Are we taking finishing 2nd for granted?

Sky1981

Fending off the urge
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Apr 12, 2006
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Under the bright neon lights of sincity
Are we? With 6 clubs battling out for the league our fans seems to be quick to dismiss finishing 2nd as a failure. It has been a while since we finished 2nd.

Please dont turn this into a net spend, or how we are united and anything other than 1st is a failure, and please dont turn this into a jose bashing thread.
 
Who has taken 2nd for granted? I'd be shocked if we can get 2nd this season.
 
"Give Jose more credit for his incredible achievement of finishing 2nd".
 
We wont finish 2nd this season. If we will finish top 4 that would be a good achievement with everything going on at the club
 
We are 3 transfer windows behind where we should be
The moyes and let windows didn't help

2nd was a huge improvement given where we were a few seasons before.
Given the players we had at our disposal I think 2nd was the best we could have done last year - granted we might have got more points from certain games but I think we needed to finish top 4 at the least.
 
Oh OK, I see now. But 2nd last season was pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good table-wise, and an improvement. I was hoping for top three.
 
2nd is the expectation for Mourinho. If he gets the team sorted out from this rut then we should do it, Liverpool are favourites every year until they lose away to Burnley or West Brom. If he doesn't get it sorted out, he won't be here at the end of the season and expectations change drastically depending on who replaces him.
 
We will finish 3rd in my opinion, but like last season we will be much closer points and performance wise to the 4th 5th and 6th placed teams as opposed to the teams that finish 1st and 2nd.
 
Sky1981 said:
Are we? With 6 clubs battling out for the league our fans seems to be quick to dismiss finishing 2nd as a failure. It has been a while since we finished 2nd.

Please dont turn this into a net spend, or how we are united and anything other than 1st is a failure, and please dont turn this into a jose bashing thread.
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No. We arent.

Our rivals for second imploded and left the door wide open for us. Finishing second was decent however we should have put up a bit more of a fight for the title. Thats it. Oh and we were awful to watch which doesnt help.
 
I seriously doubt we'll get second. I'm actually taking it more for granted that we won't.
 
red4ever 79 said:
We wont finish 2nd this season. If we will finish top 4 that would be a good achievement with everything going on at the club
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What exactly is ‘going on at the club?’. Us not managing to sign Alderwiereld?
 
Ekeke said:
No. We arent.

Our rivals for second imploded and left the door wide open for us. Finishing second was decent however we should have put up a bit more of a fight for the title. Thats it. Oh and we were awful to watch which doesnt help.
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"Putting up more of a fight" is easier said than done when the winners break the all time points record.
 
Some people are, I didn't. It was progress, not as much progress that I would have liked, but progress. Highest we've finished in years after all. Man City had an absolutely fantastic and unprecedented league season as well. The concern is for this year that we have regressed again. I find it hard to believe we'll get second currently.
 
Those that want Jose out will treat it as a failure despite it being our best position since SAF's retirement.

I think they are severely downplaying this achievement and to be frank, I would be fairly surprised if we make second this year.
 
No. It seems that we have two main type of fans. The ones that put an emphasis on the destination and the ones that put an emphasis on the journey. The formers are satisfied while the latters are at least skeptical.
 
stu_1992 said:
Some people are, I didn't. It was progress, not as much progress that I would have liked, but progress. Highest we've finished in years after all. Man City had an absolutely fantastic and unprecedented league season as well. The concern is for this year that we have regressed again. I find it hard to believe we'll get second currently.
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This.

We could've done better in several games but 81 points in would've been enough to win the title under more competitive seasons (e.g. 15/16). It's just that city found their groove and smashed records with some slices of luck so our progress wasn't nearly as noticeable.

Now I'm under the impression that we haven't really made much progress from last season and even regressed but at the same time we haven't played too terribly and 34 games is plenty enough to correct our course from the disaster season we were supposed to have, just need to avoid true horror shows like vs Brighton away (both last & this season!) and vs Sevilla home.
 
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There are different types of 2nd place finishes. And while it was an improvement on everything that came post-Fergie and generally not a bad result, we were far away from challenging for the title — which has to be the expectation for a club of our calibre. And, obviously, the result got somehow underappreciated because of our underwhelming transfer campaign. I (and most of us, I assume) was expecting something along the lines of Chelsea's 14/15 summer, where they identified their weaknesses and signed 2 world class (or close to it — at the time) players in Costa and Fabregas and comfortably won the PL.
 
JPRouve said:
No. It seems that we have two main type of fans. The ones that put an emphasis on the destination and the ones that put an emphasis on the journey. The formers are satisfied while the latters are at least skeptical.
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Seems a fair summary. For me I'm the former, progress is progress so 2nd represents that for me, for the other groups its failure because all they can enjoy is trophies.

I do wonder how close to City we'd have had to finish for the other lot to be satisfied. If City had finished on 90 does that become satisfactory?
 
JPRouve said:
No. It seems that we have two main type of fans. The ones that put an emphasis on the destination and the ones that put an emphasis on the journey. The formers are satisfied while the latters are at least skeptical.
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We have had so many exciting moments in the past 2 seasons, but it's all ignored because the team doesn't play the way someone wants to. That's not emphasis on the 'journey' it's the customer mentality that treats the club like a toy.

Someone that doesn't want to watch United play because of style of play doesn't give a toss about the 'journey'. They only care if the journey suits what they want.
 
Smores said:
Seems a fair summary. For me I'm the former, progress is progress so 2nd represents that for me, for the other groups its failure because all they can enjoy is trophies.

I do wonder how close to City we'd have had to finish for the other lot to be satisfied. If City had finished on 90 does that become satisfactory?
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The simple fact that you ask about points shows that you don't really understand. It's about how we do on the pitch, about the way we execute as a team, about looking like a team week in week out and not having the constant up and downs. Even today, we are jacks of all trade and masters of none which for me isn't good if you have for ultimate ambition to consistently be at the top.

Personally I like football, I have my preferences but in the end as long as we don't play old school catenaccio, I'm happy with the style. What I want from the coaching staff is simply to build a team that masters a particular approach because no club can reach and stay at the top without mastering its own game and it makes squad upgrades easier and clearer. Our approach in the last two years has been a mid table approach, I'm not saying it in an insulting way but that's what we have done but we did it with top table talent which leads to two things, you can potentially reach 2nd place but you will also struggle against good teams that master their own game like we did against Sevilla, it put us in a context where there will be a high variance in terms of performances.
 
Second place wasn’t a failure then and it isn’t now.

There’s no way we’re finishing equal or higher this season. I thought Mourinho did extremely well to take this squad to a top two finish (and another cup final) last year.

I’m in no-way knee-jerking to our slow start but I’ll be pleasantly surprised if we beat out two of Chelsea, City, Liverpool or Spurs to a top three finish top this season.

Fourth is about par for this team as is. Fifth would be disappointing although not unexpected. I held this opinion before a ball was kicked and I still hold this view now.
 
Meh, Last season was decent but lets not paint it as anything more than that. We were still 19 points off with the title done by Christmas. 2nd this season will once again be decent but depends how far away we are.
 
Ekeke said:
Not really. They put a lot into their team, we did the same. The difference was the result
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Transfer fee is just a snapshot of a million different conditions at that very specific moment; if we spend £200m on Hazard and another team gets Messi on a free do you expect us to win because of the fee?

Fact is they've spent better since 2008, and more for good measure. And then they were just freakishly good even considering their superior quality.

The key point to consider when simply expecting us to have cakewalked to 100 points isn't even our spending relative to Manchester City, but our transfer superiority relative to the rest of the league as this is who we play most of the time; in SAF's heyday almost half the league still operated on a sell to buy policy.
 
Did anyone? 2nd would be a huge win this season and it’s very unlikely it happens. We simply do not have the best players or squad, so 2nd would be great
 
For god sakes someone change the title of the thread because clearly the OP is not referring to this season
 
JPRouve said:
The simple fact that you ask about points shows that you don't really understand. It's about how we do on the pitch, about the way we execute as a team, about looking like a team week in week out and not having the constant up and downs. Even today, we are jacks of all trade and masters of none which for me isn't good if you have for ultimate ambition to consistently be at the top.

Personally I like football, I have my preferences but in the end as long as we don't play old school catenaccio, I'm happy with the style. What I want from the coaching staff is simply to build a team that masters a particular approach because no club can reach and stay at the top without mastering its own game and it makes squad upgrades easier and clearer. Our approach in the last two years has been a mid table approach, I'm not saying it in an insulting way but that's what we have done but we did it with top table talent which leads to two things, you can potentially reach 2nd place but you will also struggle against good teams that master their own game like we did against Sevilla, it put us in a context where there will be a high variance in terms of performances.
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Still seems a bit of a condescending separation of glory hunters vs visionaries.

Maybe some people see the direction of both playing style and end result even if the present doesn't put it under your nose for you.
 
I'm not talking it for granted. It was very good to go from 6th to 2nd.

If Jose is saying it was an overachievement then I wonder can he do it again.

Liverpool have strengthened and Chelsea always seem to bounce back well, could be a battle for 3rd and 4th with a range of 3rd to 6th where we end up.

If we forget what City did for a moment, 81 points while good doesn't get you second even in typical seasons of the last ten years. 81 points often nets you 3rd or 4th, with the top two in the higher 80-90 points so it's still quite a way off usual performance. Only on rare occasions can 81 points get you second or win the league. We're 10 points off our last league title in 2013.

In
2008 we'd come 4th with 81 points
2009 we'd come 4th with 81 points
2010 we'd come 3rd with 81 points
2011 3rd on 81 points
2014 4th with 81 points
2016 3rd
 
Rozay said:
What exactly is ‘going on at the club?’. Us not managing to sign Alderwiereld?
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Internal tension/disagreement between the manager and CEO which has gone public. Our most expensive player and his agent angling for a move away and the situation with Martial where Mourinho clearly doesnt want him and the club are then offering him a 5 year deal.
 
endless_wheelies said:
Still seems a bit of a condescending separation of glory hunters vs visionaries.

Maybe some people see the direction of both playing style and end result even if the present doesn't put it under your nose for you.
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There is nothing condescending, no judgement of value. As for your second sentence it's kind of ironic because it reads like a description of visionaries while I said that some will simply look at the way we play and have an opinion about it.
 
endless_wheelies said:
Transfer fee is just a snapshot of a million different conditions at that very specific moment; if we spend £200m on Hazard and another team gets Messi on a free do you expect us to win because of the fee?

Fact is they've spent better since 2008, and more for good measure. And then they were just freakishly good even considering their superior quality.

The key point to consider when simply expecting us to have cakewalked to 100 points isn't even our spending relative to Manchester City, but our transfer superiority relative to the rest of the league as this is who we play most of the time; in SAF's heyday almost half the league still operated on a sell to buy policy.
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Yes. I expect that if we invest, we invest well instead of wasting money.
 
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