It's difficult to describe how this season met my expectations
On the surface it met them perfectly and even exceeded them in some respects
I expected us to finish between 5th-7th so we did that at the high end of my expectation
I didn't expect a cup final so again we exceeded
I didn't expect to see so many youngsters flourish and become mainstays of our team, especially the rise of Kane.
However, I did expect to see more in the way of us becoming a solid unit and showing that we were becoming a team who had "got" the managers agenda. A team showing that although this season was one of transition we had built and grown and next season would be one to look forward to
Perhaps had we ended the season like we played in January I'd have been thinking that, but we actually played as poor as we ever had in recent weeks and sneaked in to fifth by default as both Southampton and Liverpool fell to pieces worse than we did
We achieved all the landmarks I wanted to see us reached but I sit here thinking the summer requires a near complete overhaul still and that in itself brings problems bedding in a new bunch of players. It feels like next season will continue to be transitional where as I was hoping by now we'd be looking quite settled and showing that we'd developed into Poch's system and were starting to become consistent
We did show signs after X-mas though, I do think the potential is there and one can't argue with our regaining 5th spot from Liverpool. So I think overall we have to say we met expectations if not exceeded them all things considered but I'm a little worried we didn't really show that we'd become that unit yet and still looked a little disjointed and imbalanced toward the end of the season
Hopefully the right signings and more time together will still see us come out strong next year and be back to competing with the top four
On the surface it met them perfectly and even exceeded them in some respects
I expected us to finish between 5th-7th so we did that at the high end of my expectation
I didn't expect a cup final so again we exceeded
I didn't expect to see so many youngsters flourish and become mainstays of our team, especially the rise of Kane.
However, I did expect to see more in the way of us becoming a solid unit and showing that we were becoming a team who had "got" the managers agenda. A team showing that although this season was one of transition we had built and grown and next season would be one to look forward to
Perhaps had we ended the season like we played in January I'd have been thinking that, but we actually played as poor as we ever had in recent weeks and sneaked in to fifth by default as both Southampton and Liverpool fell to pieces worse than we did
We achieved all the landmarks I wanted to see us reached but I sit here thinking the summer requires a near complete overhaul still and that in itself brings problems bedding in a new bunch of players. It feels like next season will continue to be transitional where as I was hoping by now we'd be looking quite settled and showing that we'd developed into Poch's system and were starting to become consistent
We did show signs after X-mas though, I do think the potential is there and one can't argue with our regaining 5th spot from Liverpool. So I think overall we have to say we met expectations if not exceeded them all things considered but I'm a little worried we didn't really show that we'd become that unit yet and still looked a little disjointed and imbalanced toward the end of the season
Hopefully the right signings and more time together will still see us come out strong next year and be back to competing with the top four