Just what exactly are you expecting this coming season

Publius Ovidius said:

Should we go down the Leeds United route and spend to keep us in the top flight?

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Acker79 said:

I didn't really enjoy the football last season. The results were generally great, but the football was not to my liking (with a few exceptions). This coming season there will be fewer of the great results to offset my disappointment with the football. So I'm expecting this won't be my favourite season.

In the transfer market, I'm expecting sensible action, that not every fan will be happy with it, even though it plays out the same most seasons (particularly when we're not top dogs in the division). Lots of rumours that excite some fans, but are based on nothing. A few signings that feel out of nowhere, because no one was paying attention when someone first rumoured it on here. A signing that feels like it was in response to fans complaining about a lack of action - a contract extension or the like. The tease signing (big news! a hero returns... dean hammond). I think Burnley and Bournemouth have shown that you don't need to replace your entire team when they are a tight-knit unit, and that should give the club cover to not go overboard out of desperation to stay in the premier league.

I expect at least one signing to be written off by some of the noisier fans because his game is about positional intelligence or timing not about running around all the time, or because his game is about support, structure or other rather than scoring goals.

I expect the lack of regular wins will result in some fans expressing their disappointment lashing out with negativity or silly comments. I expect other fans will express their negativity by doubling down on positivity and pompously lashing out at anyone who shows negativity - I expect to see something along the lines of "20/21 years ago this club nearly went extinct, look at where we are now, so what if we just lost 13-0 to west brom". I expect I will find the latter more annoying than the former. I expect "Hughton In/Out" polls (in which I will vote 'in' every time because as much as I don't enjoy his brand of football, he got us promoted and deserves at least the whole season).

I expect the usual lumping together of the poster who puts forward a well argued, reasonable critique of a player/performance/etc with the most extreme, and minority, negative/positive posters. (e.g. the balanced review of say Ashley Barnes being lumped in with the person who says he's the worst player we've ever had, because the review included some negative comments).

I expect a top team will struggle. I expect a team that most thought would struggle will do surprisingly well.

I expect to see Zaha dive then sulk when he doesn't get the free kick he doesn't deserve quite a few times, and complain when he gets booked, I also expect him to get booked for diving on at least one occasion where it was actually a foul and he and his supporters won't accept it's the cost of diving as frequently as he does; I expect to see a lot of players diving and it'll always be the worst sin when it's our opponents, but there'll be a defence for our own players doing it; I expect referees will get criticised whatever decision they make, especially if they are making the decisions fans were calling on them to make ("They should clamp down on all this holding at corners, give a few penalties, it'll soon stop", "Why is he giving all these penalties for holding, are they trying to make it a non-contact sport?!"); I expect to find the fans around me annoying, and the commentators/analysts on TV even more annoying now they'll be talking about us; I expect complaints that we're on TV too much, and complaints that we're not on TV enough/other teams get more tv time than us.

I expect complaints about poor attendance at the first few games, and as there is every August, people trying to explain, yet again, it's the end of the summer holidays, families are away before the new term begins, it'll pick up in September. There will be complaints about the atmosphere all season long.

I expect complaints about early leavers ("you wouldn't do that at the cinema" - despite so many people leaving the moment the credits start, missing those extra scenes), complaints about the trains, complaints about service in the concourse.

I expect some big complaint on here about the club that gets everyone up in arms, until it is later revealed that the person complaining wasn't being entirely honest about things and deserved what happened to them.

I expect this post may be too long for a lot of people to bother reading.

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Weststander said:

A loaded question, possibly from an opponent of the club spending very significantly on quality this summer.

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Acker79 said:

I didn't really enjoy the football last season. The results were generally great, but the football was not to my liking (with a few exceptions). This coming season there will be fewer of the great results to offset my disappointment with the football. So I'm expecting this won't be my favourite season.

In the transfer market, I'm expecting sensible action, that not every fan will be happy with it, even though it plays out the same most seasons (particularly when we're not top dogs in the division). Lots of rumours that excite some fans, but are based on nothing. A few signings that feel out of nowhere, because no one was paying attention when someone first rumoured it on here. A signing that feels like it was in response to fans complaining about a lack of action - a contract extension or the like. The tease signing (big news! a hero returns... dean hammond). I think Burnley and Bournemouth have shown that you don't need to replace your entire team when they are a tight-knit unit, and that should give the club cover to not go overboard out of desperation to stay in the premier league.

I expect at least one signing to be written off by some of the noisier fans because his game is about positional intelligence or timing not about running around all the time, or because his game is about support, structure or other rather than scoring goals.

I expect the lack of regular wins will result in some fans expressing their disappointment lashing out with negativity or silly comments. I expect other fans will express their negativity by doubling down on positivity and pompously lashing out at anyone who shows negativity - I expect to see something along the lines of "20/21 years ago this club nearly went extinct, look at where we are now, so what if we just lost 13-0 to west brom". I expect I will find the latter more annoying than the former. I expect "Hughton In/Out" polls (in which I will vote 'in' every time because as much as I don't enjoy his brand of football, he got us promoted and deserves at least the whole season).

I expect the usual lumping together of the poster who puts forward a well argued, reasonable critique of a player/performance/etc with the most extreme, and minority, negative/positive posters. (e.g. the balanced review of say Ashley Barnes being lumped in with the person who says he's the worst player we've ever had, because the review included some negative comments).

I expect a top team will struggle. I expect a team that most thought would struggle will do surprisingly well.

I expect to see Zaha dive then sulk when he doesn't get the free kick he doesn't deserve quite a few times, and complain when he gets booked, I also expect him to get booked for diving on at least one occasion where it was actually a foul and he and his supporters won't accept it's the cost of diving as frequently as he does; I expect to see a lot of players diving and it'll always be the worst sin when it's our opponents, but there'll be a defence for our own players doing it; I expect referees will get criticised whatever decision they make, especially if they are making the decisions fans were calling on them to make ("They should clamp down on all this holding at corners, give a few penalties, it'll soon stop", "Why is he giving all these penalties for holding, are they trying to make it a non-contact sport?!"); I expect to find the fans around me annoying, and the commentators/analysts on TV even more annoying now they'll be talking about us; I expect complaints that we're on TV too much, and complaints that we're not on TV enough/other teams get more tv time than us.

I expect complaints about poor attendance at the first few games, and as there is every August, people trying to explain, yet again, it's the end of the summer holidays, families are away before the new term begins, it'll pick up in September. There will be complaints about the atmosphere all season long.

I expect complaints about early leavers ("you wouldn't do that at the cinema" - despite so many people leaving the moment the credits start, missing those extra scenes), complaints about the trains, complaints about service in the concourse.

I expect some big complaint on here about the club that gets everyone up in arms, until it is later revealed that the person complaining wasn't being entirely honest about things and deserved what happened to them.

I expect this post may be too long for a lot of people to bother reading.

Click to expand...

Betfair Bozo said:

My completely uneducated guess is that we will buy a midfielder and a striker from abroad for a combined sum of around £20m and on wages that will not exceed what the top earners are on.

Much has been made of the inflated transfer fees but the wages for "proven Premier League players" are absolutely not worth paying and not sustainable for any period of time if we want to build the foundations for a properly run club to flourish.

There is/was a thread on here about Javier Hernandez. How about Arnautovic, also gone to West Ham. I was amazed to learn he was on around 80k a week at Stoke. Even more so to read his wage at West Ham is to eclipse the 100k a week they pay Andy Carroll. I can't say I have ever considered him to be anything more than an average Premier League footballer so rather than asking can we compete on wages I would rather we didn't attempt to.

No idea how we'll go this season, we'll get a clearer picture after the September fixtures.

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