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Ivan Easter

Top 10 Finish

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This is what has been said therefore Chris Hughton has to produce soon or he will be following Holloway. I think that if we fail to beat Cardiff then his days will certainly be very numbered. However I think we will beat Cardiff.

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There''s a difference between target and what is acceptable. If we got 11th place again, you''d have to say we''d done well. Me personally, i''d take 17th. I''d be a bit underwhelmed, but safe in the knowledge we still had premiership football to look forward to.

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I have toned down my negativity this season but with the best will in the world, I can''t see us finishing top 10 under Chris Hughton. Ok we finished 11th last season but I have my own views on how fortunate we were with all that.

I''m not saying if we don''t finish 10th, CH should go. I just honestly think we are not a top 10 side. I thought we were on Friday 16th August 2013, but since then that has changed.

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As we saw last season, the difference between a 16th place finish and a top 10 finish are fairly slim. If we finished 12th, we could have missed out on the top 10 by 2 points - not really enough to sack a manager.

As said above, top 10 has got to be the big target, but survival will be acceptable. I can''t say my excitement would go through the roof because we finished 9th instead of 15th. Still midtable nothing-ness either way!

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This Board (of Directors, not the forum) strikes me as much more ambitious than before under the Doomcaster regime. I doubt they''ll privately settle for 17th place although publicly it will be all about continued survival. Any hint of us being in trouble despite spending all that money and I do think they''ll take action. There have been few public statements about the situation, rightly so, but I would be very surprised if McNally and Co have not worked up a contingency.

 

Is it an iullustration of what CH has achieved (or failed to)  that whereas only 2 seasons ago we were a role model for Southampton they are the ones now chasing Top 10 (or even higher) not us. Both teams got double promotions, survived first season back, and have invested heavily. They even appointed a guy who couldn''t speak English! It is dangerous to pick one example to use to make a generic point, but sometimes change is required to push on.

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[quote user="EGGY a Gibraltar Canary"]This is what has been said therefore Chris Hughton has to produce soon or he will be following Holloway. I think that if we fail to beat Cardiff then his days will certainly be very numbered. However I think we will beat Cardiff.[/quote]Can you perhaps provide a link to where it has been said that a top ten finish is imperative or sacking will ensue? It think I missed that quote. I was under the impression that was an aim, and when one aims at something one doesn''t always hit the target. Is not finishing in the top ten really a sackable offence? Really, though?

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[quote user="Tumbleweed"]

This Board (of Directors, not the forum) strikes me as much more ambitious than before under the Doomcaster regime. I doubt they''ll privately settle for 17th place although publicly it will be all about continued survival. Any hint of us being in trouble despite spending all that money and I do think they''ll take action. There have been few public statements about the situation, rightly so, but I would be very surprised if McNally and Co have not worked up a contingency.

 

Is it an iullustration of what CH has achieved (or failed to)  that whereas only 2 seasons ago we were a role model for Southampton they are the ones now chasing Top 10 (or even higher) not us. Both teams got double promotions, survived first season back, and have invested heavily. They even appointed a guy who couldn''t speak English! It is dangerous to pick one example to use to make a generic point, but sometimes change is required to push on.

[/quote]

 

It is worth noting that Southampton out-spent Norwich considerably in each of those seasons though - they paid over £1m for Lambert by the time all the clauses kicked in. Not sure the last time a League One club could buy a player for that much money. Whilst they were in the Championship they gave Lallana a £25k a week deal (or so reported at the time) and signed several players paying them wages around £20k a week. Southampton were the biggest spenders in the League when promoted from L1 and the Championship and also spent considerably when promoted to the Prem. Anyway, I''m not sure how likely their attack on the top 10 will go seeing as much of their good start to the season has been due to playing Palace, Sunderland, West Ham and Swansea at home (after a European game) already this season - give Norwich those games and I fancy we wouldn''t be worrying about the bottom three and relegation quite so much at the moment.

 

As a side note their manager speaks good English - he just uses the translator as a bit of a shield from the media, espeically when he arrived in such strange circumstances. All the training at Southampton is carried out in English and he does all the team talks in English.

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If a board member came out and said "Whatever happens, Chris will be here all season, no matter what" - then I''d take 17th now. Right now. With bells on.

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Wasnt it about now we started putting that unbeaten run together, went up to 7th and people started talking about Europe? Think the best point on this thread was the one about the margins between 10th and 17th being very small. People look back on last season and think that because we ultimately finished 11th, that we had a comfortable season. We didnt. We were in real relegation trouble for the whole of the second half of the season, and there were worrying signs before the unbeaten run. We had two good results in the final games of the season, and this catapulted us up the league. We certainly werent strolling around mid-table all season. This is a tough league, there are no easy games. We have no divine right to finish 10th just because its what we''d like and think we''ve paid for. There are 19 other teams trying to beat us.

Look at Everton under Moyes. They were somewhat of a yoyo team for a while. Seasons chasing europe would be followed by seasons neared the bottom, with pretty much the same personnel. Natural ebb and flow. Whilst we would all like to be 10th, perhaps we need to accept that that is our target, but that sometimes we will have seasons where we just fail to achieve that, and 17th becomes the minima acceptable target. Anywhere from 10th-17th is probably our natural fluctuation. I dont see us getting cut off from that, so perhaps we should not panic too much

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IMO, too much is put on to managers. They are important, but not as important as the players. If they are performing badly or if heads are dropping, there might be a cause for concern. But City have only played 8 games, 4 of which were against top 6 sides. If City can take 13 or more points from the next 11 games, then the basic target has been reached. If they don''t, then the concern will mount - but it is never about just one game.

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I don''t think anybody thinks we had a comfortable season. What I do think is that nobody in the bottom half did. So to have expected a comfortable season we would have had to virtually be top 8 throughout. I expect much the same this season. And if the whole bottom half are scrapping to be safe then that safety will take longer to achieve than if three clubs are adrift at the bottom.

 

 

 

 

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I agree with the sentiment of what is expected and what is acceptable. I would love 10th+ but if we finish comfortably above relegation then I would take it. if that means 17th clear of relegation on 7 pts (unlikely, I know.) then I will accept that.

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