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the duke of norfolk

Blind optimism is staggering.

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What I find "staggering" is that fans want the board to "roll the dice" or "speculate to accumulate" with the clubs future. We came *so* close to administration 3 years ago, and amazingly that millstone that has been round our necks for decades and has been getting heavier and heavier over the past 5 years, will be gone by the end of the season. It will be gone whether we qualify for Europe, stay up by the skin of our teeth, or get relegated.

That for me is the important fact. We have our club back and it''s future is secure. It''s going to be a tough season, no doubt about it, and if we''re going to stay up then the players will need the full support of the fans, but if things don''t go our way this year it really isn''t the end of the world. We''ll be back again in no time, debt free and with the biggest budget we''ve ever had. I''m proud that my club is debt free and self sufficent, not many can say that.

Aside from the fact that no financial institution would lend us money to buy players anyway, it''s no guarantee of success. Just look at Pompey. To gamble the future of the club when we''ve only just secured it would be foolish in the extreme.

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[quote user="Al"][quote user="ricardo"]I am expecting a tough struggle but anyone who thinks we will be signing new players before the start of the season is living in fantasy land.We have done our business and will go with what we''ve got.I expect a point at Fulham next Saturday, probably 0-0, but don''t worry there are at least 5 teams who will finish below us this season.[/quote]Who are those 5 & what are the reasons you think they will finish below us?[/quote]Swansea, Southampton, Reading, West Ham, Wigan.The reason they will finish below us is because none of these will get to 40 points.We will.[;)]

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[quote user="Monty13"]I wouldn''t consider myself blindly optimistic about the new season, just realistic. Pre season has told us nothing really[/quote]

 

Exactly.

 

Its like half the noobs on this board have never seen pre-season results before.

 

Pre-season means absolutely nothing. Never has done and never will do. Teams very often perform poorly in pre-season and then mysteriously come out of the blocks winning games. Anyone who has never seen this phenomenon obviously has never kept a track of pre-season games across the league before!

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Why would a team who comfortably avoided relegation, held on to its best players and added to the squad suddenly be terrible?

People haven''t accepted Hughton.... That''s why isn''t it?

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I think looking at the team yesterday you can see there is a great team cohesion at the back, but further up the field does look disjointed. It won''t take long though to find it, but I wish we had already found it, Ajax and bmgbach were both ahead of us. Not a problem when you see the calibre of players in their teams. But I would have hoped we could have brought in some slightly higher calibre players earlier.

Tough season could have been made easier, I go to to Fulham knowing 17th is the position we are aiming for. I do think we are going to be in the bottom five all season, that is fine, I hope we spend in January as this team will need help in that first 11 at that time.

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[quote user="Downloads"]

[quote user="Monty13"]I wouldn''t consider myself blindly optimistic about the new season, just realistic. Pre season has told us nothing really[/quote]

 

Exactly.

 

Its like half the noobs on this board have never seen pre-season results before.

 

Pre-season means absolutely nothing. Never has done and never will do. Teams very often perform poorly in pre-season and then mysteriously come out of the blocks winning games. Anyone who has never seen this phenomenon obviously has never kept a track of pre-season games across the league before!

[/quote]

Totally agree, anyone trying to use preseason as a predictor for results and team performance in the new term doesnt really understand what it`s all about.  Will be totally different 100% performance on Saturday!

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"I go to to Fulham knowing 17th is the position we are aiming for. "

 

 

nonsense

 

as last season and an extra £4m in prize money proved

 

we will be aiming to finish as high up the table as possible

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When I say blind optimism I am refering to when someone writes a post that may in someway be negative about our chances for next season or about the lack of signings they seem to be shot down in flames by the vast majority of posters on here who says things like "don''t worry we finished 12th last season we will be fine" or "don''t worry we have Howson and Pilkington we will be fine". There seems to be an expectant level of optimism on here which is not necessarily a good thing as it could lead to dissapointment.

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Losing our manager when we did inevitably disrupted preperations. Hughton is well respected but needs time to assess what he has and what he needs. Our squad is a lot better than the start of last season, but i agree it will be very hard to stay up

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[quote user="jas the barclay king"]Why would a team who comfortably avoided relegation, held on to its best players and added to the squad suddenly be terrible? People haven''t accepted Hughton.... That''s why isn''t it?[/quote]

 

No, he''s not Paul Lambert and he never will be.

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[quote user="the duke of norfolk"] There seems to be an expectant level of optimism on here which is not necessarily a good thing as it could lead to dissapointment.[/quote]I have held "an expectant level of optimism" before and during every match of every season since the early 1970''s. Sure I''ve been disappointed many times over the years but I suggest that''s part and parcel of being a fan......I shall reserve the right to believe we are capable of beating any team over 90 minutes on our day and continue to enjoy supporting NCFC thank you very much.

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Perhaps The Duke of Norfolk & Tom C would care to enlighten us with a few names of so called "Quality signings" they would like to see at NCFC?

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How about all the people whining give it a rest until we''ve played a few competitive games. We know the players read forums, do you think saying that we are nailed on for relegation is going to help moral in the squad?

More than half the posts on here at the moment seem to be people saying that they are ''worried'' or ''underwhelmed'', etc. Getting their predictions in now so if, in a month or 2, we are doing badly they can point out how clever they were and how they knew what was going to happen. If we happen to be doing well in a couple of months I doubt they''ll be bringing it up and apologizing.

Get behind the team. If you''re feeling negative keep it to yourself, no one wants to hear it.

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[quote user="the duke of norfolk"]I have to say that reading many of the posts on here for some time now it slightly amazes me just how much blind optimism there is by so many of you for our chances next season.
Now I don''t like to be negative but at the present time, unless some more quality signings are made, I have a bad feeling about next season. I just don''t see that we have moved on much from last season. Yes, we finished 12th but that was  only 5 points above the relegation zone. If the season had gone for much longer we probably would have faced the drop.
Here''s hoping that Hughton  can pull some quality signings out of the bag that are going  to  make a big difference to the quality of our starting 11.
[/quote]

 

47 - 36 = ?  Suggest you might like to stick some new batteries in the calculator

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"If the season had gone for much longer we probably would have faced the drop"

 

At an average of one point a game, that would have meant another 12 games for us to have ''faced the drop'', only then accompanied by the unlikelt scenario of us losing 12 games on the trot.

 

What should be seen from the ''joke of norfolks'' post is not the wildly inaccurate figures but the intent behind them. He started three threads yesterday, ALL of which were no more than trotting out the whingers and whiners latest line of attack upon our club ie there is Not the transfer budget as claimed, Hughton is not up to it and that genuine fans should not look forward to the season with any degree of optimism.

 

By their words you shall know them

 

 

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Yep, nice one City 1st - this Duke Of Norfolk character having to start 3 threads (all negative) - now either that was done deliberately to further unsettle readers of this messageboard (I have to ask - Binner perhaps?), or he/she just isn''t very bright and doesn''t realise what fan negativity can do to a football teams moral...

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Last season the Premiership season was contested by 20 teams who played each other home and away, a total of 38 League games, no more and no less!

 

The arguement of "if the season went on for longer last season we''d of been in trouble" is a total non arguement!

 

I''m sure everyone at the club knows we cannot afford to sit still!

 

For myself I see this season as no different to last season. Most experts and non experts will have us down as likely to go down and staying up has to be the priority, anything above survival will be a bonus, though I hope Houghton will not be thinking about just surviving!

 

What I''ve seen so far in friendlies makes me think we have to improve, although friendly results and performances aren''t the be all and end all!

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[quote user="Wiz"]

[quote user="jas the barclay king"]Why would a team who comfortably avoided relegation, held on to its best players and added to the squad suddenly be terrible? People haven''t accepted Hughton.... That''s why isn''t it?[/quote]

 

No, he''s not Paul Lambert and he never will be.

[/quote]You know, that''s true on so many different levels.

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Interesting that those demanding quality signings still haven''t suggested any names as potential targets.

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[quote user="jas the barclay king"]Why would a team who comfortably avoided relegation, held on to its best players and added to the squad suddenly be terrible? People haven''t accepted Hughton.... That''s why isn''t it?[/quote]

 

Agree Jas.

We''ve only let go bit part players. Naughton the regular first team players are all still here and have had 4 good additions in Snodgrass, Turner, Whittaker and Butterfield.

We, fingers crossed, have a fit James Vaughan who''s like a new signing.

Hughton has in pre-season relatively improved us defensively which was last seasons weakest point.

Our GK is about to win his 1st England cap in two days time.

We''ve beaten and drawn with 2 sides who won their respective divisions last year and will be playing Champions League football.

Yes I know people are frustrated at the lack of goals, however, we were 6th highest scorers in the league last year with by and large the same group of players, they haven''t suddenly forgotten where the back of the net is, the pre-season focus from Hughton has been to add some defensive solidarity to go with that.

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[quote user="Lambo"]

[quote user="jas the barclay king"]Why would a team who comfortably avoided relegation, held on to its best players and added to the squad suddenly be terrible? People haven''t accepted Hughton.... That''s why isn''t it?[/quote]

 

Agree Jas.

We''ve only let go bit part players. Naughton the regular first team players are all still here and have had 4 good additions in Snodgrass, Turner, Whittaker and Butterfield.

We, fingers crossed, have a fit James Vaughan who''s like a new signing.

Hughton has in pre-season relatively improved us defensively which was last seasons weakest point.

Our GK is about to win his 1st England cap in two days time.

We''ve beaten and drawn with 2 sides who won their respective divisions last year and will be playing Champions League football.

Yes I know people are frustrated at the lack of goals, however, we were 6th highest scorers in the league last year with by and large the same group of players, they haven''t suddenly forgotten where the back of the net is, the pre-season focus from Hughton has been to add some defensive solidarity to go with that.

[/quote]

There are loads of positives, but there are some people who simply don''t want to see them. In some cases this is because of the misguided belief that Paul Lambert was some sort of demi-god who could do no wrong (although you can bet your bottom dollar that the same people were slating him when we had our barren run). To them the fact that Hughton is changing our style means that we can''t possibly succeed (this is an extension of the "we can only win by playing the diamond" logic) even though we leaked goals last year and are looking much more compact this year. If that means we score less (and I''ve seen nothing to suggest that we will) does it really matter? You get the same points for winning 1-0 as you do for winning  4-3.

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[quote user="Beauseant"] You get the same points for winning 1-0 as you do for winning  4-3.[/quote]

 

You may well get the same points Beaus but this isn''t the old days of goal average. A 4-3 win is now worth far more than a 1-0 just like a 4-4 draw is now worth far more than a 0-0.

 

Just sayin'' buddy....

 

[;)]

 

 

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[quote user="the duke of norfolk"] If the season had gone for much longer we probably would have faced the drop.
[/quote]

 

I feel the need to point out we finished last season with a draw at Arsenal and a comfortable home win against Villa. 

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