If we keep our players and manager!

[Roger]

And strengthen goalie, centre back for jos and another striker where can we finish next season?

[Saint Fan CaM]

Top four. (Someone had to say it) (;

[Horley CTFC Saint]

Top 20

[hutch]

Somewhere between 16th and 18th.

 

Exterminate!!!!!!!!

[trousers]

1st

[Goatboy]

5th-8th

[alpine_saint]

5th with a Cup Final appearance.

[SNSUN]

17th. :-)

 

Breaking into that top 4 will be really tough, but Everton are making a good fist of it.

[kwsaint]

conference vs Eastleigh.

Edited 30 March, 2014 by kwsaint
eastleigh are going up

[DuncanRG]

It depends where we finish this season. Get into the Europa League and it'll take a lot more than that to cope with the extra fixtures and push up the table.

 

If we finish 8th, everyone important stays and we get a couple of good players in then we should be aiming for top 6 for sure.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Edited 30 March, 2014 by DuncanRG

[diggers]

Assuming the OP's premise, it's all about winning the top mini league. The difference between our current position and moving to the next stage is being able to gain more points off the top sides. If there was to be a mini league next season that included City, Chelsea, arsenal, Liverpool, then we need to be getting more points off these. This will be the measure of progress.

[norwaysaint]

Well, currently our team isn't quite as good as Chelsea, Man City, United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Spurs and probably Everton, so I'd say we should expect 8th again, but going by lucky and unlucky results, other teams progress, players having a particularly great or terrible season etc, we should hope for 6th to 10th, being shocked and delighted with higher, disappointed by lower and feeling we have nothing to complain about anywhere within those parameters, because football isn't an exact science and variables can take you in any direction.

 

I also believe we will keep MP and all of our first team regulars. To be honest I'd actually be amazed at 6th, because it would be a huge deal to dislodge 2 of the teams above us now, while hoping none of the teams below us have a resurgent season.

[nta786]

It depends where we finish this season. Get into the Europa League and it'll take a lot more than that to cope with the extra fixtures and push up the table.

 

If we finish 8th, everyone important stays and we get a couple of good players in then we should be aiming for top 6 for sure.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Well for Europa League, we'd need to finish top 6 this season.

Can't see us jumping above Everton or Spurs, which even Kelvin Davis said in yesterday's matchday programme.

[Coxford_lou]

If we had the points we've lost after being in winning positions... we'd be fourth.

[CanadaSaint]

It's probably harder to move from 8th to 6th or 7th in this division than it was to move from 14th to 8th - and there are two big "Ifs" in Roger's OP.

 

I hope we'll keep Pochettino but I very much doubt that we'll keep Shaw - and I'm okay with that. As I said in another thread, if somebody were to suggest that we pay 25-30 million for a LB most of us would say they're nuts. There's very little difference between doing that and keeping Shaw. As sad as I'd be to see him go, the money we could get for him will help to fund the players we really do need. On the LB front, Bertrand in and Shaw out, for example, would be a step back but not a huge one.

 

We don't need stars so much as players that fit Pochettino's style and are willing and able to hit the required fitness levels.

 

And we need more than just a keeper, centre back and striker - for two reasons. Firstly, the thing that hurt us most this year (when we were really on a roll) was lack of depth when the injuries started to arrive; our biggest problems occurred when we lost Boruc and/or Schneiderlin and/or Lovren or Fonte. Secondly, this need is compounded by the fact that our most effective playing style (high intensity pressing when we don't have the ball and rapid off the ball movement when we do) makes harsh demands on individuals; our bench needs strengthening so that we can use that style in all games (we haven't this year) and maintain it for longer in each game.

 

An inability to "put teams away" when we're on top has also hurt us this year - that's where Osvaldo was supposed to come in, but that went pear-shaped and left us with no time to react when it did.

 

And silly individual errors at key times have also hurt us, but some of those have been caused by the very style that has made us successful - highly involved full backs pushing forward at every opportunity.

 

With depth added, using players that fit Pochettino's style, I think that 5th-6th is quite attainable (and some of those players could well come from the Academy). Without that, I'd say that we're about where we should be. If Pochettino goes, all bets are off.