As a perennial summer window optimist I find myself slipping down the slope of pessimism this summer.

With the Zaha saga looking to finally be over, I can honestly say, thank god for that. He has been a great player for us with many incredible performances. My only regret is we didn't get the money I felt we could have commanded for him in the market at the right time. I remind myself he is only worth what someone will pay for him. Onwards and good luck to him, in the dizzy heights of the Turkish Super Lig...

More concerning moving forward is the many swirling rumours surround some of our top players.

If the likes of Doucoure, Olise (rumour says he has a 35mil buy out clause, which to me is terrible business our end if true), Anderson and Guehi leave we will be left with the likes of Hughes, Riedewald in the middle and Tomkins and Richards (maybe O'Brien) at the back.

Every club at our level has to accept that clubs will come in for your best players and that we have to do what we can to cover moves out with moves in and squad depth.

In my opinion, which obviously I'm okay for you to not agree with, our squad players are capable of filling in for a few games to cover injury but aren't good enough to compete at the level, I hope, we aim to be at come the end of the season.

Notoriously we are useless at getting deals done too, we get outbid at the last, or to conservative with our offer and players follow the money elsewhere. I don't blame the players for that, they're all mercenaries these days, have a finite career plus a family to look after blah blah. If I made it pro I'm certain I'd take 15mil a year in Saudi for example integrity be damned, I mean it probably wouldn't that much. I'm 36 it could still happen right...

So with several players linked with moves, our transfer team bringing players in dubious in their speed (and usually blaming our limited budget) plus the lack of quality outside the starting eleven, I worry that we could be in a rotten situation come the start of the season or end of the window.

I also wonder what our ambition is as a club. Viera in charge had us in freefall, so I agreed with the board on that one, and Hodgson steadies us again, as he always has, but is our goal mid table ? Is it staying up ? I laughed at Arsenal fans under Wenger saying top four champions league is like a trophy, what's our trophy ?

I think the board who after being incredible saving us as they did, which no one can ever take away from them, often has a penny pinching attitude. They err on the side of caution, which is good, mostly. We have held our position in the premier league now for 10 seasons. We have consolidated, built the training facility, which looks to have hit the standard required for our level, we have plans for the stadium, all of which is great but what are our plans for the pitch, the players and the manager.

I'd love to see a statement of intent from our board. We are in a good position with a first eleven full of good premier league quality and with an addition or two (striker, again in my opinion) could we push on a get a conference league spot ? Can we finish above the likes of West Ham, Villa, Bournemouth and especially Brighton.

Maybe teams such as City, Utd, Newcastle, Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea, Liverpool are going to sew up the top of the division with their ridiculous transfer budgets and crazy salaries. Is that just something we are accepting now or can a way around it be found ? I'm not foolish enough to suggest we attempt to match their spending (I doubt we could attract the players even if we did throw money about like transfer Todd), nor am I advocating a filthy rich Oil tycoon, or member of a royal family buy us as a distraction from their boredom of swimming through their vaults a la Scrooge McDuck. Leicester City however won the league, miraculous though it was, and reliant on a lot of those afore mentioned teams performing well beneath what they were expected to and were capable of. They put themselves in the position to be at the right place at the right time to become one of only seven teams to have won it (I'm excluding pre premier league era because we all know the league didn't exist before 92/93...)

To conclude this long winded (possibly boring ?!) post we either think inside the box, aim for 10th and hope to avoid relegation, while maybe cashing in on some of the great talent (the dubious transfer team got right Eze, Olise, Doucoure, Anderson, Guehi), which is the sort of season perhaps most of us are comfortable with, feel safe and secure about and have perhaps come to expect.

OR we take a gamble, a calculated gamble. Looking at the current squad we could go on and get a spot in Europe this season. Lets keep Doucoure, lets add a striker, lets get Olise and Eze back together lighting up Selhurst. Its not now or never but we are set up to allow us a chance be brave and go for it a little. In my opinion if we went for it and failed, we would still avoid relegation and then can default back to selling everyone off next summer, that and hopefully getting rid of Macron as a kit supplier. I can fill up another long winded post just about that so I won't start

I don't think the appointment of Roy on a one season deal is indicative of anything other than a short term strategy.

Old, Ungifted and White

A lot of our attitudes would be changed if the new stand were any sort of reality. At least we'd have something tangible. Yes, I know academy, but the fans don't really see it unless they drive past or see it on Tele. We can vaunt it all we want but it doesn't mean anything unless we get players for the first team. I've always thought our youngsters were decent but it honestly hasn't looked like any are actual Premier League starters at present. As for strategy, and I'm not being rude to the OP, I struggle to believe we're capable of having a strategy. A strategy is long term planning - yet, we seem too many times to just stick on a plaster and have done with it. Probably the most telling points are Zaha leaving for Turkey! What a Turkey frankly! And Roy reappointed at whatever age. He did well, both did well, fair enough but there's no future. Zaha this season could have mentored the youngsters, instead he's had his hissy fit over something we don't know, and gone. Strategy has continuity and change, legacy and momentum - we have none of that. We have Lerma - decent enough, experienced. One, maybe two seasons then what? We have to keep the spine of the team or we're going to have to buy genuinely established players. Hence the Laporte and Hudson-Odoi links. I guess maybe Ozoh and Rak-Sakyi next season, or maybe not. Strategy however, we don't even have tactics really - except the same ones we all know on the pitch.
I believe our ownership is the problem. Realistically we need one rich owner, not the Mish mash of different interests we have currently. The way things are we'll always be treading water, fighting fires and not winning anything. The best we can hope for is a cup final/semi final/ maybe tenth. I'm happy enough with it but is it sustainable? One would have to think that it could go wrong in any given season. Reminds me of Willo and we will go down every year. Where is that old bugger? Anyway, it is what it is I guess.

Red and Blue Army!

As a long term fan I concur entirely with this.
It’s a paradox because seemingly the only way to overcome this is to have wealthy owners from e.g the Middle East (Man C , Newcastle), but on the other hand I don’t want this.

This is true and has been followed by relegation on the occasions you mention

Edited by Elpis (24 Jul 2023 11.58am)

Good post. The reappointment of Roy is indicative of where we are: batten down the hatches and maybe we can see out another season in the PL.
It's all money; a promising young player has gone from relegated side Leicester to Newcastle for a reported £38m, basically that's what we're dealing with. Once any of our players show any promise they become likely targets, so it's up to Parish and Co to keep them sweet.
Actually I think we've done well to sustain 10 seasons in the PL, it seems to me that the strategy is based upon short term survival and circus act plate spinning skills.