I think the idea of a transitional season is a bit of a myth to be honest. If you have a decent squad, coach, pre-season etc. i think you stand as good a chance as anyone.

Ambitions have dropped a lot now that TS has gone.

The last two off seasons the season prediction threads usually had people putting us 1st or 2nd and whenever the question of what should be our target, the comments were stuff like "win the GF, anything else is failure".

edited for accuracy

Yes. If the new coach goes 8 years without a GF win that will be failure too.

No reason we shouldn't be aiming to win the GF every year with the resources we have. I don't think that's an overstatement?

There would probably be a loss of patience with the new coach well before 8 years, depending on how we perform.

Apart from the very rare Alex Ferguson type coach who delivers sustained success, all coaches are going to end up unpopular with the fanbase. Coaching careers usually go one of three ways:

- The quick exit: the coach's methods never work, the results are bad from the start and they are quickly sacked. Often this happens in the first season, alternatively the coach finishes the first season with a lot of question marks, and is very vulnerable to a bad run at any point in the second season. Anderson, Plange and Lowes fit in this category.

- The coach initially brings new ideas and improves things and at some point outperforms expectations. At this point he will be regarded highly by the fans. The crunch point then comes when the results start to go backwards because expectations have been raised, and its difficult to recover. DVDV and Cullen were like this. Peak DVDV was mid-1999, we'd gone from nearly being bust a few months before to being playoff contenders with Toa the emerging superstar and landed a coup by signing Langer, Nikau and Gee. After we tailed off at the end of that year and started the next year badly, DVDV was under the cosh from the fans and never recovered. Peak Cullen was late-2005 before that home playoff defeat to Hull. We went on a long winning run that we hadn't done for many years that summer, and then signed Andrew Johns and had feel good factor going through the roof. We regressed in 2006 despite big name signings and Cullen lost his confident aura. For many coaches, a season of overachievement can be a millstone as the standards by which they are judged will go up. Rodgers at Liverpool, Pardew at Newcastle and Martinez at Everton also went this way.

- The coach delivers early success and is revered for a while then the trophies dry up. This scenario doesn't drag on for too long at most sports clubs given the ruthlessness of owners but where there is loyalty from the board you have an Arsene Wenger / Tony Smith situation. In this case, the fan base will be divided as there will always be people loyal to a coach who delivered success, whatever happens later on.

Full cap and at least one marquee I expect top 2.(in theory pies should be top with 2 marquees and full cap) Top 4 I'd settle on for season one only but less than that is unacceptable. And outside the top 4 mid-way in 2018, I'd sack the coach.

I agree with RD with the squad we are assembling we should be aiming for the top 4, at a push top 2. I'm sure Simon Moran would be hoping for a top 4 even in the coach and teams first year together. A decent cup run with kind fixtures. Team bonding will be very important from the start. I wounder if the new coach will be happy to be going to Tenerife for pre season ? Overall very excited for the new season with a few quality players being added to the squad

Once we know the identities of the coach and players we can make an educated guess until then its powder dry time!

If we sign Tyrone Roberts and Ben Murdoch-Masilia having already signed Goodwin we should easily be aiming for the top 4.

Have you seen Tyrone Roberts play this season he is mediocre at best.If you sign him you will most likely finsh up in the
bottom 4.

This