He’ll be judged I would imagine at the end of the season on whether or not he attains European Cup football for next season. When you sell yourself as a short term quick fix and the style is so awful, results are all that you can be judged on. The likes of Everton, Spammers, Villa, Southampton will fall away as they always do and it will be the usual suspects contending for Top 4. Maybe Leicester will last the distance better this season, but they collapsed over closing 10 game’s last season. The bar shouldn’t be overly high for Top 4 when you look at the mess that Chavs and Woolwich have been for most of the season and the bit of a cushion we have on both.
It would be nice to win a Cup and break the now 13 year trophy drought but winning a Cup has a lot to do with vagaries of the draw and is never really a barometer of a long tenure. Just ask George Graham or Juande Ramos. We’re in the League Cup final without having to beat a Premier League side. We got to the European Cup final in 2019, by avoiding the big guns like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern, Juventus or Dippers. The most recent past champions we faced were Dortmund from 1997. I’d give us close to a 50/50 shout in that League Cup Final against City.