Still Consistent

[ghostrider]

What are we supposed to be competing for?

Because all I see with all teams outside of the top 6 elites are teams competing against each other for the 7th spot spoils, with the potential of a cup thrown into the mix as competition bait, which many clubs appear to treat sparingly in terms of first team usage in order to allow for that assault on the top 7 spot or are willing to take the chance of going for it and forsaking going for 7th.

So what does any team need to spend in order to achieve that?
How much does a wage bill have to be ramped up in order for any club to achieve a position inside the top 10, even?

We are being coaxed into bickering among ourselves as to how much our clubs need to spend and what is value for money in transfer fees or wages, with some fans often citing certain clubs as being more ambitious because they spent 30 million on a player and £100,000 a week wages, plus a fair few 20 million buys on close to the same and yet these clubs are teetering on the edge of 7th place.

Man Utd, a club in turmoil at one stage, then a resurgence and back to a bit of turmoil, are streets ahead of 7th place.
What does that say about the 13 clubs who apparently have to match some kind of ambition with each other?


It comes down to size of club argument.
It comes down to fan base and loyalty of fans filling stadiums, regardless.
All for the privilege of being also ran contenders.

If transfer records are not being broken or massive net spends are not in our faces then we're apparently sub standard and we are happy to just avoid relegation, it seems.

The reality is, most clubs appear to be happy to avoid relegation once they've set out on the ambition road and realised they've overstepped the mark and now have a wage bill that is unsustainable as well as players becoming mercenary and disinterested, leading to a massive fall from grace and back into the mire.

Newcastle United. One club in a fairly big city. A stadium that people are proud of and a stadium that stands as a landmark and icon.
A recent past that promised success amid very few elites, yet failed because ambition could not be sustained, yet still fought for until the sustainability became spent. (Hall and Shepherd)

This is another chapter only this time we are dealing with a set 6 of elites and to play along with them will require a lot more than a Mike Ashley....but to play outside of those elites and be neck and neck with the best of the rest is achievable and can only be bettered when the elites are no longer allowed to be elites by default.

When a football club can spent a few 90 million fees and many 40/50/60 etc million fees on other players and then offer some of those players £300,000 and £500,000 etc, to command a 6th spot, then what does a north east club do to get anywhere near that?

As fans we've become ovesensitive and desensitised to many things in this modern game that's slowly being destroyed by all kinds of shenanigans that leave us all over expectant, undervalued, humble and angry and a mixture of many other things.

Nothing will ever be good enough for long enough for the football fan of today...especially those fans like us who beg for success but are not quite sure what success actually entails in this game now.

It seems more exciting winning a championship or escaping relegation by the skin of the teeth on a last day of a season that appears to be more accepted as a success rather than a flirt to reach something like 7th or 8th place and I don't mean just us, either.

But you know what?
When all's said and done, what really counts is the effort and ability of the players you have at your disposal who are willing to go out and entertain you and try for a result.
The rest is based on hope in whatever % people rest their minds on.

That's how I see it all from this point.

It's funny because, when I see empty seats at Man City games and what not, I have to wonder what success and ambition actually does mean when you get to a stage where expectancy becomes the norm and the norm becomes tedious.

It's a funny old game.

[waalsendmick]

Did anybody bother to read that?

[Geordie1974]

No need to Mick.It will be along the lines of we are where we should be,should be grateful for being in the Premier League,Rafa should get more out of the players and Ashley is right not to compete with the likes of Watford and Bournemouth.In other words Ashley is great and everything else connected to the club are idiots.
Its the same in every post.

[ex_pat_magpie]

Did anybody bother to read that?

I read the first sentence only and oddly enough it refers to the top six elite.


Now before the ugly Ashley emerged on the horizon is that not where we had the ambitions to finish each and every season.


Of course under Ashley's tenure without the help of Rafa we would be in the reverse situation and competing to be out of the bottom six.

[toonfalifekevbrown]

He's a fucking moron. If it wasn't for Rafa, we'd have at least one more relegation under him with quite possibly a double one to end up with the monkey mackems in League One. Down we go again if he lets Rafa leave.

Ashley won't give a ****e ,he has used Rafa like he uses everyone .he will see it as job done and he will think if we go down we have enough in the squad to come back up into the money league .rinse and repeat .he's spent next to nothing in the Rafa era but had made a **** full of money

[BenArfa10]

Did anybody bother to read that?

basically says we shouldn't whinge about not spending money like Fulham who spent 36 million, 26 million etc on players because they got relegated.

That argument is flawed. The whole point in competing with our relegation rivals in the transfer market is so that we don't get bloody relegated! It's funny that they're going down with all the money they've spent but to suggest we should not spend money because in some way we could end up like them is cads-wallop. They went down due to a lack of Premier League experience, experience in general give the age of some of their players, changing managers and the fact that foreigners probably need a full season of Premier League football behind them before they can be expected to produce their very best.

Also says Man Utd have spent all that money and wages just to finish 6th, why should we do the same, what's the point etc.

To that I say every club and situation is different. Are Spurs paying people £300,000 or £500,000 a week? NO! You'd be surprised that Spurs are quite tight with their wages and only reward players with big wage contracts after a few years of consistent performance and even then their wage packets don't come close to people like Ozil.

Spurs have a TOP coach just like us and guess what they've backed him (up until last summer when they have to pay for a Billion £ stadium so no incomings). He's done well to keep them in the title race as long as he did without no investment this summer. But this summer ignored, the past 3 seasons they've backed him and it's paid off. We should do the same with what we know is a World Class coach and manager in Benitez. Aye spurs have had a lot of outgoings but they've given Pochettino that money back to reinvest, do you think that would happen for Benitez under these yahoos? We only got Almiron because Benitez's contract is up in the summer.

Spurs
2014-15 - incoming transfers £43.62m, outgoing transfers £39.74m
2015-16 - incoming transfers £63.90m, outgoing transfers £78.82m
2016-17 - incoming transfers £75.24m, outgoing transfers £47.07m
2017-18 - incoming transfers £109.35m, outgoing transfers £93.42m

how cheap we are is we decided to not to pay an extra £2 million for Dele Alli so he went to Spurs.

[ex_pat_magpie]

Well summed up Benarfa10 but I have feeling we know someone who will contadict all of that common sense.

[BenArfa10]

Well summed up Benarfa10 but I have feeling we know someone who will contadict all of that common sense.

i have the same feeling

[Stanleymag]

i have the same feeling

40 points. That is what everyone outside of the top six have an ambition to achieve.

[waalsendmick]

We got 44 points last season...

We should have been looking at 50+ this season and 60+ next season... settling us in at 7th best at least...


Everybody outside the top 6 should be trying to compete with us.... not the other way round.