Eddie Howe is 'not afraid' to admit that he has dreamed of winning a trophy for Newcastle United because the Magpies head coach believes it is 'possible'.
It is now 53 years and counting since Newcastle last won a major trophy, the Fairs Cup, and Howe is the latest in a long line of managers bidding to end that drought as the black-and-whites prepare to face Tranmere Rovers in the second round of the Carabao Cup on Wednesday night.
However, rather than being daunted by that challenge, Howe has embraced it and the Newcastle boss has already imagined what it would be like to finally bring silverware back to St James' Park.
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"I probably have to be honest," he told reporters. "Visualisation and having those high expectations, naturally, you do have to do that. You have to try and see it in your own head and believe it's possible.
"I'm not afraid to say that visualisation and imagining those things are very important. I wouldn't say I do it regularly. It's not necessarily a daily occurrence but you envisage the future and you just try and see what you can achieve. Certainly, it's one of my dreams."
Making it into the last 32 of the Carabao Cup would feel like a start when Newcastle have failed to even achieve that in four of the last five campaigns. In fact, Newcastle's recent record in the cups has been so poor that League Two side Tranmere have reached a final more recently than the Magpies and, even then, that was back in 2000.
However, after years of disappointment in the Ashley era, there is genuine ambition from the top now to truly attack the cups. Rather than downplaying expectations, Howe has set the bar 'very high' and the 44-year-old stressed that winning a cup is something Newcastle 'want to achieve as quickly as we can'.
"You have to have that," he said. "If you haven't got that desire to achieve, to really break barriers down, I don't see how you can do it.
"There's that unknown that's ahead of us. We want to try and fill it with success. We know we have to do the processes to try and get there so our training and all the things that we talk about on a weekly basis here are so important to achieving that success. That's what we're working towards."
Much has changed since Howe's first cup tie in charge of Newcastle, of course. That humiliating FA Cup exit at the hands of Cambridge United proved a turning point of sorts back in January and a more resilient Newcastle have only lost five games in all competitions since then.
You only had to witness Newcastle's fearless performance in Sunday's 3-3 draw against Man City to see how much progress Howe's side have made in a relatively short period of time. Perhaps, then, it is not a surprise that Howe has not felt the need to remind his players about the Cambridge defeat when it comes to the perils of facing lower league opposition.
"I haven't gone back there," he added. "I'm not sure that's a healthy thing to do for the current squad. The dynamics of the group has changed. The feeling internally has changed.
"It's not necessarily a bad thing to go back there at times, but we're excited about the game tomorrow. I don't see any part of the group that isn't looking forward to performing and, hopefully, performing well. I don't think I'll be going back to the Cambridge game although that was a very painful reminder of what can happen if you don't play well."
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