Since Sunday's disappointment I've been reflecting on why there's a growing divide between those who are increasingly frustrated by the way the season is panning out, and those who acknowledge this but argue "where do you expect a club like us to be?" (For the record on this theme I was talking to family members yesterday and we are of the "Potter in, but..." camp).
I wonder to what extent our expectations have been driven by ourselves and to what extent they've been manufactured by club PR? Since we reached the PL, and especially since Potter took over, we're frequently treated to interviews with football pundits and new signings praising the club's "top ten facilities" and "ambitions for the future". When Lallana joined, if I remember rightly, all the PR coming out of the club was that Adam could see past our recent league position and envisage a brighter future for the club.
Of course, the club didn't say these ambitions would happen overnight. And likewise, I understand that those are the club's ambitions and much of what they say about our facilities is true. Plus it'd be a difficult sell every year to dish out a load of pessimistic realism that we're in for another relegation fight because our finances aren't like those of the clubs around us. However, it can hardly come as a surprise to the club that fans are growing increasingly disgruntled when they are constantly telling us how wonderful our future could be, whilst the present realities show few signs of us travelling in that direction. Again, just for the record, I'd be more than content with a 14th place finish this year, indicating gradual improvement in the right direction of this so-called long-term aim.
We spend a lot of time blaming Potter, the board and the fans for either our current predicament or perspective on it. Yet I don't think the club's PR can be without fault here too. I, for one, may have had lower long-term expectations if not for everything the club has churned out the past couple of years.
Happy Boxing Day!
Good post. There is a gap between the PR and reality Potter has to manage, which to be fair we'd all like him to say something more aspirational, but he's right to call it as it is...a hand to mouth scrap to stay up whilst trying to turm the team playing style. I suspect no one found it more unhelpful than him when the Top Ten long term aspiration PR inevitably mutated into fans sentiment of a near-medium term objective.
It's a nice problem to have though. After playing at Gillingham we've been a club with long term and medium term goals and a habit of achieving them...getting out of Gillingham, getting our own stadium, getting promoted to the PL, playing interesting football, being a club with past and future international stars...making it into the top ten...who knows maybe one day dare we dream of more?