2023/24 - The Race For..................

[CookieYiddo]

I’d be very happy with a Europa spot. That would be a very good first season in the new project

 

[Goobers]

Yeah return to European football would be very welcome. Tough to go this season I think but achievable

 

[Joe Bjorn Hotspur]

With the average age of the starting line up and squad being trimmed down with the likes of Udogie, Van de Ven, Skipp, (pending Orban) it’s a proper rebuild: one of the Europa spots would be going in the right direction.

A full reset of expectations, first enjoy the attacking football then when things start to click we can start thinking of the next stage of pushing further.

I haven’t looked forward to watching us play every game in 5 years! Top 6/7 would be a nice start to Postecoglou’s reign and of course taking those domestic cup comps seriously.

 

[Bromavinci]

I think we will be ok - pushing around 6th / 7th realistically... hopefully...

I would take that this year

 

[C1w8]

Race for 5th but if we finish 6th with decent football it's a good season

 

[Kingellesar]

Still think we will surprise a few people this season, we still have a fairly good squad. Once Bentancur comes back, I see no reason we can't get 4th or 5th. But to do that, we need Bentancur back and still need 1 or 2 more signings.

 

[Snarfalicious]

Still think we will surprise a few people this season, we still have a fairly good squad. Once Bentancur comes back, I see no reason we can't get 4th or 5th. But to do that, we need Bentancur back and still need 1 or 2 more signings.

Agreed. A trimmed squad means being able to add more suitable signings to round us out. But, as always, we are about 2-3 quality signings away from a really damn good squad. Let’s hope we can do that, because as the European competitions get going, it’ll be a huge advantage for us to not be in them, and having a relatively settled squad.

 

[Rout-Ledge]

Aim has to be CL but EL would be good.

 

[Rocksuperstar]

I know this is off topic but whenever I see this thread, I end up humming The Race by Yello for the rest of the day. Not a bad thing, just thought I'd share.

Oh, and we're going to win the league. Every year, until we mathematically can't, no matter how unlikely, that's what I'm singing for.

We're going to win the league.

 

[HNIM]

I think we'll be a lot like Bielsa's first Leeds PL squad until around the end of October, a bit of a wild ride. If we don't get the players we need, that will continue all year. If we get the right players in in the next two weeks, starting in November I could see us going on a 10-15 match run where we pick up a lot of points, and then at the end of the season we'd find out how much character the team has in a chase for European places.

 

[Tucker]

Yeah return to European football would be very welcome. Tough to go this season I think but achievable

Yeah, Europa / Europa Conference are actually our best hope of silverware too.

 

[WiganSpur]

Aim has to be CL but EL would be good.

I think i'd take an EL spot right now. The league is fiercely competitive.

 

[Goobers]

Yeah, Europa / Europa Conference are actually our best hope of silverware too.

Also will allow the stepwise development of the squad and team to be in one of these in my opinions. But getting top seven will be tough for us this season.
but for the profile of the squad European competition at this level would be very useful.

 

[Stamford]

Anything 7th and above is acceptable imo. Cant afford to finish without European football again

 

[Frozen_Waffles]

There are a lot of wild cards out there. Will Chelsea get back to form, will Liverpool recover, how will Arsenal, Newcastle and Man U deal with CL.

Even City have lost few players, Mahrez Gundogan and now De Bruyne to injury.

We are even more of a wildcard, but without Europe and if things work out with Ange we should be challenging for top 4 imo.

No idea though, probably the most difficult season to predict in a long while.

What was weird was watching the Chlesea Liverpool match, not knowing if both teams are actually good.

Even United were outplayed by Wolves the other day. Us vs United on Saturday will be fascinating.

 

[fishhhandaricecake]

Yea honestly I think 5th will be our highest position this season and we will be somewhere between 5th-8th.

A lot of it will depend on how the rest of our transfer window goes!

IF we can sign another top CB, a RW and a Striker then I'd back us for 5th which will hopefully be a CL place but right now I think:

• City & Arsenal will be very consistent and too far ahead of us.
• Newcastle & Man.U will be pretty strong but might dip a bit once they start their CL matches.
• Liverpool will be pretty strong.
• Chelsea will be a bit up and down like us but as of now and with their spending power probably edge our squad just.

I'm pretty confident we will finish above Villa and fairly confident we will finish above Brighton especially with them both being in Europe.

If Fulham or Brentford get near us then they'll have had incredible seasons or we will have had a stinker again so I'd like to think those types of teams can be ignored in this 'race' this season.

So the Q is really:
-How much will Newcastle & Man.U drop off because of CL footy? (unlikely that it'll be enough for us to catch them in the table)
-Can we be as consistent as Liverpool will be? (unlikely at this point in the project imo)
-How consistent will Chelsea be and can we be better than them?

1) Best case wildest dreams: we sign 3-4 top players in the remainder of the window (CB,CM,RW,ST) find our feet very quickly, the other teams above are hit and miss and we finish anywhere from 3rd-5th and we win the FA Cup.

2) More realistic case: we leave ourselves short in 1-2 areas, the team take a good few games to properly settle into I'm a hipster ball, we aren't as consistent as most of the teams above but play some lovely football, go on some good cup runs, set the foundations for year 2 of the project and finish 6th or 7th.

3) Bad season: we don't sign anyone else of any real significance the rest of this window, our defence gets exposed a lot, we lack the firepower to consistently win games now Kane is gone and we finish anywhere from 8th-10th.

That is how I see it anyway but lots of factors there which can swing it different directions.

Either way I expect it to be a far far far more enjoyable season than any of the previous 3-4 years just hope we can have a strong end to the transfer window and really give Ange a chance to have a really solid first season on all fronts.

 

[fishhhandaricecake]

There are a lot of wild cards out there. Will Chelsea get back to form, will Liverpool recover, how will Arsenal, Newcastle and Man U deal with CL.

Even City have lost few players, Mahrez Gundogan and now De Bruyne to injury.

We are even more of a wildcard, but without Europe and if things work out with Ange we should be challenging for top 4 imo.

No idea though, probably the most difficult season to predict in a long while.

What was weird was watching the Chlesea Liverpool match, not knowing if both teams are actually good.

Even United were outplayed by Wolves the other day. Us vs United on Saturday will be fascinating.

If City and Arsenal don't run away from the pack then this could actually be one of the most incredible exciting PL seasons possibly ever, there would be a good top 8 or so teams all who on any day can beat each other.

 

[spurs9]

Appreciate there are issues at other teams in the top 7/8 but we still have huge glaring problems.
The amount of space we afforded Brentford at times will get punished by better teams, our midfield is wide open just like United's was yesterday.

Work in progress and I accept we're in a longer term rebuild. We'll do very well to be top 8 this year IMO.

Man Utd conceded 6 in their first 6 games, including 4 v Brentford but by the end of the season, only 2 teams had conceded less.

We are in the early stages of playing, pretty much the complete opposite way of last season, so it is hard to judge how are defence will be.

 

[fishhhandaricecake]

Man Utd conceded 6 in their first 6 games, including 4 v Brentford but by the end of the season, only 2 teams had conceded less.

We are in the early stages of playing, pretty much the complete opposite way of last season, so it is hard to judge how are defence will be.

Very true! Even the Brentford game was a game of two halves really, 1st half we got exposed a lot, 2nd half we controlled the game and possession way way more and only got sucker punched a few times, if most of our games are like 2 halves like the 2nd one then we will probably end up with a half decent defensive record, if most of our games are like 2 versions of the 1st half then we will concede about 100 goals in which case lets hope we bloody sign that RW and Striker we need as we will need to score about 150!

 

[SpartanSpur]

Yea honestly I think 5th will be our highest position this season and we will be somewhere between 5th-8th.

A lot of it will depend on how the rest of our transfer window goes!

IF we can sign another top CB, a RW and a Striker then I'd back us for 5th which will hopefully be a CL place but right now I think:

• City & Arsenal will be very consistent and too far ahead of us.
• Newcastle & Man.U will be pretty strong but might dip a bit once they start their CL matches.
• Liverpool will be pretty strong.
• Chelsea will be a bit up and down like us but as of now and with their spending power probably edge our squad just.

I'm pretty confident we will finish above Villa and fairly confident we will finish above Brighton especially with them both being in Europe.

If Fulham or Brentford get near us then they'll have had incredible seasons or we will have had a stinker again so I'd like to think those types of teams can be ignored in this 'race' this season.

So the Q is really:
-How much will Newcastle & Man.U drop off because of CL footy? (unlikely that it'll be enough for us to catch them in the table)
-Can we be as consistent as Liverpool will be? (unlikely at this point in the project imo)
-How consistent will Chelsea be and can we be better than them?

1) Best case wildest dreams: we sign 3-4 top players in the remainder of the window (CB,CM,RW,ST) find our feet very quickly, the other teams above are hit and miss and we finish anywhere from 3rd-5th and we win the FA Cup.

2) More realistic case: we leave ourselves short in 1-2 areas, the team take a good few games to properly settle into I'm a hipster ball, we aren't as consistent as most of the teams above but play some lovely football, go on some good cup runs, set the foundations for year 2 of the project and finish 6th or 7th.

3) Bad season: we don't sign anyone else of any real significance the rest of this window, our defence gets exposed a lot, we lack the firepower to consistently win games now Kane is gone and we finish anywhere from 8th-10th.

That is how I see it anyway but lots of factors there which can swing it different directions.

Either way I expect it to be a far far far more enjoyable season than any of the previous 3-4 years just hope we can have a strong end to the transfer window and really give Ange a chance to have a really solid first season on all fronts.

Genuinely think positions 3-8 are near impossible to predict. I think there are two huge factors that could cause a lot of deviation amongst that pack.

1) Transfer business in the rest of the window

2) Key injuries that occur in the season (Bentancur was killer for us last season)

Utd and Liverpool clearly need to bring in a top quality DM. If they fall short there I can see both having very inconsistent seasons. Question marks about two massive players in VVD and Casemiro in age drop off (we know in the PL players can fall off a cliff). Both seem to have gone a bit heavy on #8/#10 type midfielders this summer.

Both of the above and us also need better CB depth IMHO.

Newcastle look gravy but as you say CL football is a huge undertaking for a club not used to it. Same goes for Brighton and Villa, who have even thinner squads.

I actually feel quite good for us under Ange. I still hope one of Son or Richy will adapt to the striker role, with Orban as a potential x factor if he comes in. Early signs are that Udogie and Emerson are very well suited to the inverted FB roles, which is a huge difference to last season where we had no capable RWB and a knackered Perisic! We seem to have a really nice blend of CM options (our other key weakness last season). VDV also looks very promising. Also think no Europe is being massively underrated by a lot of people.

Chelsea have insane CM options now - probably 2nd to Real Madrid in the world - but still question marks over where regular goals will come from. They also have injury prone CBs and such a bloated squad for Poch to try and manage.

Pretty confident we'll be in Europe in some form next season. Anyone saying we'll be bottom half is being way too pessimistic/dramatic IMHO.