With QPR still celebrating Championship survival, it hasn't taken long for many of our fans to start talking about a push for the play-offs under John Gregory next season. But while I'm as ecstatic as anyone else about our sudden, well-timed revival, my response to those who are already dreaming of promotion is simple: Get real!

Gregory got it right when it mattered this season, leading us from the bottom three to safety as we pulled five wins out of the hat in just seven games. Not long before that, though, we were looking almost certain to slide into League One after consecutive away defeats against three of our fellow strugglers. There was little sign then of the incredible team spirit that Gregory says was the key to our recent success.

Gregory's inspired transfer-window signings in January – among them defender Danny Cullip and midfielder Adam Bolder – were tailor-made to spearhead a desperate fight against relegation. But I'm not so sure that those same players are going to be equally successful in propelling QPR to the business end of the table next time around.

As the dust settles on this season's great escape, we can't overlook the fact that a bottom-third finish this year, after a bottom-four finish 12 months ago, is just not good enough. Despite the events of recent weeks, there's still some way to go until Gregory restores the feelgood factor that fans enjoyed for the majority of Ian Holloway's five-year stint as manager.

Holloway himself failed to keep QPR up in 2001, but it wasn't long before he had the crowds flooding back as his side reached the play-offs, then gained automatic promotion, and initially held their own after returning to the Championship. And there's even further to go if Gregory is to lead QPR anywhere near the Premiership, where they last played in 1996.

Gregory's current squad includes exciting young talents like winger Lee Cook and leading scorer Dexter Blackstock, and he'll be hoping to add Derby's England Under-21 goalkeeper Lee Camp – outstanding during his recent loan spell – on a permanent basis. But it's the aging and injury-prone players elsewhere in the squad that will be concerning Gregory most as he prepares to decide several futures later this week.