Mad, irrelevant, illogical or all of the above things people say to justify their own personal fear of failure:
1) Look at Charlton, be careful what you wish for.
2) We should never have got rid of Murray
3) Roy Hodgson is doing well compared to our other managers.
4) Clinging on to premier League survival is more important that trophies.
5) It's the players' fault for long term underperformance

Ambition and expectation are not the same, All clubs have ambition, it’s how you achieve it not easy.

The past is very relevant, as all the top clubs have a history of success going back years, trying to break into that group is virtually impossible. They have a vested interested in keeping other clubs below them and use their financial muscle to do so, generally buying clubs best players.

All clubs outside the top 6 have a fear of failure, as relegation is just devastating to a club in financial terms. You want change and more success, so did many other clubs that are now desperately trying to get back into the Premier. In our current financial state, I just can’t see the benefit of getting rid of Roy.

Cheers mate. I'm not quite that established, but fair play. It's now or never for me. We've got to turn this stint in the Prem into trophies or higher positions. As it stands we will go down soon and then it's back to square 1.

Definitely. Just how exciting would it be to finish 9th?? 8th even?? Can you imagine? Awesome.

Or rather it makes no difference. Not really. This is how it is, how it was always going to be, and how it will be. Success goes to the wealthy at the top table (other than for the very occasional aberration.) The rest of us just scrabble around for their scraps and try not to look too bored as we keep ourselves busy. We all know this, surely.

There are the established top 6 teams tieing up the business end of the Premier with 2, maybe 3, others - again, generally those with (and typically wasting) a good few quid - trying to squeeze into that group. After that it's largely a free-for-all other than for usually 1 or 2 teams stinking up the place up and another 1 or 2 above them starting to whiff a bit. Any of the 9 or 10 or so 'middling' teams can finish anywhere from 8th or 9th to 16th or 17th, in any given year, given a few vagaries. There's very little to choose between them. And even less to get excited about in the difference.

Painful truth is it's actually more exciting to be defying the odds to avoid relegation than it is to 'succeed' to 8th. 8th! Whoo! Who gives? Stick that on a scarf. "We're by far the 8th-best team, the country has just seen." Sing up... And is it worth spunking an unaffordable shedload of money to be able to do so?

Cup's always a - relatively slim - possibility of course but that's the lottery everyone says - unless, again, you're one of the big boys. So you can't really do a lot of planning for a cup run - best you can do is give it a really good go every time. I totally get why people say the glory of a cup win beats league survival. That's my instinct too, but I probably need a guarantee of the cup win to warrant risking our future. And they're not around. And would spoil it anyway. And as 2010 felt like it nearly killed me, y'know...

So that's that. Unless we find a load of cash down the back of somebody's couch then this is it. If it's the excitement of success you're after then sadly you'd be better hoping for us to get relegated again. (Which we will before long. All of us 'middlers' will at some point.) Maybe yearn for us to 'do a Pompey' if you're feeling really kinky! Otherwise, better get comfy...

As a woman, I can step aside, or step up my game...

Completely disagree.

9th and then 8th is progress. Progress brings exposure, exposure brings sponsorship, sponsorship brings investment.

It's what we do with that investment. We don't need a benefactor to realistically be competing to win the league/fa cup, or the uefa cup off the back of that or a strong league finish.

We've got one of the largest catchment area in Europe, yet our youth team isn't even top tier, nor has it produced anyone other than AWB creditworthy in nearly ten years.

If we invested in youth and scouting we could progress.

Regarding history, look at how sustainable success has always been built from Celtic to Liverpool, from United to Arsenal. Youth.

Success breeds success. A top 8 finish, which I think is achievable with this squad, a top youth set up feeding in talent which can be used to build and sold on to reinvest is the way forward.

Keep just aiming to survive and seeing no difference between 8th and 17th is a self fulfilling prophecy. We will go down.

I cancelled my season ticket at the end of last season because I wasn't being entertained.
These guys get good money but there is no fight in their belly. They should have had a real go against City, nothing to lose. But as usual they were so predictable and surrendered in the usual way.
Is the manager or the players at fault? Why start with CB? He has lost any kind of form. Rather a youngster started.
I get more excited at the thought of Cardiff winning their next away game and I can do that in the comfort of my armchair!
Good job we've had some excellent away victories otherwise we would have been joining Fulham and Huddersfield.