverpool and Chelsea will be building theirs by then, so we need a change... I like the majority of our first team, I like a lot of our squad players, so the obvious change is a manager. Seeing Brad replace Gomez, Parker coming in and Crouch upgraded to Ade was huge, so why has this team underachieved?
Now without being in the CL we'll replace Ade with Holt instead of someone world class.
