What's going to happen if we don't get fourth place?

I normally would have the exact same outlook but realistically for us to get where we want to be we need to be a) signing top players and a fact of life is they crave champions league football and B) we need to match wage demands. Anyone who thinks the revenue from progressing through the champions league is not important is kidding themselves.

Torres Masch etc will stay but if we fail the following season do you think they still will stay? 

if they commited enough they will stay. we can get rid of the fringe and bring in the likes of kelly, pacehco, ince, amoo, to the bench along with couple of frees. we can keep the same squad. and go for the league next season. maybe not being in the cl next season may be a blessing so they all put they heart in the league.

If we don't get fourth - we need to re-group, cut out the stupid errors we made this season, and make sure that next year we challenge again.

Also lock up Torres, Pepe, Masch, Aqualani, Skrtel and Agger until the transfer window is closed so no team can get their grubby mitts on the spine of our team.

Let's face it if we do finish 4th under the present conditions they will be justified in not needing to buy players.

Excellent point.

Surely it being a struggle to get 4th would mean something??!

There is a huge difference between a comfortable 4th- and the 4th we might get!

F**k it every team has a bad season once in a while, Chelsea would have counted finishing third last year as a bad season ( what would we give to be finishing third? ).

My point is, the team has probably been affected a little bit by what has been happening off the field ( it's hard to ignore ), add to that the now annual injury crisis that we usualy have when we need our strongest team available. Player's returning from injury need time to get their form back, which has affected our preformances.

This season the players have let themselves down badly, so forget this season, i think 4th place is gone. I'm praying that we win the Europa league to have something to celebrate.

But come next season the only way is up.

4th place is 4th place! Couldnt care how it came around to be honest, whether we got it by 15 points or on goal difference, the prize at the end of the day is still the same!
We have to drop the defensive style weve adopted and go all out for the remaining games or we are financially fooked (even more so than we are now) But as its been stated above, not getting 4th place may be a blessing in disguise!

The players are incomparible as one is a defensive midfielder and the other one is an attacking midfielder being asked to play as a defensive midfielder.

Lucas is a better FOOTBALLER than Mascherano based on all round ability...of that there is no real debate.

Mascherano is a great defensive midfielder which obviously doesn't require as many attributes as someone who is box to box or playing further up the pitch but he is excellent in the tackler and closes people down well. I am a big fan of his but feel that we need to move him on.

His abilities are pretty much limited to those two things however and if we don't have the quality around him to benefit from him being there we need to think about a change of shape.

Well of course Lucas is better at "all round ability" thats because he is a box to box midfielder, obviously Masch is no good going forward, hes an anchor man, hes there to do the gritty work that no one ever notices, but without him we miss him imensely, As for Lucas i dont even think he has classification at the club, all season he has been playing alongside Masch and for want of a better word he has been w*nk. Then against Lille he was given a more attacking role and actually played well winning us the penalty and all round having a good game.

Now theres two things here which concern me, we have players in both of these roles who are better than him, Masch is a better holding mid and Aquilani is a better more offensive mid... and if push comes to shove Gerrard can play the attacking midfielder from deep. Now it leaves us with the question.... Why does Lucas play week in week out when we have much better players who play in both of his positions.