by Doeboy » Sun May 27, 2018 7:52 pm
Remit was to get back in the CL and that has been achieved so overall season has been a success. In terms of progress, I'm vary of using one cup runs to gauge progress. Apart from City, I think we've had some pretty kind draws on route to the final - in the cold light of day, let's face it, teams like Sevilla, Spartak, Maribor, Porto, Roma are not Tier 1 teams. Could even argue City don't have pedigree in the CL however the way they have played this season, it was a massive achievement brushing them aside in the tie. We made the most of our draws but if we can repeat this CL run in the next few years, then I'd can say we are back amongst the elite in Europe and that's a real sign of progress.
We are desperately due silverware now as it's been 6 years without a cup. It's great having a great team/squad that are great to watch but they need to get that first cup under their belt and hopefully that will be the trigger for more. Under Klopp we've reached 3 finals and lost all of them and we really need start winning these otherwise it will be a case of being the nearly men...i.e we play some cracking stuff to get to the final but fall at the last hurdle..... cold, hard truth is, having great run's to the final and coming 2nd doesn't count for much in the end.
We need to strengthen the team/squad just to keep things on par. People talk about only needing a few more players to challenge for the league but the likes of utd, spurs fans etc are saying exactly the same thing about their sides so it is very, very competitive even if we add those players.
Our league record this year compared to last season is very similar:
2016/2017 - W 22 D 10 L 6 GF 78 GA 42
2017/2018 - W 21 D 12 L 5 GF 84 GA 38
This year we had to contend with the extra CL games but we need to look at how we can make that jump up above the pack of teams we are in. It is not going to be easy as even though we will strengthen the team/squad, have to remember so will the others.