Thinking the unthinkable : Winning the League next season - It's alright, we're on

rcoobc

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The makings of something great?


Since Sir Alex left, we've always been 3 or 4 players away from a real title charge. Yes Mourinho finished 2nd, well done. I'm sure he'll put that 2nd place certificate on the wall above pictures of his Champions League triumphs *unless he threw the certificate into the crowd as well.

But I'd like to say that today, we're not 3 or 4 players away from a real title challenge; we're only one player away. Stick a RVN into that team and it would chase 95 points. Or a Keane to control the midfield.

Cast out the negativity of yonder years I say. Be gone, the demons of the past.

In all seriousness, City will probably walk the league if they aren't playing in Europe and Liverpool will probably win the Champions League just to show off.

But I don't think there can be any excuses with that team. If Pogba stays, anything less than a title challenge isn't good enough.
 

Ollie Derbyshire

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If we can get a better centre back, one with pace to burn and Sancho for example for the right wing, we could compete for it with some luck on the injury front.

Put VVD into that team and I think we’d be good to for it.
 

bosnian_red

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Sancho is what we're missing, and a more dynamic CB to partner Maguire, but nah it's too soon for title. We could challenge, depending on the level of City and Liverpool. If they can't repeat the last few years and the title winners are around 90 points, then I think we can challenge but would fall short. If we add Sancho to the team and have some good injury luck, we should be targetting lower 80 point range IMO. Give players like Greenwood another year to develop and really step up and then I think we can challenge more seriously.
 

LawCharltonBest

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Need a left back.

And we need someone to really push Martial. Good hat trick recently but generally I don’t expect him to score. I don’t think we’ll win the league with him as our main striker
 

adexkola

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We're getting close to the point where the bottleneck will be Ole's ability to maximize the talent in his squad, not the limitations of the players.
 

charlenefan

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Nah we're still a bit off challenging for the title, we're obviously on the right track but Rashford, Martial, Pogba have to do it for an entire season (injuries have stopped that this season), once that's been proven then you'll need to tinker the squad with the final pieces of the jigsaw

The aim for next season should be 3rd and a trophy (albeit I guess in theory we could still win a trophy this season)
 

Ollie Derbyshire

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Need a left back.

And we need someone to really push Martial. Good hat trick recently but generally I don’t expect him to score. I don’t think we’ll win the league with him as our main striker
No way is LB is a priority, Shaw gets so much negativity on here it’s unbelievable
 

Nickelodeon

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One more quality addition each to attack and defence. For midfield, if we’re lucky to have both Bruno and Pogba available for most of the season. This is what is needed in the squad on paper.

Whether we have that mentality needed to have consistency in the league is another matter.
 

rcoobc

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Sancho is what we're missing, and a more dynamic CB to partner Maguire, but nah it's too soon for title.
If it's too soon for a title, in 12 months time it could be too late. Pogba will gave us maybe one more year (I don't blame him). De Gea is declining or may just choose for a new adventure.
 

Ollie Derbyshire

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I think if we started the season playing behind closed doors that would help us even more compared to Liverpool for example
 

JB08

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fecks sake. I know it’s good to be optimistic but this really isn’t going to happen. Perhaps in 3 years at best.
 

Maluco

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Don’t have the squad depth to compete with City + 300 million over 38 games. It won’t happen next season I’m afraid.
 

BenitoSTARR

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There’s not many better in the PL in my opinion
I mean I was joking cos that’s what we paid for him...

But I can’t think of one that’s head and shoulders above him that would keep our left flank pretty sound. Think people look at Robertson and think every side has to have one of those LBs when the reality is most aren’t as good as Shaw.
 

El Zoido

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Leicester won it so never say never, but I reckon we’re a couple of years off yet. And we still have to continue to make the right decisions in every regard for the foreseeable. This is a thread I can see being bumped a month in to the season when we’re already off the pace.
 

DWelbz19

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If the starting XI (plus at least two additions) stays fit all season, we have a chance. Otherwise we should be a comfortable top 4. Comfortable. Like a 3rd best team.
 

SalfordRed18

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Sancho, a CB and actually maybe a consistent reliable midfielder and you could dream?
 

Ali Dia

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No chance. If we invest well we will comfortably make top 4 though and the group will have another year together which is very important. This does have the makings of a very good team eventually but where I think we will really come into our own next year is in the cups. If we get sancho and another attacking midfielder and we make the CL I would see us as a seriously good value bet. if we are serious and start to fix what needs fixing and we can keep our best players fit then we absolutely can go toe to toe with anyone on our day. What we don’t have is the squad to win the league, outside of our first 11-14 players the drop off is still too big. It’s going to take a few years to build a good enough squad to compete on all fronts again
 

Bwuk

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No chance without investment.

If Pogba or Bruno get injured we don’t have anyone who can fulfil their creativity.
 

King Eric 7

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I think we'd have a much better chance of winning the CL (if we're in it). I dread to think how many transfer windows we need to have a squad capable of winning the league, especially one this competitive.
 

Ollie Derbyshire

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I mean I was joking cos that’s what we paid for him...

But I can’t think of one that’s head and shoulders above him that would keep our left flank pretty sound. Think people look at Robertson and think every side has to have one of those LBs when the reality is most aren’t as good as Shaw.
Agreed mate, can only think of Robertson and he fits the Liverpool style perfectly, no guarantee he’d be the same player for us
 

Pexbo

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If it's too soon for a title, in 12 months time it could be too late. Pogba will gave us maybe one more year (I don't blame him). De Gea is declining or may just choose for a new adventure.
I reckon Pogba will sign a 5 year deal in September.
 

el3mel

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We should challenge for the title next year, our main lineup is pretty strong and with few more signings I can see our squad depth being decent enough to do it.

Winning the league will be pretty hard though. I expect City to win it next season. They'll spend a lot and will be much stronger than any team next season.
 

Ollie Derbyshire

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I think we'd have a much better chance of winning the CL (if we're in it). I dread to think how many transfer windows we need to have a squad capable of winning the league, especially one this competitive.
Not that many, I don’t think were that far off.
 

Snow

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If we assume that our defense and keeper and our 3 most important attackers stay fit basically every match like Liverpool then yes, we can challenge for the title. There are a lot of factors that go into a winning campaign. I don't think we're at a point yet where we can show that kind of confidence ahead of a season. It's still City and Liverpool that we need to overtake and both are well ahead of us.
 

Bilbo

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That XI is very promising, but has played barely 200 minutes of football together.

That's encouraging because it suggests that improvement is likely, but it also means that's its a relatively new team that needs more time, not to mention we are in competition with two outstanding teams at their peak.

Next year probably not, but the season after that should be when this team starts to realise its full potential. Still, its football. Stranger things have happened.
 

VeevaVee

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I think we’re a way off hitting the consistency needed. Can fully see some disappointing periods yet
 

bosnian_red

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If it's too soon for a title, in 12 months time it could be too late. Pogba will gave us maybe one more year (I don't blame him). De Gea is declining or may just choose for a new adventure.
The goalkeeper I don't think will be a decider in the title for our team IMO. De Gea over the past year and a half has been pretty mediocre, and he'll still be starting next year and probably the year after that as his last 2 years. And I think Pogba will stay. He has the extra year so technically we have him til 2022, which is the year I think our team will be much closer to peaking. But Rashford, Martial, Greenwood, if we get Sancho then him, Wan Bissaka are all going to be just entering their primes or closer to their primes than they are now, then others like Bruno, Maguire and Pogba still will be at their peaks, and other young players being just more integrated and naturally better players for the squad like Garner, Williams, James, etc. It's 2 summer windows where we can fix the right wing, get that dynamic CB that we lack, replace Matic as holding mid (2021 summer) and then make the push. That's how I see it at least.
 

rcoobc

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I don't say this to be critical because he's not horrendous but no team wins a league title with Lindelof at CB.
That's the thing isn't it. Stick Vidic or Rio or Stam in there. I don't think it improves us that much.

It's maybe a weak area. But we've had better centre backs who were greater liabilities (Silvestre)
 

DickDastardly

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What we're missing.....

RB replacement in case of injury.
DM - can't see Nemanja going on for a whole season like this and injury free.
RW - proper one as well.

That is a must.

Now, if somehow, we manage to keep the first team players injury free for 80% of the time....we might have a good chance.
 

Igor Drefljak

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Next season would be too early for me.
With a few additions, I can see us making a strong account of ourselves and be in it for a considerable amount of time, but the season after, players maturing, Liverpools main men getting older, I think we can be strong.

I'm looking forward to next season