Expectations in Europe

What are your expectations before each European Campaign?

And have we surpassed them this season?

 

Probs not the best time to ask that question. Everyones too ragin!

 

I expect to qualify for the champions league, once there i expect us to lose "admirably" with some fight and pride to pot 1 and 2 teams and compete for 3rd with the pot 3 team. I am sick of the absolute embarrassments against barca psg and bayern, we played teams of that ilk before the gap in quality hasnt been amy different and got positive results, its madness to essentially set your team up for an absolute doing which is what rodgers has been doing

 

To defend properly. Track runners, work hard, press as a team, concentrate at all times on who your man is.

Ensure that if we’re going to lose, let these elite teams work for it.

Try and nick the odd goal if we can.

That’s literally it. If we done all of these things and finished bottom of our group every year I wouldn’t give two *.

 

If you had offered anyone CL group stages again, finishing 3rd and then going out in the last 32 of the EL, everyone would have been happy with that and said it was progress. If anyone says different to that, they're lying.

In a way it is progress, but it doesn't feel like it is, based on some of the well below par performances and numerous defensive howlers.

So we met expectations in terms of progress, but we were no-where near them in terms of overall performance.

 

CL group stages for me......anything else is a bonus!! Gonna be a bit harder now though.

ps- the bonus this year was getting Anderlecht in pot 3. Yeah the top 2 are out of our league but Anderlecht was the best pot 3 we could have got....it's who i wanted. So very little progress imo.

 

It’s the perfect time mate..

People need a bit of perspective on where we are at..

We’ve surpassed my expectations this season and improved on last season. That’s a fact..

Not trying to detract from some really poor performances.

We need a GK, RB and a CB.. although we have Compper to come in too.

Ajer, KT, Ntcham, Eboue, Mousanda & McGregor are all reasons to believe we can get better at this level too.

 

I would be happy to go back to hard fought victories at home and inept performances away from home

 

Basically a coin flip to qualify for the champions league and then get battered in the groups if we get there.

This season I think we have almost surpassed them by a quirk of fate - finishing 3rd having lost 5 of 6 games. Having finished 3rd I didnt expect us to progress in the europa cup.

 

On paper it looks good but then you break it down and we've won 1 game against an Anderlecht side that was in free fall and somehow that 3 points was enough..

We have little expectation because of our current form domestically and rip up the script at home against Zenit, only to be disgustingly worse a week later..

Target's have been reached, yes...but when you look at it now and the dejection it's probably been * really when we've got in to Europe. In fact no probably about it..

 

At the start of the season, I would have been happy with European football after Christmas. So in that respect, we’ve done well enough.

But when you actually break it down. Out of 8 games (6 in the CL, 2 in EL), we’ve won 2 and lost 6 - beaten by 3 or more goals in 4 of those.

The 3-0 at Anderlecht was a fantastic result but, even Lustig admitted, our actual performance wasn’t very good.

I don’t think we’ve progressed at all in Europe, performance wise. For me, the 3-3 against City is still the best we’ve played in Europe under Rodgers.

 

Tbh probably just to qualify for CL group stages.

The fact we've done it two seasons in a row is a huge achievement. It shouldn't be, but that's where we are as a club. Just getting there is now the main thing.

 

To learn from each game and tailor your tactics to suit the opposition.
Im all for attacking and playing football but against psg, bayern et al it simply isnt feasible so load the park, fight for possession, have men behind the ball. This is one thing brendan needs to learn. We simply have no plan B, * at the minute we dont have much of a plan A either.

 

No to get *

 

It's job done as a club. We may manage to limp through a season with minimal investment and end up with a treble on top of CL football and EL football. Lots of money in the bank and another 3 trophies in the cabinet and we move on .
We need investment though , and lots of it .

 

If we can get beyond Christmas its a great achievement but the manner in which we got there was * poor tbh, not a single point at home with only one goal scored and as good as the Anderlecht was its been the exception to the rule this season and we were * at home against them in a game I was looking to win.

It's strange but I felt a lot more confident about this team after last seasons campaign even though we went out, we looked like a team going places and I was completely confident we'd make the group stages again without any major issues. Based on this season's performances I'm not so sure we'll make it to the group stages next season some big signings are needed preferably some with a bit of experience.

 

Yep. That’s the thing, people point to the fact that we finished 3rd and dropped into the EL as a marker for us progressing in Europe, in comparison to last season. While technically that looks like progression, we had the same number of points and just got lucky in a sense that it was Anderlecht in our group and not BMG or a team of that ilk.

Last season we got 2 draws against Manchester City and an away draw at BMG. Those are more impressive than winning away at Anderlecht and getting pumped 3 times.

 

We’ve got no * given right to qualify for the CL tho... getting past a Rosenberg team in full flow was a major achievement. When have we ever went to places like that an actually won a game?

 

Met my expectations for this season tbh. However, after the 1st leg v Zenit, I expected us to progress.

We were beaten by a very average opponent tonight.