Are we over-achieving?

What a position to be in, in charge of your own destiny with 5 games to go! Any fan would have snapped your hand off and taken this at the start of the season!

One thing keeps niggling in the back of my mind.....how will next season compare, yes we haven't won anything but we have achieved something I didn't think would happen for a good few years...a title challenge!

So if next season we go back to the level most of us thought we were at, at the start of the season will it be considered a failure? And importantly will the owners stick with Brendon if this is the case?

Lots of ifs and buts, and it's fair to say we have certainly taken advantage of the uncertainty at other clubs in and around us.

5 games to go.....dreaming

I'd say we are overachieving or I'd rather put it as- ahead of schedule. I'm so pleased how it's went, we have excelled in terms of how I thought we could perform this season i.e attacking style and team spirit.

As for next season; I understand your concern that it may go back to a certain level of performance, but to be honest, I can only see BR improving on any improvements already made.
The players will also come out of this season with more confidence and understanding in the tactics/systems we play.
So for any Liverpool fan I'd imagine it's looking really great and we are in safe hands with Brendan and his staff.
YNWA

I tell you what we are doing, we are asking a question without using a question mark.

But seriously, who gives a damn?

We are top of the league, and have a real chance of winning the sodding thing for the 1st time in ages.

Stop being negative, and pessimistic about next season.

What have we achieved to be over achieving?

We have achieved every player buying into a managers beliefs and that managers beliefs are attack and play to your strenghts. So no we are not over achieving for me but if we win it or WHEN we win it we will have achieved our goal earlier then expected that would be the closest thing to Liverpool over achieving for me

The team has worked their socks of playing fantastic football they deserve to be where they are now. They have put in some shift and remained positive all season. I think Kompany said its no fluke we are in this position and he is right. The team is only over achieving if you expected less.   

When you look at the the money involved and the size of the squads of some teams its hard to argue that were not over achieving, but results aren't solely down to money and number of bodies, it helps but only if you've got the ingredients of balance, togetherness, tactics etc etc to throw into the mix, we've been great this year and if we can ourselves add some extra ingredients in terms of bodies next season, we may be even better.

We haven't achieved anything yet.

Maybe the team is performing right where they should be given the system and the players, but expectations were just too low.

At the minute we've got an excellent coach of players who has got us into a position that none of us expected.

It's not over achieving it's just a sh*t hot manager being a lot more sh*t hot than a lot of us thought he would be.

Brendan's goal for this season (and many supporters' as well I'd wager) was to qualify for CL this year. I'd say that's almost done and dusted.....I don't think Brendan expected us to win the title so when we do, then I think it will be safe to say that we over-achieved according to our manager's standard.

Next season will take care of itself but I would expect the level of expectations to rise and I would also expect Brendan to be up to the challenge and we will become even more dominant than we are this year.

I think we've got a coaching team who has simply been able to extract the potential from those players. We've got a manager who applies some beautiful and a high technical level of football but coupled with that he's instilled the most basic principle which you would think is rule number 1 of playing in and coaching a football team - great team ethic. That said with the increased individualisation of the sport, the obsession with football players and not football teams, that intrinsic principle has been lost on some!

One thing keeps niggling in the back of my mind.....how will next season compare,

At this point I couldn't care less about next season.

The team has worked their socks of playing fantastic football they deserve to be where they are now. They have put in some shift and remained positive all season. I think Kompany said its no fluke we are in this position and he is right. The team is only over achieving if you expected less.   

I did "expect" less however expect and hope are completely different, this is what makes this journey so exciting! the fact we didn't expect to be where we are.

But that's my point for next season is what to expect! Surely our standards and stock have risen but as we see in the premier league standards and stock count for nothing without spirit and belief!

Onwards and upwards!

5 games to go.... Dreaming

We are certainly doing much better than I expected. A lot of that progress was initially down to one man... Suarez, but now a lot of others have grown into their roles and are playing a substantial part in our improvement.  Henderson, Stirling, Skrtel, Flanagan, even Gerrard have raised their game inspired imo by the form, commitment, effort and sheer brilliance of Suarez, ably abetted by Sturridge.

Brendan deserves as much credit as anyone for having the courage to play such an attacking team and formation when it would have been far easier to "consolidate" and play a safer more pragmatic style as we missed what could have been vital targets both in the summer and again at Christmas.

Not sure we are overachieving, maybe we have just been underachieving for the past 20 odd years

If we win this year, I won't be to annoyed if we only get 2nd next year and win the champions league 

We haven't achieved anything yet.

In terms of position it is pretty unexpected considering where we placed last year and with not having significant investment in the squad so the speak.

I'm optimistic about us winning the league, but that doesn't mean we are gonna do it. Win our games and it's ours; one slip up between now and our last game could see us lose out marginally.

Sunday will tell us a lot. It will test our mental and physical strength. If we can overcome Man City with the squad they have, we can overcome the rest of our last remaining opponents. It's a different game when you can bring the likes of Dzeko or Negredo on as a substitute, even Negredo or Nasri.

to keep this form for pretty much a full calendar year I do not believe we are over achieving. 

other fans from other clubs will always say we overachieve but to be banging goals in day in day out and to find ourselves in the position we are, credit is due to the quality of the lads.

some of our boys arent household names yet, but that doesnt mean they do not have the quality / potential to equal some of those more well known players.  plus... teamwork and synergy means alot...

Yes.

With the financial resources NOT available to date .... whilst the rest of the business gets sorted and that income increases.

About f**king time we overachieved its much better than underachieving

About f**king time we overachieved its much better than underachieving

Nail on head!!

How can LFC ever overachieve ?

The only person who would take that view, very selectively and in a certain context, is JWH.

Lets just say that our players are playing better than what most would have predicted. This could mean that their potential has been underestimated across the board. This could mean that all our players are having a purple patch right now. This could mean this year we've been lucky. This could just mean last year we were unlucky (there is actually a wealth of stats to back up this hypothesis - I don't know if any of you guys read Michael Caley's stuff, but he has a lot of interesting insight on the matter - http://liverpooloffside.sbnation.com/2014/4/5/5582432/the-statistics-that-explain-liverpools-2013-2014-season).

Regardless of what the fact of the matter is, we are performing excellently now and without being Nostrodamus we won't know if this is over-achieving, or just performing better than expected, as it is the future data which will be relevant in determining this matter.