I think everyone has been buoyed by the arrival of Joe Cole and the knowledge that Gerrard is going to stay. I'm as excited as anyone, though of course don't wish to get overly caught up in such excitement as we tend to think we're going to win the league each year and we haven't exactly won it....ahem....recently....
So what do you hope for/expect from this season?
Looking at last season, one we all referred to as "woeful" where we finished a mere 2 points above 8th placed Everton who had an even worse start than we did, we are surely expecting much better.
23 points behind Chelsea.
22 points behind United.
Interestingly, "only" 12 behind Arsenal.
"Only" 7 behind Tottenham.
"Only" 4 behind City.
"Only" 1 behind Villa.
I've put the inverted commas in because many here feel he have a "rightful place" as it were among the elite, but also because that the gaps between us and Arsenal/Tottenham/City/Villa don't actually look massive when you consider just how bad a season we had.
If we were to have an "average" season or even a good/great one, we're surely up there, not necessarily in the top 2, but 3rd or 4th seem reasonably realistic. Especially considering that the gap between us and Arsenal was only 12 points, with them depriving us of 6 of those points in two games we could easily have won. Which would theoretically have left us only 6 points behind the 3rd best team last season, a team with a guaranteed Champions League spot. Whilst not wishing to sound too watery-eyed and optimistic about being able to play in a tournament, as opposed to, for example, actually winning a trophy, we all know that the Champions League gives the club that extra pulling power when buying players, will entice would-be new owners, will give us those exciting Tuesday and Wednesday nights back and also brings in much-needed revenue.
Should Cole be played in the attacking midfield role, with Gerrard and Aquilani on the pitch at the same time, there is the prospect of some slick, creative football. Aquilani still excites me the most, thought highly of him when he was at Roma and thought he brought a lot more pace to our play when utilised in the latter half of last season. Even if it were a case of, for example, Aquilani OR Cole being played at times, as opposed to both, it'd be nice knowing that one of them is on the bench remaining injury-free should the other get injured.
Of course, we always know that things will go wrong. Be it a frustrating draw against Stoke, or Johnson and Carragher being injured at the same time. But for now there are definitely a few positives to look at:
Gerrard is staying.
Torres may very well stay as a result.
Mascherano might even stay.
We have acquired Joe Cole and Jovanovic.
We have Kuyt, Aquilani, Agger, Lucas, Maxi, Carragher, Skrtel.
We have an immense goalkeeper.
We have other players who may put in more effort to impress the new manager and win over the fans.
Roy, whether you like him or not, is different to Rafa and we've seen teams time and time again do well under a new manager simply due to the fact that it's different-players try harder to impress etc.
In relation to the above point, I believe we do very well with winning momentum. Just look at the beginning of the season before last, or the end of the same season after the thrashings of Real Madrid and United in one week.
The weight of expectation is nowhere near like that of before last season. I think that when we lost 2 of our first 3 games, having lost only 2 in the previous season, it was too damaging a psychological blow, creating doubt and negativity which did not help when accompanied with injuries and a beachball.
On that point of momentum and also in terms of trying to overcome the other 6 teams in the top seven, I'm very pleased that we have 3 big games in our first 5.
Arsenal at home.
City away.
United away.
With Rafa no longer at the helm, we are undeniably less predictable. People may be used to Roy's tactics and style of play at Fulham, but he didn't have resources like Joe Cole, Aquilani, Gerrard or Torres at his disposal. I always felt we couldn't beat, for example, Arsenal (except in the Champions League ) because Wenger had us sussed out. People figured out how to play against Rafa's system. Nobody knows what to expect against us, yet we know how Wenger's Arsenal will play, how Mancini's City will play, how Ferguson's United will play. I think that fact alone could arguably give us an edge going into these games.
My own personal instinct/hope/belief leads me to the conclusion that, should we get off to a good start, we should feel optimistic about achieving 4th, though ideally 3rd and hopefully get one or two decent cup runs.Particularly if we approach the League Cup, early Europa League stages and early FA Cup matches by letting some youngsters play, with a few of our experienced players on and our top players (e.g. Gerrard and Torres) on the bench waiting to come on should we go 1-0 or 2-0 down. As for the League, we all want to challenge for it (albeit a VERY tall order) and all want to try to ensure a Champions League spot for next season.
Very keen to hear what anyone else thinks we are capable of...
