What do you reckon?

-- Anonymous, May 06, 2000

Answers

It's deathly on here again tonight.

Most definitely Pete. We have a much stronger managerial/coaching staff, and have some good, young proven talent - Harper, Hughes, Dyer, Gavilan. Established players like Barton, Dabs, Lee, Speed, Gallacher and AS have had good seasons, and barring injuries in Euro 2000 will be key players again next season.Whatever you think about the design concept, or the way the seat allocation has been handled, we will have a stadium capacity of 52,000 next season, with I reckon at least 45,000 season ticket holders.

I'd like to see some major moves next season to really move The Youth Academy into top gear, and initiate a truly exciting pipeline of our own young talent.

-- Anonymous, May 06, 2000

Fresh from my trip to Derby for a less then sprited performance. I would say we are better as Ruud is no longer on charge and we have a manager who actually talks to the players. This alone shows inprovement on last season.

-- Anonymous, May 06, 2000

Better. More team spirit..even if they still can't quite seem to raise themselves for end of season games. It's much easier to look forward to the new season with lots of hope.

-- Anonymous, May 06, 2000

General better I would say.

Definately better prospects under wor Bobby.

But the team do seem to be suffering a bit of end-of-term-itis! (:o)

-- Anonymous, May 07, 2000

For some reason the second half of my post last night on this thread disappeared - not unlike the Toon's form after the FAC Semi!

We need to remember that we were all pretty optimistic at the end of last season that RG would use his worldwide contacts to bring in some real talent and make us competitive again, as indeed we were when TSM got us into the CL. Deja vu? As ever with the Toon - it seems that "false dawns spring eternal!"

Nevertheless, I really do feel we are in better shape this time around. BR is a proven commodity, with the only concern being his age and the potential threat of his health deteriorating. He has assembled what looks like a formidable backroom team. He has a decent nucleus of senior players plus a few young players offering high promise in Hughes, Dyer, and Gavilan. He also appears to have a reasonable tranfer budget with which to work during the close season to improve a playing squad that is frankly not good enough.

Off the playing field, we are close to completing a stadium extension that will provide a capacity of some 52,000. Ignoring the controversial issue of the overall advisability of this investment at SJP, and the unfortunate PR errors made in allocating seats, this is likely to ensure at least 45,000 season ticket holders next season, and hopefully

more noise

to propel the team forward and upward.

With the stadium work completed, I'd now like to see in the new season a far higher priority being given to the Youth Academy to begin a focus on generating a constant stream of young Gazza's to ultimately make us genuinely and consistently competitive on the both domestic and European scene - a truly 'big Club' that perhaps even Daveeeeed Ginola would have been proud to play for (tosser!).

-- Anonymous, May 07, 2000