During the 90s, Leeds were doing the same as us - trying to buy the title without success, and it was only when they made their youth level competitive with the top sides that success came their way. I'm fairly sure this played a major part and it may explain, to some degree, why we've been unsuccessful as we've only done the money bit and not the youth development. We did get close with Smith and really should have won at least one.
I agree with much of the above. With regards to a timeline, I think we should be looking at the performances and as many of the top coaches seem to say, focus on performance and the results will come.
Effort is number 1 - this was probably the biggest complaint and probably the main course of defeat as effort ties in with defence.
Passing moves and game play develop over a season and I'd expect us to develop enough to make the play offs and by that time, even if we were in the lower end (due to some early season dropped points), we should be giving anyone a challenge during that critical time.
So I do agree with probably everyone on here with regards to a definite improvement. I think though that we need to be realistic and patient in the first half of the season as professional teams in any sport don't just gel straight away. If that were the case, then sport would be simple: the club with the most money wins by just buying the best players and bingo.
Someone mentioned that we've bought 6 new players for the new season which is comparible to other sides. As far as I'm aware though, the other sides are adding to a core of players where we, given last season, have assembled a squad virtually from scratch - its a very different situation, hence the need for a bit of patience.
Any coach in this predicament, whether you like Powell or not, or whether you blame Powell or not, is starting at a disadvantage by the very nature of this rebuild ie. more work than probably anyone else to make our squad function as a team.
I think it'll be a really exciting season and I genuinely think things will improve dramatically, starting with effort. I can't see players like Mcgure moaning that he can't finish training early and I think the players know that Powell won't take any nonsense - we need that after Price.
Fingers crossed everybody and let's hope we see a seismic change.
Edit: (Easywire. I typed this during your post and we seem to be singing from the same hymm sheet with regards to playoffs).