What does a good season look like now?

Before a ball was kicked, a good season would have been 3rd place and reaching the final 8 in CL.

Now, a good season in the wake of the ongoing injury crisis would be 5th and making it out of the group in CL.

City should walk the league and Liverpool and Arsenal should comfortably finish ahead of us. It's on us to distinguish ourselves from Spurs, Brighton, and Newcastle.
 
We can still make top 4 just fine. At this stage last season, we had three more points than we do now. We got third place. Keep in mind, too, that there's a good chance that 5th place brings CL qualification this season. If we imagine that City, Liverpool and Arsenal are very likely to take top 3, the main candidates for the two remaining spots are Newcastle, Tottenham and United, with a smaller chance for the likes of Brighton and perhaps Chelsea if they can turn things around soon. Even if things are poor right now, we're one of the likely candidates for top 5 over the course of a whole season. Once this team gels, there's no reason we can't have just as good a season as the last one.

A cup's entirely possible as well. We won one last year and reached the final in another. One of the big clubs always have a piss-easy run in one of the cups and there's no reason that couldn't be us. That or we can simply win it without an easy run. It's not as if there are any teams against which we have no chance whatsoever. City is probably the only side where it would be a legitimate upset if we won a game against them, and even then, not that much. We beat them in January.

Six games is far too early to say much about how a season will go. We lost our first two games last season and finished third and won a cup. People are panicking too much. It's been a tough opening to the season with away games against Arsenal and Spurs, and a home game against Brighton in the form of their lives. We've had one of the most difficult fixture list so far of any team in the league. Things aren't great at United right now, but they're nowhere near as hopeless as many seem to think. In most games, we've been the better team for the first half hour. All we need is to work out how to maintain that throughout a whole game and we'll be one of the strongest side in the league.
 
The injury crisis has come early on. Which is rather fortunate, assuming that’s the worse of it.

We have to believe from the top 5 at least 3 will have bad patches. So there really is no excuse once the majority of players are back to not get back on track.

A good season. Top 4, do well in the CL. But above all else start playing good football. Once the players are back there’s no reason for ETH to not get criticised for the things that Ole got criticised for. And I say that as someone who always thought Ole was a very poor manager and coach and rates ETH very highly.
 
Top 4, which will be tough as Arsenal, Liverpool and City are guaranteed to finish above us. Means us, Spurs and Brighton fight it out for the rest.

5th place isn't a guarantee of CL - the English teams in the CL are unknown this year. Conceivably only City could make it past the QF, and if Spain and Italy both do well they could get the extra CL spots.

The problem we do face though is our best players - the likes of Shaw and Fernandes are getting older. If we want to challenge it needs to be sooner rather than later. We need a top RW and a strong midfielder like Szobolozsai - if we get that we can challenge. The problem is our recruitment isn't great - if we had gotten someone better than Antony/Sancho and Mount in for those positions we could've had a stronger season and challenged for things. If we don't get recruitment right in the following summer then I can't see us challenging anytime soon as the older players will need replacing and the cycle of an incomplete first XI will continue.

Liverpool for example have done tremendously well to replace Firmino/Mane and their whole midfield. It gives them a lot of leeway for replacing a single great player like Salah in the future, whereas we constantly need to sign 3-4 players because the ones we sign aren't great.
 
I just looked at the table - I hadn’t even realised we were already 9 point off City. Kin hell
 
def need to see an improvement in the quality of play. That burnley game was dreadful to watch. I have no idea what our strategy is to play out of the back, because everyone just stands still while Onana puts his foot on the ball. Our attacking patterns need a shit ton of work too.
 
Have people never watched a league before?

Bar City who are likely to be freaks we have every chance of coming 2nd. I don't think we will, but in this thread it's been phrased as some kind of miracle scenario which is nonsense.
 
Why would you recalibrate your expectations for a good season just 6 games in?

Surely, if you fail to meet your expectations you just label it a bad season. What do you get out polishing a turd? Just call it as it is.
 
Chill out for goodness sakes. Same as expectations were on game week 1, CL places finish, signs of stylistic changes/more goals and hopefully CL knock out run.

Yes we have a huge amount of injuries but it’s game week 6. No idea how other teams will look in a few weeks let alone months. You can only compare the off field issues at the end of the season as mitigating factors. We need to get our heads down and work hard.
 
marktan said:
Top 4, which will be tough as Arsenal, Liverpool and City are guaranteed to finish above us. Means us, Spurs and Brighton fight it out for the rest.

5th place isn't a guarantee of CL - the English teams in the CL are unknown this year. Conceivably only City could make it past the QF, and if Spain and Italy both do well they could get the extra CL spots.

The problem we do face though is our best players - the likes of Shaw and Fernandes are getting older. If we want to challenge it needs to be sooner rather than later. We need a top RW and a strong midfielder like Szobolozsai - if we get that we can challenge. The problem is our recruitment isn't great - if we had gotten someone better than Antony/Sancho and Mount in for those positions we could've had a stronger season and challenged for things. If we don't get recruitment right in the following summer then I can't see us challenging anytime soon as the older players will need replacing and the cycle of an incomplete first XI will continue.

Liverpool for example have done tremendously well to replace Firmino/Mane and their whole midfield. It gives them a lot of leeway for replacing a single great player like Salah in the future, whereas we constantly need to sign 3-4 players because the ones we sign aren't great.
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Top 5 is highly likely to be CL. It's Europa League and conference league that comes into it as well. There's far more English sides in these cups than others, and they're far more likely to go far, or at least through the group. Would be really surprised if England isn't one of the 2 nations that get a bonus spot.

Brighton IMO will have a tough time once they get going with the travel and their squad gets stretched. Europa League schedule is taxing and squads like theirs aren't built for it. They are coached excellently, but you need depth, you need more individual quality that they don't have, you need to know how to manage it... they had an easier schedule with a better squad last year, and barely passed 60 points. It's a big ask for them to get CL with added Europa games while losing Caicedo and Mac Allister. Newcastle have to be considered, but I also think they'll face similar issues.

The season is young, but I fully expect it to be us with the top 3 as you say, and I originally was thinking between Chelsea and Spurs for the last spot as their schedules will be piss easy so easy to maintain good vibes and fitness. Looks like Spurs is the one who will have that and though it's early, I'd be very surprised if they don't get top 5.
 
julia roberts visits the training complex.
 
Skills said:
Why would you recalibrate your expectations for a good season just 6 games in?

Surely, if you fail to meet your expectations you just label it a bad season. What do you get out polishing a turd? Just call it as it is.
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Well, given that Top of the table has maximised on points. Those that were expecting a title challenge would need to to reconsider and that's not just results based, it's performance based where we've looked 2nd best in most of our fixtures.
 
1. Professionalising the playing squad: Weeding out every single snake and every lazy player in January or priming the catapult for summer.
2. And intimately related to the above point, seeing a team playing united and carrying out a tactical plan consistently.
3. Getting top 5.

Cup wins or even a 2nd place finish won't come close to finally getting rid of the malaise that affects the club. Of course it stems from the ownership, but you can still create a firewall between those cnuts and the footballing side of the club.
 
bosnian_red said:
Top 5 is highly likely to be CL. It's Europa League and conference league that comes into it as well. There's far more English sides in these cups than others, and they're far more likely to go far, or at least through the group. Would be really surprised if England isn't one of the 2 nations that get a bonus spot.

Brighton IMO will have a tough time once they get going with the travel and their squad gets stretched. Europa League schedule is taxing and squads like theirs aren't built for it. They are coached excellently, but you need depth, you need more individual quality that they don't have, you need to know how to manage it... they had an easier schedule with a better squad last year, and barely passed 60 points. It's a big ask for them to get CL with added Europa games while losing Caicedo and Mac Allister. Newcastle have to be considered, but I also think they'll face similar issues.

The season is young, but I fully expect it to be us with the top 3 as you say, and I originally was thinking between Chelsea and Spurs for the last spot as their schedules will be piss easy so easy to maintain good vibes and fitness. Looks like Spurs is the one who will have that and though it's early, I'd be very surprised if they don't get top 5.
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Oh didn't know Europa and conference counted. Is it still equal weighting to each for the points? If so then yeah it'll easily be the PL.

If it's top 5 then yeah it'll likely be us or Brighton, in which case I'd favour us. Though Brighton played a compeltely different side in Europa, so they may rotate for it and prioritise the PL instead.
 
marktan said:
Oh didn't know Europa and conference counted. Is it still equal weighting to each for the points? If so then yeah it'll easily be the PL.

If it's top 5 then yeah it'll likely be us or Brighton, in which case I'd favour us. Though Brighton played a compeltely different side in Europa, so they may rotate for it and prioritise the PL instead.
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It's weighted for sure but not sure how much. But it has a big enough impact that it should be pretty comfortable. But yeah we'll see how hard Brighton go across the cups. League cup away to Chelsea on Wednesday. I'm assuming they're going to go for some cups and not drop them all out to focus on CL qualification, don't think that is the right way to progress as a club but we'll see what they do.
 
- Top 4
- UCL quarter finals
- Emergence of Mainoo and Hannibal in midfield
- Sancho leaves in January
- Glazers sell before Xmas
 
5th if it means Champions League but I think it will be a struggle now with the likes of Spurs, Newcastle, Brighton and Villa all looking better than us.
 
UpWithRivers said:
So you came into the season thinking we've spent another 200 mill and we will be no better than the previous season. Probably worse. Start the season sht. What does that say about Ten Haag?
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Eh? What are you talking about? When did I say that? You just didn’t understand my post, it’s ok.
 
We’re a weaker side than City, Scousers, Arsenal and Spurs, I think top 4 is a long shot so 5th wouldn’t be a bad outcome given everything we’ve had to deal with.
 
Top 4 and start to see an identity/decent football. Couldn't give a shit about cup runs. We need to start seeing progress otherwise what's Ten Hag actually doing. Also, better performances/results against the like of City and Liverpool.
 
lex talionis said:
Top 4 would salvage a pretty horrific start to the season.

I’d like to see us advance out of the group stage in the CL.

Nice domestic cup runs.

But at some point we need to play decent football.
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Agree. I'm not sure I'd classify scraping results together enough to get top 4 as a good season now.

Honestly if anything I'd take missing on top 4 but things really starting to click and us to start dominating some sides. A year full of 1-0's like the Burnley win isn't really any sort of progress.
 
Top 4 and a trophy, maybe a decent run in the champions league. But more importantly to start seeing a more fluid and cohesive style of play which I believe will come in time once ETH gets to start playing his first choice eleven.
 
Getting rid of the Glazers so that we can finally start with proper long term planning.
 
Getting back into the Champions League and hoping we have new owners and leadership in charge for the summer transfer window.
 
Not sure there is much of a reason for a good season to look different to what it would have at the start of the season, to be honest. Top 4 being a much harder battle but still the aim (progressing on 3rd was always a pipe dream), a good run in the CL and maybe a domestic trophy. The bad start to the season due to injuries, some crappy decision making (by ourselves and officials), bedding in of new players in a chaos of selection issues and an underappreciated tough set of games makes it look worse, but honestly we would likely have always had these issues at some point.

The main aim has to be the development of a team identity and playing style, and nothing that has happened so far affects that (even if it doesn't look close as of now). It's not even October, too soon to be revising expectations really.
 
redshaw said:
Finishing with a +GD
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:D :D :D

Appletonred said:
Hannibal, Mainoo, Pellestri, Garnacho, really stepping up and Utd somehow going on a long winning run would be great to see, plus new ownership, sooner than later, I'd be more than happy with that.
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So those minor things achieved and the season would be "good"? Thats generous.

Doracle said:
- Top 5
- Defined style of play
- Deadwood out
- Targets lined up for next summer before season end
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I guess that is where I am at as well. Results shouldn't deepdive but if we miss CL it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world (it only would be if it meant that ETH would be sacked). The performances have to improve and it would be really great to see improvements in some stylistical aspects of the football pitch and good preparation for the next transfer window.

Dansk said:
A cup's entirely possible as well. We won one last year and reached the final in another. One of the big clubs always have a piss-easy run in one of the cups and there's no reason that couldn't be us. That or we can simply win it without an easy run. It's not as if there are any teams against which we have no chance whatsoever. City is probably the only side where it would be a legitimate upset if we won a game against them, and even then, not that much. We beat them in January.
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Not entirely sure but weren't we that club last year? At least in the league cup afaik
 
Second. We are literally six games in you numpties…

We win 3 games in a row we are top 4. Runs in the premier league are hard to do.
 
Top 4, quarters of the CL and a decent FA cup run, but with a fully fit squad maybe a bit more ???
 
Always maintained it's going to be a see-saw season for us with good and bad moments. So far on the balance, there's probably been more bad. Season trajectory from the first few games (and the club) looks like it's going down. However, things can change quickly.

A lot has happened that is out of our control. This injury crisis for example. Not to mention the circus off the pitch with all the statements/situations evolving. Even in the games, some decisions haven't been going our way unlike last year.

But I think we will grow into the season. I am expecting top 5, a domestic cup run right now even if that looks unlikely to some.

5th might be enough to get us UCL. For Top 4, we'll have to kick on like now with these run of games. If we don't, fear we could be in a similar situation to Liverpool last year with the injuries, they got into form when it was too late.

Other things:
- Must sort out this horrendous away record to the top 6/9 sides. That has to be written in bold letters and underlined in every team talk.
- Establish our best 11 and start to see us control games better.
- Get out this UCL group. I know there's a lot of negativity around it but no excuses. Galatasaray haven't played knockout football since 2013.
- Mainoo having a breakout year would be nice to see. Hannibal from 2 games has already shown he can be a decent squad option.
- Clearing some of the deadwood and Sancho out from the squad in January would be a bonus.
 
We had a poor start to last season and turned it around, we’ll do the same this year. Good season will be a second or third placed finish, plus bringing young players like Amad, Kobe, Hannibal, Garnacho, Rasmus into the team and a title challenge over the next 2 years.
 
Poor summer for me Hojlund, Mount, Onana and Amrabat relatively poor on paper with what the squad needed which is quality over quantity. Top 5 is the maximum expectation this season.
 
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