Pardew: “We won’t get Champions League football this season”
Posted on March 30th, 2012 | 16 Comments |
This is what Alan Pardew had to say about his 3-year plan for the club:
“You want to be in there competing, and we have done that.
“Whether we get a European place will probably be decided by fate more than anything. We have had a great season regardless of the European spot, and we want to do that again next year.
“By hook or by crook, in the next three years it would be nice to get some sort of European football or win a trophy. That’s the goal.
“We won’t get Champions League football this season, I just think that’s too big a gap to bridge – five points on Spurs, and Arsenal are probably away from us now.
“It’s too much, they are too good teams to catch with eight games left.“
It’s probably a fair assessment. At the start of this season I reckoned we’d most likely finish in the 9th-11th area and would have considered it a huge success to finish 8th. In the context of our season as it stands at the moment though, I’d be disappointed if we didn’t finish at least 6th and I can see why Pardew might think fate would have a hand in whether or not we get to Europe in those circumstances. It could all come down to who’s in the FA Cup final and who wins it.
We could take fate out of the equation by getting 5th place of course and I’m beginning to think that might just be within our grasp. I think we’ll know better after this weekend because if we can cope as well against the team one place below us as we did against West Brom last weekend, there’ll be good cause for optimism.
As to the next three years, I think European football and/or winning some sort of trophy is a decent aim. Of course Pardew’s hopes need to be backed by Ashley or they’ll never be realised. We know how things go by now and must expect a certain turnover of players to fund the club, but the balance will need to be spot on because we can’t sell every good player and still harbour desires to lift trophies. One of the biggest problems might be hanging on to players we don’t want to sell when the rich clubs come knocking on the door.
Incidentally, I’m sure ‘fate’ is the only reason my village cricket team have only won one match in three years. It has nothing to do with us having eleven number 11 batsmen and bowlers for whom hitting the pitch is an achievement let alone hitting the stumps.
Anyway, what do you think?. Are Pardew’s aims too pessimistic, too optimistic or pretty much correct?
it seems quite reasonable to me. The obvious problem is strength in depth. The defense in particular is severely taxed ATM.