Those landmark moments...

Constant play off finals
Winning league cups
Winning League 1
Winning the Championship
Winning the Premier League
Outstanding run in the CL

When you look back, certainly in the record books and also as flashes of achievements, we probably have similar moments that jump into our heads.

Yet, in most cases, they are linked to particular moments, turning points, sometimes nuanced to the point that it isn’t until years later that you realise the importance of them at the time and the continual impact that they have on us as a football club. Like life, these aren’t necessarily a Hollywood reel of inspirational tales or lightbulb revelations and, on occasions, are difficult or poignant memories whose ripples we wouldn’t even be able to consider at the time.

Retrospectively, perhaps moments like:

Relegation to League One
A family watching from a far and being drawn in by our story
‘That’ penalty against Watford
A gentle arm around a shoulder of an eventual PL winner/player of the season /golden boot winner
A switch in defence during the PL survival season
A perfect storm of ‘raggy doll’ players and a ridiculed manager
A terrible loss

Some far bigger events; others than could not be considered positive, but from which there has been growth.

And that is one thing that has continued through the amazing highs and horrendous lows we have experienced over the last decade or so - this continuity, that character, and, most recently with our amazing owners, that family.

One that is now embedded in the club. Something that can’t be broken by players going, the loss of our leader, a pandemic, a fall at the very last hurdle.

And I just wonder how important finishing in the top 4 may be for us this year. Not in terms of immediate success of qualification for the champions league or plaudits for being a top 4 team (our position in the top 4, at least from a literal point of view, has been a near constant over the last season and a half) but more for our future and potential to be classed as a ‘top’ team indefinitely ( I guess if we are to put a label on it or link it to an idiom - one of those ‘Top 6 Teams’ <not that I am advocating this catchphrase> )

We have weathered the storm in terms of injuries and, collectively, have one of the best groups of young players in the league. The training ground, the manager, the squad, everything looks to be there to produce a season, potentially, to impact many more to come. As mentioned on another thread, clubs will come calling again for players as they progress. Yet, CL football, the unity in the squad, the collection of young quality players, does seem to be providing us with the opportunity for another ‘perfect storm’ - as is usually the case, built on from recent loss (through the guise of our dramatic fall from grace last year). We have areas to build on, players that will need to be purchased for the future, gaps that will eventually need to be filled and still need to progress to that point where we can genuinely compete to purchase top end Pl players in their prime.

One could argue that ANY season with a top 4 finish propels your potential, ANY season with a great group of young players will give you the opportunity for success. Yet, I’m not sure it’s that often that you have these two opportunities together, with such a big chunk of young players beginning to fulfil potential at the same time, in the same team with the perfect owners and exactly the right sort of manager to nurture these sorts of players.

As mentioned, that CL winning season did involve lots of long term and short term decisions falling into place to create the perfect storm for that one season and that amazing achievement. I just wonder if, in fact, there is a huge opportunity this season to not necessarily produce this globally famous achievement like in 2016, but to really lay down another huge foundation. And, if in years to come we will look back and consider the missing out last season and injuries this season as one of those defining landmarks.