[Albion] "This is somewhat of a transition season..."

[pigmanovich]

writing off whole seasons is kind of frustrating, even when it’s understandable

Good then that there's no reason to write the season off just yet

 

[Justice]

I think we are building a club for the future, and with it the ability to keep players. The model has done brilliantly, putting us in a position where we can spend 200m and not blow the budget. All the whining brigade see is that we are not doing as well as our first season with RDZ, for some reason they cannot see the incredibly strong foundations the club is building. If you cannot see how the plan is gradually making us a better club with regards not only our financial situation but also in regards to our league performance, then meh that's your problem.

Oh and I should add, for a club of our size being a regular finisher in the top ten in the Premier League is achieving something special. I would take that level of consistency over a cup win any day. Leicester and Wigan both relatively recently achieved something special, fat lot of good it did them.

My post had nothing to with the financial stability so have no idea why you are ranting about it.
We buy young players to hopefully turn a fat profit in a year or two. Leicester’s squad got raided it’s no surprise they went downhill.

 

[rebel51]

Can't imagine pompey having 4k seats available on exchange if they were in our position against Chelsea on a Fri night or whatever day it is. I'm afraid say it palace aswell. We do have tinpot support at home really thinking about, due to us not really being a football hotbed of any sorts.Gloryhunters, daytrippers, not real albion fans just turning up to look at their phones etc, no wonder the atmospheres generally very sterile.
No Europe and fans go missing pretty easily.Im talking about the younger fraternity of supporter(not all mind you).It is what it is though and praise the Lord for our great away support, which is a lot more exciting visiting g other cities rather than going on that shitshow of trains to and from Brighton.

 

[ConfusedGloryHunter]

I would say RDZ's first season the squad was pretty strong and settled. So we were in a good place, not in transition.

RDZ's second season we resisted the sale of Caicedo, knowing it would be difficult to cope without him. This plus the large numbers of injuries led to us being in decline by the end of the season, again not in transition.

This season the decision was made to spend on a number of first teamers as we were lacking depth in more than one area. This together with a new manager with, shall we say "different", tactics makes this season a bit more transitional than in recent seasons.

Probably the last time we bought this many first teamers was after we were promoted and even then it feels like we had less gaps in the squad back then.

That our injury bonanza has continued into this season and knackered many of the new signings has just made things harder and the player churn less noticable since most of the team playing is usually from last season's "stock".

Im sure the target is still Europe for this season but I also think top 10 would be an achievement, given the injuries. And I will suffer scraping top 16 with a real hope that a top 7 push next season is possible.

I shall reserve despondency for relegation candidacy which we have come close to only towards the end of CH's and RDZ's reigns since being in the EPL.

 

[keaton]

I would say RDZ's first season the squad was pretty strong and settled. So we were in a good place, not in transition.

RDZ's second season we resisted the sale of Caicedo, knowing it would be difficult to cope without him. This plus the large numbers of injuries led to us being in decline by the end of the season, again not in transition.

This season the decision was made to spend on a number of first teamers as we were lacking depth in more than one area. This together with a new manager with, shall we say "different", tactics makes this season a bit more transitional than in recent seasons.

Probably the last time we bought this many first teamers was after we were promoted and even then it feels like we had less gaps in the squad back then.

That our injury bonanza has continued into this season and knackered many of the new signings has just made things harder and the player churn less noticable since most of the team playing is usually from last season's "stock".

Im sure the target is still Europe for this season but I also think top 10 would be an achievement, given the injuries. And I will suffer scraping top 16 with a real hope that a top 7 push next season is possible.

I shall reserve despondency for relegation candidacy which we have come close to only towards the end of CH's and RDZ's reigns since being in the EPL.

Sorry we were more close to being relegated last season than some
of Potter's?
Is this using one of our scouting hidden stat models?

 

[ConfusedGloryHunter]

Sorry we were more close to being relegated last season than some
of Potter's?
Is this using one of our scouting hidden stat models?

Candidates for relegation. As in playing so poorly we look like we will get relegated if we continue as we are into the next season. It felt a little like that in patches after Rome.

 

[Talby]

Replenish our stock? What are we, a f*cking fish farm? How Far We've Come from when we used to do the occasional marquee signing over the summer to strengthen the core first eleven. Modern Football = Modern Toss

Exactly. I know it’s the modern parlance for football as we now know it but shove the business chat. Everyone has an opinion and that’s fine by me but it’s just so dull.

Can't imagine pompey having 4k seats available on exchange if they were in our position against Chelsea on a Fri night or whatever day it is. I'm afraid say it palace aswell. We do have tinpot support at home really thinking about, due to us not really being a football hotbed of any sorts.Gloryhunters, daytrippers, not real albion fans just turning up to look at their phones etc, no wonder the atmospheres generally very sterile.
No Europe and fans go missing pretty easily.Im talking about the younger fraternity of supporter(not all mind you).It is what it is though and praise the Lord for our great away support, which is a lot more exciting visiting g other cities rather than going on that shitshow of trains to and from Brighton.

its a vicious circle.

I think the passionate away supporting youth are as despondent about the sterile atmosphere at home. My son and his mates will be there tonight but aways are more fun all round.

 

[Machiavelli]

I did consider some of these points before making my original post. I think the idea of it being transitional is closely tied to the level of performances this season and which side of the fence you sit on with regards to them.

So it's a little tricky to deal with it in isolation meaning there are a few points I'd like to cover concerning your post and mine. I'll try to do them coherently. It's quite a long post, so apologies for that!

1)Gross

I need to be careful how I say this so people don't get the wrong idea. I think he was a wonderful player for us, one of the very best in our history. Man utd have a 'holy trinity' statue of Best, Law and Charlton outside Old Trafford. If we had a premier league era one outside the Amex it'd be Gross, Dunk and March imo.

However, I don't think he was as structurally important to the team as say Baleba is to this current one, or Caicedo and Ally Mac were to RDZ's or Bissouma to Potter's. Without those players in those specific teams our team was/is noticeably worse.

He was an added bit of (super) quality on the pitch but the teams would still function well without him.

So, in that sense, no, I don't count him as significant a loss as the others.

I certainly don't think Gilmour was as big a loss either. He was a good player, great guy but not essential.

The fact that he played so many games last year in central midfield along with Gross backs up Barber's comments about the shelves needing replenishing and thus, to my mind, my point that...

2) What does this is a transition season mean?

If we entered the close season with bare shelves that needed restocking and we spend 200m on that restocking i)what previous level are we restocking to and ii) if having improved the squad by spending 200m(and yes, I know not all that 200m is for immediate short term benefit - but more on that later) is a transition season then what were the seasons when we were losing those players.

In those seasons when we were losing players we finished 6th and 11th. And the end of the 11th place season is the one where Barber is saying our shelves were bare. So why is this season more transitional than last? If it isn't then what's the point of describing this season as transitional?

I genuinely don't understand it. To me we're better equipped this season than last so how is the season where we're stronger on paper than the previous a transition season and the one where we were weaker isn't?

Which moves me on to:

3)The new signings

Kadioglu, Wieffer, Georginio, O'Riley and Minteh were, IMO all bought for immediate impact along with medium or long term potential. They don't have a lot of prem experience it's true but four of them are internationals with plenty of top level football experience along with having played in European competitons. The other has some prem experience plus a season in the championship.

Gruda I think was bought for a hopeful immediate impact but also for longer term development a la Ally Mac, Enciso, Buonanotte etc.

The fact that they've had quite a lot of injury issues doesn't negate that point. It's something to point to as to why we haven't been as coherent or as good as some would like but it's not a reason to say this season was always going to be transitional. That argument can only be made if whoever is making it is also saying that even if those players had been fit the performances/results would be no better than they have been.

I guess ultimately it comes down to how you define 'transitional'. For me, in the footballing sense, it's going form an up period to a down one where you're building back up to the up. And for the reasons I've given I just don't see how it can be considered transitional.

Sorry it's ended up such a long post.

Thanks, and apols from my end for prompting such a long post. It's difficult for me to respond, but I think you're right that many of us are interpreting transitional differently from each other.
I kind of get your point about Gross, which is highlighting the structural importance of the CM to how we play and within that the specific attributes that certain players that play in CM possess (with Caicedo, Ali Mac and Baleba being exemplars).
I'm not sure that we are better equipped this season than last, because of the lack of PL experience of the new signings (I think we disagree on that, at least). You could easily make the case that we are better equipped given the number of games we expected to play this season versus last (when we knew at the outset that we also had at least six EL fixtures). At this point in the season (eg PL game 24), we've had more injury problems than last too -- and to experienced players (Welbeck, March, Milner, Webster, Pervis, Steele) such that this compounds the lack of PL experience of the remainder.

 

[nickjhs]

My post had nothing to with the financial stability so have no idea why you are ranting about it.
We buy young players to hopefully turn a fat profit in a year or two. Leicester’s squad got raided it’s no surprise they went downhill.

Are you frigging joking, you are bitching about our business model of buying young and cheap and selling a few years later for a profit, that is about financial stability and it has allowed us to gradually increase our ability to pay higher prices and wages for players who can come straight into the squad, which if you hadn't realised also helps prevent us getting raided. I know you are very adept at posting daft comments but this one is pure gold.

 

[Questions]

I’ve got a feeling about this one

These feelings are good feelings.