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The Great Mass Debater

A successful season

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What constitutes a successful season to you as a Norwich fan? What is the absolute pinnacle of our achievement do you think? We''re obviously never going to challenge for the title and we''re never going to get close to a Champions League spot. Last few seasons our goals have been clear - win league one, get promoted/win championship/make play-offs, survive in the Premier League, consolidate in the Premier League. But now we''re in our third season, what do people want? Are fans happy with simply surviving? ie 17th or higher, or is this merely a minimum standard? There isnt even the opportunity for local bragging rights with Ipswich in the division below. We''ve had the feel-good factor a lot of late, and open-topped buses. But what would have you looking back on a Premier League season with joy? 17th or higher? Top half finish? Cup win? Sneak into the European competition?

 

For me, 17th or higher is a minumum standard. We cant expect or demand it, but I dont think we can consider it the stuff of memories. A top half-finish is good, but doubt we''d look back and say, ''remember when we finished 9th - oh those were the days...!''  For me, there is nothing like actually winning something. As we cant win promotion any more, for me it has to be the challenge for a cup. Swansea and Wigan have shown its not just the big boys who can do it. Its a shame though, because we''ve never really been a cup team, and many managers prefer to ''concentrate on the league''. What would have you looking back with fond memories on a Premier League season?

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I think we''re still in the survival stage. Bordering on consolidation. We''re a few years away from anything else i.e cup win, europa league. I know Swansea did it, but at the moment there team is better.

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majority if fans will probably say winning the league!!!!

i would say if we finish between 10th and 14th its been a very good season with the seeds sewn for next year to possibly increase the squad size and push on for one of the cups?

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My expectations are:

 

1. To see the players play to their potential and give 100%

 

2. To enjoy match day

 

3. Other than that as long as we don''t get relegated the ''bigger picture'' doesn''t bother me that much. I''d rather take each match day as it comes and just enjoy them for what they are, rather than worrying and fretting over ''where the club is heading'' or ''what we can win''.

 

Just go with it people, enjoy the ride!!

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At the moment a successful season for me would be mid table (between eighth and twelfth) and a half decent cup run. Over the next ten years my dream would be to progress to where Everton did having flirted with relegation in three of the first four seasons of the "noughties" (hate that term) to not having finished lower than 11th and qualified for Europe three times. (think it''s three)

That''s my dream and it could happen. They turned things round with hardly any money so who''s to say we can''t dream?

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A successful season for me would be....

  • Survival without having to rely other teams results.
  • Never dipping into the bottom 3  
  • We start off the majority of home and away games with the mindset of playing our own style of football and getting a result rather than setting up depending on how the other team has set up.
  • If we go behind in a game or we don’t roll over and die. We have the squad and managerial capability of adapting and implementing a plan B.
  • Not going out of a cup to league 1 or lower team.

 

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[quote user="Brightside"]

A successful season for me would be....

  • Survival without having to rely other teams results.
[/quote]I don''t understand this. For the terminally dim (like me) could you perhaps explain as if I were a five-year-old (to quote the great DW)? If, come the end of the season, we have secured another season in the Premiership (yay!!); how will I be able to tell whether we had to rely on other teams'' results to achieve it? Surely every team that survives only does so because at least three others failed to achieve the required results over the course of the season?

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[quote user="Chip20"][quote user="Brightside"]

A successful season for me would be....

  • Survival without having to rely other teams results.

[/quote]
I don''t understand this. For the terminally dim (like me) could you perhaps explain as if I were a five-year-old (to quote the great DW)? If, come the end of the season, we have secured another season in the Premiership (yay!!); how will I be able to tell whether we had to rely on other teams'' results to achieve it? Surely every team that survives only does so because at least three others failed to achieve the required results over the course of the season?
[/quote]

To put it simply, I meant that we should be able to achieve survival without having to rely on the results of other teams in the closing weeks of the season. i.e last season we were safe with two games to go (mathmatically we could not go down no matter what other teams did). If for example on the last week(s) of this season we have to hope a team below us loses to gauratee our safety then I would not class the season as a success. I guess I class it as achieving premier league status on our own metits without help from other teams. I do understand that over a season all results will balance out but I don''t think it''s too much to expect to be mathmatically safe in the last few weeks of a season. - Hope this is a bit clearer for you.

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I think he means a season where we survive without having to be remotely involved in a relegation battle. Last season we technically survived without relying on other results as come the last game, we were safe already. Same the season before.

For me, my business head simply states staying in the league will do for now as that is the big gulf, 17th and 18th.

My fans head states that i''d like top half. 10th place at least.

Then in 20 years time if we''ve dropped down the leagues and i''m telling my kids about when we were good, i can say " i remember the years when we were a top ten side" etc.

Being ambitious, i''d quite like a season in europe via either of the cups or a 6/7th place finish at one stage in our time in the premiership, something to remember properly.

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I think I''m getting it now. You mean a successful season would be one where we are comfortable all the way through (so never in or near the bottom three and are mathematically safe ''x'' number of games away from the end. Do you have a particular figure representing ''x'' that would make the difference between a season being successful and not so? It has been a fairly close thing in each of the past couple and is quite a big ask to be safe several games form the end. There are usually still quite a few clubs with a mathematical chance of relegation four or five games from the end.For my own part, I, too, would like to not have to sweat as the season climax approaches and would prefer to be wondering how high we can finish rather than whether the unthinkable could happen. I would also like to avoid the embarrassment of cup exits at the hands of relative minnows. Mainly, though, I would like to see us finish a place or two higher than the season before.I do recognise, though, that in any given season just avoiding relegation is an achievement for a club with our resources. Sure I think we should aim for the stars, as that''s the way to move forward, but I also recognise that there are always 19 other teams doing likewise; many of them better resourced than we are.

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[quote user="Brightside"][quote user="Chip20"][quote user="Brightside"]

A successful season for me would be....

  • Survival without having to rely other teams results.

[/quote]
I don''t understand this. For the terminally dim (like me) could you perhaps explain as if I were a five-year-old (to quote the great DW)? If, come the end of the season, we have secured another season in the Premiership (yay!!); how will I be able to tell whether we had to rely on other teams'' results to achieve it? Surely every team that survives only does so because at least three others failed to achieve the required results over the course of the season?
[/quote]

To put it simply, I meant that we should be able to achieve survival without having to rely on the results of other teams in the closing weeks of the season. i.e last season we were safe with two games to go (mathmatically we could not go down no matter what other teams did). If for example on the last week(s) of this season we have to hope a team below us loses to gauratee our safety then I would not class the season as a success. I guess I class it as achieving premier league status on our own metits without help from other teams. I do understand that over a season all results will balance out but I don''t think it''s too much to expect to be mathmatically safe in the last few weeks of a season. - Hope this is a bit clearer for you.

[/quote]

But technically we could be 7 points clear of 18th place, and yet still be in 17th position with 2 games to go, meaning we didn''t need to rely on other results the last couple of weeks to keep us up, or we could be 2 points clear of the bottom 3 but along with a few other sides and be sitting in 14th place, so in these 2 scenarios, you''d rather finish 17th rather than 14th? ;)

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Given the spending powr of all teams in the premiership, for me just surviving in 17th is a successful season.

 

I don''t see that we will ever move on from that in the short term as our structure and owners cannot afford to compete with the likes of the bigger teams.

 

As last season we could have finished anywhere from 18th to 10th going into the last three games and having won them we finshed a respectable 11th.

 

It''s a tough league and we are one of the smaller teams with a limited budget, that''s just how it is in my view, ejoy being here and staying here.

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[quote user="Indy"]

Given the spending powr of all teams in the premiership, for me just surviving in 17th is a successful season.

 

I don''t see that we will ever move on from that in the short term as our structure and owners cannot afford to compete with the likes of the bigger teams.

 

As last season we could have finished anywhere from 18th to 10th going into the last three games and having won them we finshed a respectable 11th.

 

It''s a tough league and we are one of the smaller teams with a limited budget, that''s just how it is in my view, ejoy being here and staying here.

[/quote]

 

This.

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Exactly, i largely agree, but it''d be a shame in 10 years, back down in the second tier if we didn''t have at least one season we could really remember in history, like Swansea got last year.

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17th place and above is not a success, thats the sort of thinking that gets clubs relegated11th and above is a successwe finished there last season (albeit with quite a large slice of luck on the final day), and then spent quite a lot of money so we should expect as much or more. settling for just staying in this division is a bit lamestars/gutters etc

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Plenty of scope on here for several to be accused of having "little old Norwich" mentality or whatever people are often accused of, but I feel its all very realistic. This though is a great question, and I like many others will possibly unrealistically dream that we can, within the next few seasons, become regularly the best team in that second tier of the Premier League. By "second tier", I mean the places below about the top seven or eight "big clubs" and away from the dog fight for relegation. Now I feel that''s actually a tall order and a big challenge for a club of our size, and I agree that we are still in that consolidation phase, and its tough. What would then come with securing a place as the top team or one of the top teams in that second tier would be a flirtation with a top six place during the season (like Southampton this season it wont last, but is great while its happening)  and be financially sound enough to have a big enough squad to hold a place in that second tier whilst taking the Europa Cup seriously (and the FA Cup and League Cup whatever its called these days seriously). For me, I''d like to think the club can achieve something like this within the next 3 to 5 seasons, but in the meantime I am under no illusions that we will probably flirt with the bottom five positions a few times as its very much a work in progress right now, something that unfortunately many cannot seem to accept. Oh, and while this is happening, the icing on the cake would be to see a regular flow of City bred youngsters come through the Youth Academy into the first team squad, another Sutton or Bellamy would be great. 

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