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BroadstairsR

How would our current squad do next season?

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We have RVW, of course, and have been told to expect "activity."

 

Yet, without any additions, would this current squad be expected to succeed again?

 

I am inclined to think so. The promoted sides are hardly likely to be anything but strugglers and so many other of our fellow "relegation" rivals this season seem to have question marks against them, not least Stoke that I feel be would probably survive with ease, boring or otherwise. There is a stability about NCFC at the moment whilst others have a degree of turmoil. The calmness of Hughton has I feel contributed to this, whereas it was never really the case under the devious Lambert.

 

This is not advocating the status quo squad-wise as I am as excited as anybody about possible signings soon to come about. It''s just good to recognise that we have the basis of a side capable of Premiership consolidation and can now only improve, 

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I think we would go down.

I know the three new boys for next season are not big names, but I think they will all spend big.

Any team that does not try and improve their squad over the summer will do worse than this season gone.

Man City proved that if only by dropping one, but very crucial, place.

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I believe if rvw was to be injured we would be left with the team that struggled for any form over 20 games. I think we have good players,but no one spectacular who is a game winner. We would be flirting with relegation, our defence holds this team together, but with other teams having £££ they will move ahead of us.

So obviously we will have other players come in because we desperately need them.

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I think its a good question.   Yes we need to strengthen, but at the same time the team and manager will have had a chance to digest this season and start next season with a positive outlook.  One or two players coming in could make all the difference, but if the team and manager have learned anything from this season it should mean they all will improve regardless of who comes in.    This last season was a make or break season for us and the manager, with the pressure firmly on CH''s shoulders - and he and the team were up to the challenge.   So in the second season we should see an improvement simply because of  that difficult first season is out of the way and the squad/team learning and developing as a matter of course.       

So for all the money coming in, I don''t think the team will radically alter that much.  Obviously RVW will hopefully fetaure a lot, Becchio may get more chances,  Howson will hopefully continue his recent form, Tettey will hopefully show us a whole season of good form, so there are plenty of reasons to suppose we will do well with the same squad - even without including RVW - but  just one or two quality players will make life a little easier.

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Currently, without RvW, we lack any stand-out and brilliant players capable of winning a match. We need him and at least one other outstanding player.

 

Until now we have had teams with good players all round, who collectively can produce the odd very good result, but as we saw last season it needs only one or two to have a dip in form for the wheels to come off. The top teams regularly play flat out, but they have equally good players in the rest of the squad who can come in and replace injured of out-of-form colleagues without reducing the effectiveness. We lack this.

 

Think of any good EPL side, and you immediately think of two or three very good players who make a big impact. Think of our team, and who comes to mind - Holt with his antics, Wes with his trickery (sometimes), or others sometimes? I think that the present unreinforced squad would struggle.

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We can debate the reason for our slump until the cows come home, but I''m steadfast in my opinion that it wasn''t down to the players not being good enough.

 

We''d be stronger than the 3 promoted teams and given Sunderland and Stoke''s managerial appointments I''d like to think we''d finish above them too.

 

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Absolutely yes, we would stay up. As much as adding quality to the squad is important, so is a consistent line up. If we played this line-up for the majority of next season, week in week out, we would be fine.

Ruddy

Martin Turner Bassong Garrido

Pilks BJ Tettey Snodders

Howson

Holt

Sometimes sticking with a regular, consistent line up of good players can be better than chasing bigger names/egos. QPR would have been been fine if they had stuck with the majority of the squad that got them into the prem.

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BroadstairsR wrote the following post at 30/05/2013 3:51 AM:

Yet, without any additions, would this current squad be expected to succeed again?

- Much depends upon what you consider success. 17th success?

Mr Brownstone wrote the following post at 30/05/2013 11:22 AM:

We can debate the reason for our slump until the cows come home, but I''m steadfast in my opinion that it wasn''t down to the players not being good enough.

- Then why are we not inundated with clubs wanting to buy or better players, our fringe players or even the players many thought we should have played at times last season who were members of our 25 man squad and made only a few appearances..

We are now a Premiership side and we need Premiership class players.

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Tough one, I guess we''d be found out and wouldn''t have the flexibility within the squad for a plan B and ultimately we''d go on a long poor run of results.

RVW in tow, we might get away with trying out 4-4-2 again but we would seriously lack options off the bench and as the season went on and took it''s toll, our players would be shattered.

Both Laudrup and Allardyce both stated that they would need hundreds of millions to improve on what they achieved this season and they are not far off the mark. What they failed to state is that if they spent nothing, injuries or lack of competitiveness would set in and they would drop off like Newcastle did.

I feel this applies to us. Our aim next season should be top half. If one season, we can put a good run together and have a bit of luck, Europe may be a possibility, but that applies to most teams in the premiership.

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"- Much depends upon what you consider success. 17th success?"

 

Can''t get your point, we came eleventh in the end. That was success.

 

The reason for original my posting was to point out or otherwise the fact that we have the basis of a squad capable of maintaining Premiership football next season. This was not meant to be the basis of an argument. 

 

Nobody disputes that we need to strengthen, pretty bloody obvious actually.

 

"We are now a Premiership side and we need Premiership class players."

 

Please define "Premier class players." 

 

 

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I think that last season was mis-leading in that the start was difficult with new defenders coming in and the transition to a new management team. This year, City will start with a settled defense, and a mid-field that is also used to playing together. I''d also say that Lambert''s team had some good fortune that led to two away wins when the opposition had stupid sending-offs. That didn''t happen last year and there were at least 4 games lost largely due to poor refereeing.

I''d still be worried about the attack, however, if RvW wasn''t coming in, but I still think we could survive. With RvW and another four quality players coming in, the target can be a top-half finish, IMO.

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The 3 teams coming up are probably going to be weaker overall than the 3 promoted teams last year, when 2 survived.

 

Everyone will be looking to strenghten but you can identify plenty of possible weaknesses e.g. will WBA get to keep Lukaku?  What about Stoke and Fulham who both finished very weakly ?  Sunderland ?  Will Newcastle sack Pardew ?  Will Villa lose Benteke ? 

 

So if for some reason we didn''t strengthen our squad but everyone else did, we''d be quite likely to have a worse season and finish a bit lower, but to say we''d automatically get relegated is a bit silly TBH.

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[quote user="super canary"]Absolutely yes, we would stay up. As much as adding quality to the squad is important, so is a consistent line up. If we played this line-up for the majority of next season, week in week out, we would be fine.

Ruddy

Martin Turner Bassong Garrido

Pilks BJ Tettey Snodders

Howson

Holt

Sometimes sticking with a regular, consistent line up of good players can be better than chasing bigger names/egos. QPR would have been been fine if they had stuck with the majority of the squad that got them into the prem.[/quote]Agree with this completely. The negative Pinkun posters strike again.

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BroadstairsR wrote the following post at 30/05/2013 12:26 PM:

"- Much depends upon what you consider success. 17th success?"

Can''t get your point, we came eleventh in the end. That was success.

The reason for original my posting was to point out or otherwise the fact that we have the basis of a squad capable of maintaining Premiership football next season. This was not meant to be the basis of an argument.

Nobody disputes that we need to strengthen, pretty bloody obvious actually.

"We are now a Premiership side and we need Premiership class players."

Please define "Premier class players."

From your original post you stated that you would expect the current squad to succeed. My question, put another way, would be what would you consider success to be? Would it be success to maintain Premiership status or would success be to better last season''s excellent finishing position of 11th place?

To define Premier ship class is, as you will realise, difficult. Perhaps I would say having players who are not considered as automatic starters but who are competent enough to come into the side and compete without overly weakening the team.

Last season we had many players who were good enough when playing well. Surely what we have to be looking for are players who are good enough when having average games and outstanding when they are playing well.

It''s all about stepping up the standards and continually looking to improve.

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Fair enough.

 

By succeed I meant survival which will always be the fundamental aim of a Club such as ours at the outset of every season. It is the aim of more than half of the teams in the Premier League after all.

 

"Premiership class" is ambiguous. As we came eleventh it would suggest that all of the team fall into this category. However, if we mean "top-six" class then we fall far short like most teams in this league.

 

We still get the financial reward though and are still able to have our moments in the Sun. 

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Yes, it is a very sad competition in many ways.

I suppose for around 12 teams success is finishing 17th or above and for about 6 teams to finish 5th is failure .......... don''t know about the other 2!

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We finished where we did in the table on merit and the back of an excellent autumn run but with a horrendous 19 game run which we could not afford to repeat this season.

Despite that the team has some obvious problems in central midfield and up front. We have started addressing the strikers with RvW but with SJ leaving we probably still need another striker with pace.

In central midfield we we simply too lightweight - teams ran through or past us too easily and too often - and whe we had the ball we lacked movement to or the ability to keep possession - which meant we had the creative midfielders sat too deep (affecting the strikers). This is the area we need to address with two top quality signings.

We may not have a repeat of either the good or bad elements

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I don''t think we need to strengthen at all. Look at the last two games where Hughton allowed free flowing attacking football. We thrashed west brom and beat man city. Our squad doesn''t need to be improved. It can be tweaked and improved but I wouldn''t say we need to improve to stay up. We have a very good squad of players.

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