What is the actual aim this season?

The justification for the ticket increases were that it enabled the team to be competitive. That suggests a push for the automatics, in what everyone considers a weaker league this season.

If the clubs ambition all along was to maybe finish in the playoffs, that’s shocking.
 
We don't quite have the players. Nothing against Borges, but he's not Ryan Giles, we are constantly having to juggle centre-halves because of injuries, and the central midfield is a problem against the biggest teams in this division.
 
changingman said:
Are we supposed to be "having a go" this season? Don't recall that being communicated publicly, certainly no more so than promotion being the objective for every one of the 24 sides in the league.

Barring absolutely everything going right over the course of 48 games and some massive slices of luck, I genuinely think autos are probably beyond our reach for a while, given the distorting effect of PP. Appreciate there are exceptions to this rule but I think it will become less likely over time.

Think Rav is probably right above. The sustainable recruitment model is probably the most important factor. Success isn't just measured on the pitch but in the clubs finances too. We could narrow the gap to the autos quickly, but it would not be a great financial move.
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It certainly was communicated publicly.

In multiple interviews by our director of football.

We've also spent more than most teams in the division this summer to try and back it up.
 
Nano said:
If so then that is frankly unacceptable because there is a massive disconnect between the ambition of being an eternal championship club and charging premier league prices. We charge fans the highest prices in the league. Where is the justification for the prices if the club's ambition is making the playoffs once every few years?

I can live with being a midtable championship team but I want midtable prices to match. For the prices we charge I expect success.
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THEY would say that to be more competitive we need higher revenue. So we charge more.

You, as a consumer, are perfectly within your rights to disagree with that vision and refuse to contribute to it, however.

But the club aren’t going to suddenly start performing better just because you’ve pointed out that the tickets are expensive. Their goal is to win promotion, I think that’s clear. It’s up to us all as individuals how long we give them to achieve it suppose.
 
Playoffs should always be the goal, having a go at autos if everything falls right for us which I do think it could have this season but I'd never have that as an expectation.

The club should be in a position now where we don't have to rebuild if it fails like we did under Monk, we might lose some players along the way but that will be through choice rather than necessity. As long as we're in and around the playoffs we just keep going again until we eventually crack it.
 
Chappy112 said:
Playoffs should always be the goal, having a go at autos if everything falls right for us which I do think it could have this season but I'd never have that as an expectation.

The club should be in a position now where we don't have to rebuild if it fails like we did under Monk, we might lose some players along the way but that will be through choice rather than necessity. As long as we're in and around the playoffs we just keep going again until we eventually crack it.
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Exactly this, imo.

I think a lot of people confuse “having a go” with “definitely ensuring”.

I’m having a go at winning the lottery this week, doesn’t mean it’ll definitely happen!
 
TeaCider said:
It certainly was communicated publicly.

In multiple interviews by our director of football.

We've also spent more than most teams in the division this summer to try and back it up.
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Ok, to be fair I missed that. At best it's a vague statement anyway. No guarantees in sport etc. It's incredibly subjective too. Could be argued that we are having a go by competing at the top end of the table? Although I can see those who may feel the club have made a rod for their own back with that statement.

Personally I always felt we'd be one of the teams challenging for the top six, but that is a realistic aim for at least half of the division and there are so many variables across a season. I certainly didn't expect top 2, I don't think many people (including those within the club) did either.

We definitely spent well pre-season but the overall value of our squad is still well away from the top sides in the league imo.

I think we're probably performing "to par" in terms of league position currently but it would take significant investment for me to be confident of a top 2 finish in future. And ultimately I don't think the club wants to risk that significant investment (a position I empathise with to be honest).
 
Even if we “miss” our objectives for this season, what does that really mean? Tear up the whole plan and start again, again? For the 7th time since Karanka or whatever it would be?
 
He could have said:
Mid-table will do me.
I'll get a decent pay-off if I get the sack.
I made my millions at a "big" football club, and I want the Newcastle job.

But he's a sincere professional, and we have to trust him.
We could always get relegated and do well in the third division - like we weren't that far off only a few seasons back :eek:
 
Quicksilvera said:
We’re a player or two off being one of those top 2 sides in my opinion.

We are very close and we will get in the play offs this season, the doom and gloom is just unnecessary at this stage.
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Yippee we shot ourselves in the foot yet again, couldn’t be happier about our dreadful game management at times, poor passing, naive decision making, when we lack quality my heart sings……… is that happy clappy enough for you?

I don’t like it when people try to pretend things are better than they really are, nobody is doom and gloom, people were rightly speaking the truth. Hackney said we were loose and sloppy was that unnecessary from him then?
 
atypical_boro said:
Even if we “miss” our objectives for this season, what does that really mean? Tear up the whole plan and start again, again? For the 7th time since Karanka or whatever it would be?
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Hopefully not, we keep building under Carrick. I’d sooner play how we do and take the odd hit and improve year on year till we do make it. We have a nucleus of a good team that needs the squad strengthening in midfield and full back in particular. The left hand side (or the lack of one) is a worry as we are too one dimensional on the right. We need to reign back in over committing men forwards especially against the top sides. I know all that sounds a lot, but I think it is achievable, some of it is coaching, some of it is down to recruitment.
 
We should have been competing at the top end for top 2. We never have been because of the start.

Someone posted our form on another thread. 13 points from the last 7 games. That's competitive form. We aren't struggling to compete because we lost last night or drew to Burnley on Friday. They are two of the toughest games of the season.

We are where we are because we have 2 points from

Portsmouth - Home
Preston - Home
Bristol City - Home
Coventry - Home
Blackburn - Home

We've dropped too many points at home in games we should be winning if we want to compete for autos.

We'll probably drop out of the top 6 tonight but we've got a relatively soft run of games coming up and a chance to put a decent bit of form together if Carrick can pick them up after last night. We should be able to get ourselves back in a play off position by the end of the year.
 
We started the season badly. Again. We lost just about any hope on automatic promotion in the first 10 games. Again.

We have to be happy with the play offs.
We just cannot keep enough players fit. I am sick of saying this - it cannot be bad luck that we are losing players, week after week, through injury and this has been going on for 3 or 4 years.
How many centre backs do we need in the squad? 10?
How many decent midfielders? Another 10?
 
B_G said:
Portsmouth - Home
Preston - Home
Bristol City - Home
Coventry - Home
Blackburn - Home
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Hit the nail on the head.
On paper - not ‘tricky’ games. Unlike the tricky games Sunderland face which will see us above them shortly apparently 😂
In the meantime all our games will be straightforward …….

To the OPs question - there is little doubt in my mind promotion was the objective and tbf I think the investment and decision making on players was supportive of that.

Carrick’s job is to get the best out of them - we know we are inconsistent.

As per an earlier thread - Leeds, Burnley and Sheffield U likely to finish above us.
Blackburn, Sunderland are doing really well given their resource and, if they keep doing what they are doing we may not catch them.

We are then in the mix for the last spot.

Things may change - not sure myself tho
 
Top 3 is already gone in my opinion, we've already lost 7 of the 20 games we've played (35%). When we went up under Karanka we only lost 9 all season and only just got over the line on goal difference.

Us and Sunderland should be good enough to fill 2 of the other play off positions. Then it's getting over the Play off HooDoo, What is it now we haven't even scored in our last 5 Playoff games.
 
changingman said:
Ok, to be fair I missed that. At best it's a vague statement anyway. No guarantees in sport etc. It's incredibly subjective too. Could be argued that we are having a go by competing at the top end of the table? Although I can see those who may feel the club have made a rod for their own back with that statement.

Personally I always felt we'd be one of the teams challenging for the top six, but that is a realistic aim for at least half of the division and there are so many variables across a season. I certainly didn't expect top 2, I don't think many people (including those within the club) did either.

We definitely spent well pre-season but the overall value of our squad is still well away from the top sides in the league imo.

I think we're probably performing "to par" in terms of league position currently but it would take significant investment for me to be confident of a top 2 finish in future. And ultimately I don't think the club wants to risk that significant investment (a position I empathise with to be honest).
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We aren't competing at the top end of the table. We've never been near the top end. We're 10 points behind with less than half the season gone. We're on course to scrape into the playoffs and finish 25 points behind the autos. That's competing with the middle, not the top. We've had a good bit of form but the majority of the season has been poor and in that good bit of form we've picked up wins and scored goals against really poor teams and we've had typically midtable patchy form against the better teams. We're capable of beating top teams but we also lose to dross semi-regularly. We are in no way competitive this season. That's not to say that we can't get promoted but the chances are much lower than they will be for the teams that consistently perform at the top end.
 
viv_andersons_nana said:
We are 10 points off the top and 8 points off second, the team in second place has a game in hand and has had 2 points deducted. This is after only 20 league games. If this is replicated over the next 20 games we are 20 points off the top and at least 16 off second.

We have lost a third of our games and have conceded 25 goals, the second-worst in the top 10.

We are supposed to be ‘having a go’ at the top two but to me we look miles off it. It will come across as negative and I suppose it is tbh but we were supposed to be competing for automatic promotion.

Our ambitions have been downscaled since the end of September and I don’t like it. We are supposed to be better than this. The whole season was geared around it. We were not supposed to be pinching 5th or 6th place, at a push.
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I couldn't have put it better myself. This squad of players have been mis-managed. We play some great football but its at the expense of being effective. This was our season to really compete and we haven't. The management team have to take responsibility for that.
 
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