It Begins

After 3 months of purgatory, we are back. Strap yourselves in. We're about to plunge down the other side of the rollercoaster.

Any discussion of our chances this season seems to be based around how well Man City are going to do. Personally, I think their transfer activity this season is some kind of cruel joke. Has their ever been a more colossal waste of £150 mil? Who exactly has made these transfer decisions? Because you can pretty much guarantee Mancini wouldn't have spent £5 mil on Ray Houghton, let alone £30 mil on James Milner.

I can hardly think this without guffawing out loud, like some nutcase, but is it actually Brian Marwood buying these players? Really? Brian Marwood? Sky Sports League 1 co-commentator extraordinaire? That explains a few things then. Yaya Toure is a poor man's Seydou Keita. James Milner is Steve Guppy on shedloads of creatine. David Silva was only ever any use as David Villa's lickspittle. Jerome Boateng - what are you actually buying here? A right back? A centre back? Helloooo!! Anyone at home??? Balotelli is going to be the black, attacking version of Marco Matterazzi. The PL will be too much for him, and he will be reduced to a foaming bucket of tears with alarming regularity.

Liverpool will be more of a threat. And that's not saying much. Jovanovic is a decent player, but really nowhere near the standard required for what Liverpool want to achieve. He will be like a slightly less clumsy Dirk Kuyt. Everton will be useful, but will ultimately be crippled by their manager’s simplistic, conservative playing style.

This just leaves Super Spurs. Transfer activity has been quiet, but I can't help but feel that's a good thing. The prospect of Micah Richards and Scott Parker left me cold inside. I've seen enough from the Kyles to suggest that both will be pretty decent players for us this season. Naughton looks ridiculously comfortable on the ball, and is a proper defender to boot. Walker looks like a truly awesome product, someone who will probably end up playing CB or CM. With some of Jordsy and Bondsy's magic coaching juice, I can see these players both making great strides this season, and not ending up drifting, aimlessly....like Micah Richards.

Sandro will soon be arriving, and interestingly enough O'Hara remains on the scene. I can't believe there have been no loan offers for him yet, but I also can't believe that Harry plans to actually play him. Maybe he is waiting to use the lad as a makeweight in a future transfer deal.

I like to think that Levy is playing an influential role in transfer dealings. I like to think he has told Harry he's not wasting 10-15 mil on mid-level domestic players. Ultimately, our best players (Gomes, Bale, Modric, Hudd) have not been established, PL players. They have been foreign imports or Championship wunderkids. I like to think Levy has realised this. Having said all that, the more the summer has gone on, the more I've warmed to the idea of getting Bellamy in. But to do so, Keane would have to leave. Levy's business mind probably won't allow him to let Keane leave for less that his value, but I have a feeling he will be off before the window closes. 

Harry knows something is missing up top. We heard his slightly uncharacteristic dressing down of Defoe on more than one occasion last season. It's almost fate that Dos Santos played his way back into the reckoning in Africa. I for one, and Harry for two, must be excited about the prospect of pairing him with Big Pav. Expect Defoe to start, but don't be surprised to see him yanked for Dos Santos at the first sign of stagnation. Playing Dos Santos in an inevitably more withdrawn role will also probably necessitate playing Bale on the left, as his penetration up front will be much needed.

But it seems Harry is set on playing young Gareth at left back. Probably they key to all this will be how well Sandro plays in the centre of midfield. If he turns out to be the player we all hope and dream of, then Modric will play on the left, and Bale at left back. If he doesn't, then it's Modric in CM and everyone favourite hairstyle, Benoit, at LB. I have implored Harry to buy another left back, but I suppose if you intend Sandro to be a first team regular, you don't need another left back. But we'll see. One of our strongest aspects last season was our ability to adapt and change and think on our feet, so if Harry has to make some tough choices, he'll make them.

I think a vast majority of our transfer activity will take place after Tuesday night. If we win, expect Crouch, Keane, or even both to leave, and some heavenly being to ride into town to lead us to the Promised Land. I haven't given up hope on Forlan yet. I'm half suspicious that some kind of deal has already been struck. We can dream can't we? Didn't do us any harm last season did it.....

Harry has already laid down his marker for the season, much in the same way as he did last season. We all recoiled in horror when he boldly proclaimed 4th was well within our grasp. I suspect that due to the success of his wild talk last season, we were all slightly less horrified than we might have been to hear him talk up our title chances. But bear in mind, this boast is also a veiled threat to the squad. He's saying 'you lot are good enough to mix it with the best, and if you don't, I'll ruthlessly root out those who are holding us back'. Some players will take it as a threat. Some will use it as motivation. Some will feel the proverbial ten feet tall. This is who it's really aimed at. The likes of Gomes, Bale, Modric, Hudd and King. They know what is expected of them, and to be honest it's no less than they expect of themselves.

Game on.

by guest-blogger Chrisman.

Expectations for 2011

Pre-season has officially began, and I'd hazard a guess chairman and manager are looking at one or two targets, presumably not the ones that are publicly stating they do not want to join us. Hype might be something Man City are tagged with because of the money they continue to spend (on quality players) but let's not pretend that we - THFC - are not just a little bit under pressure for the season ahead. Harry might do his best to deflect attention but there is no doubt that having finished 4th, we'll have to aim for more of the same once again, so to not end up a footnote in the history of the Prem as that team that finished 4th then didn't do much after that.

So, what of expectations?

Work Ethic

We finished 4th. We've got to the next stage, and we got there through sheer hard graft and belief. Qualities that we have lacked in the past, but now have in abundance. We need to not just continue this ethic but must better it, simply because the teams around us will no doubt believe they are not far off from where we sat at the close of last season. City, Villa, probably Everton too and quite obviously Liverpool - all of them will be looking to improve. Can't be resting on the past - which is exactly what last season is (be it a lovely warm glowing past). No cigars please.

Champions League

Simply this: Get into the group stages. Would be gut wrenching to miss out. I'm not suggesting once there we have any specific set of expectations, rather just get into the group stages and enjoy the experience - without fear. We'll be up against seasoned clubs with plenty of CL experience. Let's lose our cherry in style, under the floodlights, pushing the ball around the park with a bit of swagger. It's important, mainly because if our players get a taste of it - the proper stuff - they'll want it again the following season. If we get into the groups, I'd be made up to get out of them but I'm not exactly getting all delusions of grandeur about things. One step at a time.

4th Spot

We might be about to witness a new dawn in the Prem where teams 'share' 4th spot and possibly even 3rd. A gangbang with only one or two achieving the fabled moneyshot. We need to be looking at 4th as the priority. The longer you spend within the top 4 the easier it should get with each passing season, mainly because guaranteed CL football increases stature and thus increases the likelihood of players NOT rejecting you because you're not part of the elite.

Players

It's simple. Our best players need to stay and can't be sold off and to do this they have to perform well - the whole team does - because if they do then there's not that much of a reason for them to want to bugger off, not if we are progressing well. Selling key players only leads to more transitions and more reconstruction work. It's best avoided, but the irony is, its the very same players who need to work their magic for it all to come together. Also, yoof players, it's about time some of these youngsters make an impact. i.e. Bostock. Far too often, we fail to see any of the potential materialise leaving us frustrated. Possible reasons? We over-rate the kids we have. Not that Bostock is one of ours (signed from Palace, not academy). As for the academy players, probably asking too much to see them this season. But there's promise there. We need a new home bred hero.

The FA Cup

No reason why we can't have another cup run. Our squad is big and bad (good) enough to deal with the fixture list. Not so much the Carling Cup though (ooh, look at us getting all big billy bollocks, you've changed man, you've changed).

That will do for now. Oh, and the moon on a stick. If available.

More on individual players later in the week.

Champions League Fixture Build-Up

by Fox Mulder

NOTE: After drafting this entry, Spooky enlightened me on a quite ridiculous rule that basically states that he isn't allowed to publish a premier league fixture list without paying a substantial fee. It goes something like this:

Fixtures from the four Leagues (Premier League, Football League, Scottish Premier League and Scottish Football League) are copyrighted to the Leagues and again cannot be reproduced without the relevant agreement in place. The license fee for showing the Premier League fixtures on your website within a club by  club order is £5,320 + VAT per season. Further fees can be identified on our website, www.football-dataco.com.

What delightful people.

So with that in mind, I hope the following makes sense to most of you.....

The other day I was flicking through the Mirror's fixtures pull-out and performing the annual ritual of working out where our good runs might happen, checking when we've got the goons and Chelsea, seeing which away games I could make it to, how many points I expect us to have by Xmas etc. You know the drill.

But this year I found myself doing something totally alien yet pleasantly exciting (matron!)

A glance across the page showed the schedule of Champions League fixtures for 2010/11.

Apologies if this is massively tempting fate and jumping the gun a little. But by christ this world cup has been pretty depressing so far. Not least because I'm living in Ibiza with my girlfriend at the moment and she won't let me watch all the games. "This is supposed to be my break from football" she decries, happily drowned out by the monotonous drones of 60,000 vuvuzelas.

Anyway, SUPPOSING we make it through the qualifiers, here's our fixture list intertwined with the Champions League group stage fixtures (i've stopped short of the knock-out rounds - if we get that far you won't need me to spell out the fixtures for you):

August

14 The team from Manchester that aren't as good as the other ones (H)

17/18 CL play-off 1st leg

21 Long-throw merchants that play in red and white (A)

24/25 CL play-off 2nd leg

28 We beat them 9-1 (H)

September

11 Not East Bromwich (A)

14/15 Group matchday 1

18 West Midlands dog-like creatures (H)

25 Dirty East End Pikeys (A)

28/29 Group matchday 2

October

2 Claret and Blue Brummies (H)

16 Formely Harrods FC (A)

19/20 Group matchday 3

23 Scousers that play in Blue (H)

30 The team from Manchester that are better than the other ones (A)

November

 2/3 Group matchday 4

6 Notlob (A)

9 Darren Bent and his new mates (H)

13 Dull Northern team managed by a fat bloke with delusions of grandeur, initials S.A. (H)

20 Trophyless foreign team based off Holloway Road (A)

23/24 Group matchday 5

27 Scousers that play in red (H)

December

4 Brummies that play in Blue (A)

07/08 Group matchday 6

11 Double-winning scum (H)

You often hear Fergie/Rafa/Arsene moaning about how they have a tricky away game after a champions league match blah blah blah so how does it pan out for us?

First the play-offs:

Stoke away after the first play-off leg having played man city only a week before - very tricky baptism of fire stuff.

Wigan at home after the second leg - a bit easier but will be the 5th game in 14 days, although you'd hope a few of the league games will get shunted back a day or so to accomodate.

Then (hopefully) onto the group stages:

Game 1 - followed by Wolves Home - about as kind as it could get provided we take them a little more seriously this time!

Game 2 - Villa Home - thankfully another homer but villa will be hard. hopefully they'll have also played in europe that week

Game 3 - Everton Home -  Another home game? The gods are smiling. Although Everton are another very tough and physical side to play after midweek european exploits

Game 4 - Bolton Away - well we never win there anyway and won't be fun if the lads have just flown back from somewhere like Russia

Game 5 - Liverpool Home - hopefully we'll turn them over again but the fact we have Arsenal away 7 days previous may take it's toll on the players. I guess it depends on if they decide to revel in the succession of massive games or shrink like Frank Lampard in an international tournament.

Game 6 - Chelsea Home - another massive test but a lot will depend on whether we've long been knocked out/qualified from our group or if it goes down to the final game.

So presumption aplenty then.

5 home games following midweek Euro exploits and an away trip to an average side. Sounds good on paper. It's enough to get Ol' Red Nose's cheeks a burning. But then consider that 4 of those teams are all rivals to the top 4 places this season.

But what is plainly obvious is that dining at European football's top table may leave us with a little bit of indigestion when it comes to the bread and butter of league football and trying to equal/better that fourth spot. Obviously we can't truly judge the fixtures until we know who we might play and where, but it doesn't take a genius to see that we are going to need to add a lot more real strength in depth to the squad in key areas. 

Exciting times.

RIP the Carling Cup...