Gash wrote: ↑Mon May 19, 2025 10:18 am
He's now managed a similar amount of games this season as Dyche had and the difference is night and day. Done well, steadied the ship and pulled us away from trouble quite easily. I think Dyche would have got us safe too but more because the bottom three were so poor but we'd probably be 17th on 30 odd points at best.
Big test comes in the summer now, not just for Moyes but the owners too. I still have reservations about Moyes having full control of transfers and would rather see a DOF come in but time will tell if he can still pick out some decent players at good money. We still might see someone like David Weir come in.
I don't think they are giving Moyes full control.
Angus Kinnear said they are appointing a Head of Player Identification, a Head of Negotiations, Head of Analytics, and then the CEO will also contribute along with Moyes.
They're moving away from the DOF model to more of a transfer committee model that clubs like Liverpool have been using.
He's done more than anyone expected, kicking on night be an issue but I would definitely settle for mid table and a cup run we can get behind next season. With the right additions we can easily achieve that
Standard of the 'big 6' and dropped significantly in recent years, so if that continues then I don't see any reason why we can't quite quickly turn things around.
Shogun wrote: ↑Tue May 20, 2025 3:13 pm
Standard of the 'big 6' and dropped significantly in recent years, so if that continues then I don't see any reason why we can't quite quickly turn things around.
I'd agree and go as far as saying the "big 6" as a concept has been shown as being a myth.
But I think you're doing a disservice to a lot of very well-run clubs to suggest it's easy to go from 17th to top 6 in a small time-frame.
superpull wrote: ↑Tue May 20, 2025 3:39 pm
I'd agree and go as far as saying the "big 6" as a concept has been shown as being a myth.
But I think you're doing a disservice to a lot of very well-run clubs to suggest it's easy to go from 17th to top 6 in a small time-frame.
At least, not in a sustainable/repeatable way.
Yeah the gap between the top table and the middle class of the Prem has narrowed with a combination of well run smaller clubs and badly run larger clubs. So there is an opportunity for upward mobility, but also there's a lot of very competitive clubs in that group to compete with before we even think about the upper reaches.
And that's fine. I think our fans will happily accept being in that middle group for the next couple of years at least, as long as there are signs of progress (better players, younger average age, nice/effective football).
superpull wrote: ↑Tue May 20, 2025 3:39 pm
I'd agree and go as far as saying the "big 6" as a concept has been shown as being a myth.
But I think you're doing a disservice to a lot of very well-run clubs to suggest it's easy to go from 17th to top 6 in a small time-frame.
At least, not in a sustainable/repeatable way.
Yeah, I don't expect us to be champions league or anything. I just think back to Moyes' first spell where we were normally good for to 5th-7th and that would be because 1 of them lot would generally have an off season. Where we live in a world now with Spurs/United fighting relegation whilst Chelsea and Man City have 5 spots to play with and still won't guaranteed champions league until after the final day. Even Arsenal only secured CL the other day.
It's not the closed shop it once was. With potentially half the league playing in Europe then no doubt that would benefit us as well.
TheRam wrote: ↑Tue May 20, 2025 8:29 pm
I’d be disappointed with a boring 11th place finish or something like that, especially if we don’t have a really good cup run.
I feel like we have real momentum behind us now for the first time in a long time.
If we can finish 13th with this group after the horrible first half of the season we can do something decent next season.
Need to get back amongst it as quickly as possible imo.
Part of me wonders how moving to the new stadium will affect performances, would be interesting to know what teams who've moved to new stadiums have fared like in comparison to the previous season.
In theory we should definitely be looking to kick on next season but it is a bit of an unknown how well we'll transition to a new stadium and different atmosphere.
TheRam wrote: ↑Tue May 20, 2025 8:29 pm
I’d be disappointed with a boring 11th place finish or something like that, especially if we don’t have a really good cup run.
I feel like we have real momentum behind us now for the first time in a long time.
If we can finish 13th with this group after the horrible first half of the season we can do something decent next season.
Need to get back amongst it as quickly as possible imo.
Going to need an absolutely unbelievable summer, but if we do manage that then this will be my expectation also.
Moyes, like all managers I suppose, does eventually run out of steam and the foibles become huge issues. Make hay while the sun shines, let's go and get a fucking cup.
Joint 6-9th since he took over. One win more and we'd be joint 2nd, one win less and we'd be 13th.
It's a lot better than we had before, but it's not an automatic that we do better overall next season shown by just how similar over half the leagues performances have been since Jan, but that same averageness of everyone else means with a good summer there's no reason not to dream. But it has to be a dream, not an expectation.
We need to get the bulk of our transfer business done before the season kicks off. Playing the first month while still scrambling around for players is never good and next season it may make settling in at the new stadium more difficult.
Starting well at the Hill Dickinson could make a massive difference.
