Would a 5th place finish be enough progress next season?

What I am saying is it's not acceptable for L.F.C,to only have aspirations of finishing 5th and to think that is progress,we are and should be better than that.

I think it's ridiculous that we haven't won the title in that long, given some of the players we've had at our disposal since then.
The players need to start the season believing anything is possible, winning is a mentality, and the team should understand what it means to play for Liverpool.

4th and a trophy, ta.

Its progression obviously, would be worthy of the Gaf keeping his job. Cant help hoping that once we sort out a couple of areas, defense at the top of the list and a couple of decent signings, we will be able to compete with the top 4.

Obviously we don't know how the squad will look be the start of next season, the quality of the signings will be a big factor in deciding shaping our expectations for the coming season, but would 5th place be good enough for YOU?

The question you've asked in the opening post is, is fifth place good enough for you? Well any Liverpool fan worth his salt should be answering this with the simple worded answer of no. How can fifth, under any F***ing circumstances, be good enough for Liverpool Football Club?

So from Bob Paisley saying "I've had my bad years here to, we came second once" to Brendan Rodgers saying "I've had my good seasons here to, we came fifth once". Is that really the state of my club?

Essentially, Liverpool Football Club exist to win trophies therefore anything but first is good enough for this club. That's the way a lot of Liverpool fans have been brought up. Is fifth progress on this year? Yeah if you're going on League positions, but then again so is F***ing sixth and that isn't good enough either. Neither is F***ing fourth by the way. I'm not one of these who takes pleasure in us just being in the Champions League. I don't recall ever having a homecoming for a club who came fourth. First and first only is good enough.

I understand the notion of progress and if, for once, I listened to me head instead of me heart I'd probably go along the lines of next year being a pretty similar season to this. We're still going to be rebuilding next year and the chances are that we're gonna have a new first choice pairing at the heart of the defence along with a couple more additions. And as all great sides know, you have to build from the back. So it could be another difficult season for us, with us pissing about in fifth, sixth, seventh.

That doesn't mean it's good enough though. Not for this club anyway.

Re the OP

Not for me, we need 4th, anything less isn't acceptable.

i don't believe we'll challenge for the title next season.

I love how some folk confuse that as being happy with where we are and the (slow) progress we're backing to get back up there.

To be honest we have fallen so far from challenging in just under 4 years that yes for me a fighting 5th next year would be progress.

2010 - 7th - 63 pts
2011 - 6th - 58 pts
2012 - 8th - 52 pts
2013 - 7th - 61 pts

That really does put it into perspective, if we finish 4th or 5th then that is progress.

I think there is a good opportunity to try and jump into the top 4 somewhere seeing as city, united and chelsea next season will have new managers but Tottenham and Arsenal will know this too.

If Totts can keep bale they will push on, if he goes I don't expect them to be in or near the top 4.

Out of all the teams with new managers if Cheslea get Mourinho back then they will finish in the top 2 I think.

We need to be able to get in another 4 or 5 players this window, smart buys like Coutinho and Sturridge but I think we need to sign another winger/cf/st in the same calibre of experience as Suarez too.

Someone who will lift the spirits of the players and make them think we're making the right decisions in the market and moving forward.

Coming fifth is not good enough in my opinion and this is why. First target should always be coming first and then top four. We are going to be out of europe for four seasons now and conservative estimates of revenues accrued from playing champions league is 20 million pounds for group stage. So we have basically missed out on 80 million pounds and that correlates to 3 world class players or 6 top squad players. Simultaneously our rivals have strengthen their squads based on this additional income and can afford higher transfer fees and higher salaries than those clubs out of the CL places. The longer we are out of this elite league, the chances of us competing diminishes, unless a huge cash injection by the owners  corrects this imbalance to make us competitive. Of course i fear that is not going to happen. Top five would figuratively be an improvement but it would just increase the gulf in class wider. Unless we have great luck in the transfer market and every single one of our signings perform to world class standards (although bought for much lesser), and all our rivals implode, i don't think we have a chance of winning the title or coming in the top three. Hopefully we can challenge for fourth place and if we do it will be thanks to Wenger's policy of not spending money, because i don't think Chelsea, United and City are going to stop improving their squads.

If we sell Luis, Reina and Skertl then yes it would be. FSG are not going to compete toe to toe with Abramovich and Mansour this summer, let alone the Arsenal and Utd's so it won't be pretty. Stevie is 33-34 next season and Carra is gone. We need to get the youth up to speed as fast as possible. Dortmund have shown what can be done. We need to get the Coutinho's, Suso, Sterlings, Kelly's, Wisdoms with the Lucas's and the Sturridges etc firing on all cylinders. If we lose Suarez or Skertl then so be it, we need to reinvest that money but we have good players here who are hungry to show what they can do. That goes for the Robinson's and Flanagans and Shelvies and Allens. What players we buy depends on who leaves I guess. We are light on strikers unless this Morgan turns out to be a gem.

Oh yeah I would look at Gundagan if we were going to spend, or Reus. Wishful thinking but good players for our system

Not even remotely

I'm looking at Rafa's 2nd season and we finished with 82 points (25 W, 7D & 6L), and I say why not target those figures, let that drive determine where we ultimately finish. Agreed our back-4 is no where near to the class we had in 05-06 (Finnan, Carra, Sami, Riise), the key thing for us next season will be to have a structured defence like we had under Kenny-Clarke.

Like many said we HAVE GOT TO finish our business early. The new-look defence MUST have a solid pre season

5th Good Enough No Way. 5th Progress technically Yes

Getting into the top 4 is not impossible not by a long way. United won the league at
a canter & who could honestly say this is a vintage Utd side?

Chelsea,City,Utd,Everton all have new managers Tottenham may well now lose their
star player in Gareth Bale while Arsenal never win anything.

That's all the teams that finished above us this season. Many clubs around the world
have won their domestic title's without the league's largest budget. Last season Montpellier
won the league, the previous seasons saw Lille & Bordeaux win it.
In Germany over the last few years clubs like Dortmund & Wolfsburg have won the title both with
much smaller budgets than Bayern Munich.

Even Spain & Scotland have hiccups someone good enough comes along ( Benitez & Ferguson) upsets
the apple cart, rocks the boat, alters the status quo.

The key ingredient is often the Manager at the club if you have a brilliant manager anything is possible
Look at Nottingham Forrest under Brian Clough or Liverpool under Bob Paisley. If Brendan is good enough
then we can win the league no matter how hard we've convinced ourselves it is..

 

What do you mean? I don't think Moyes is that good of a manager to win the title, but just based on sheer talent, United can still finish top 3 in spite of him. Granted, I hope to God they don't! But just being realistic, they're a good side.

I just found my own humour in your prediction and was making fun of the Mancs. With Ferguson, 3rd place is like a disaster and i remembered once some fans of theirs were calling for Ferguson's head already for finishing there. I doubt their fans are in that class of being able to understand if Moyes does lead the Mancs to that position and hopefully worst.

With 3 new managers in the top 5 clubs, Arsenal dusting their empty cabinet and Spurs potentially losing there best player due to no CL I would say the Prem will be wide open next year. Shoot for the moon, top 3 might not be such a stretch.

 I think given a chance from the "fixture computer" (The FA/Man U manipulating machine) we'll have periods next season where we'll be challenging to win the league. My guess is that we won't get there quite, but in a close run campaign amongst mostly ordinary teams, we'll be in a six way scrum for the top six spots. Whichever spot we eventually fill, as long as we are significantly closer to the team who wins it than we have been for four seasons, that'll represent good progress from my point of view.

 On a side note, even if we didn't appear to "progress" at all I still wouldn't sack the manager. I'd give him three seasons minimum.

I just found my own humour in your prediction and was making fun of the Mancs. With Ferguson, 3rd place is like a disaster and i remembered once some fans of theirs were calling for Ferguson's head already for finishing there. I doubt their fans are in that class of being able to understand if Moyes does lead the Mancs to that position and hopefully worst.

That's a serious possibility IMO. Fingers crossed Moyes does a Souness with the Scum.

“Aim for the sky and you'll reach the ceiling. Aim for the ceiling and you'll stay on the floor.”

Bill Shankly.

“Aim for the sky and you'll reach the ceiling. Aim for the ceiling and you'll stay on the floor.”

Bill Shankly.

All depends on your resources though, aim for the sky and all you've got is a set of stepladders, jump off that and you'll fall flat on your face.

All depends on your resources though, aim for the sky and all you've got is a set of stepladders, jump off that and you'll fall flat on your face.

I suppose you could put lead in your boots and not even attempt to climb the ladder,does anyone really know what resources the club has or is it a closely guarded secret.

Difficult to answer! If we got 5th and won a trophy obviously that would be good progress but i think top 4 would be greater progress! With top 3 teams all changing managers that could make the points total (hopefully) a wee bit smaller. It all depends on what transfer business we do and players we keep hold of and what sorta squad we have. Think this question could be better answered on the 1st September.

There's f**k all chance of us winning the league next season unless BR has a Fairy Godmother hidden up his ass, there's just too much ground to make up in one season! 4th place is more than achievable, 3rd could be possible with the right signings and a bit of luck.

  oul brendy rodage!

I suppose you could put lead in your boots and not even attempt to climb the ladder,does anyone really know what resources the club has or is it a closely guarded secret.

When I said resources, I meant players and whilst this squad is capable of beating any team in the league, I've still yet to see enough consistency to instill belief in me that they could challenge for the title.  Now don't misconstrue that as me not wanting to win the title, a mistake many make.

I was once told by a wise man, well a welsh, socialist, chain smoking, whiskey drinking english teacher, that believing in something that isn't true or possible is classified as delusional.
Wanting to believe in something that isn't possible or true is called a religion.

LFC is my religion.  I want to believe, I just don't think we have the resources at present.