One more Championship year to come And though, for some, that won´t be fine, Any thoughts of a Premier League life Are several more years down the line It was almost guaranteed it would happen Some time, with the life that we´ve led, Our yo-yo existence would eventually Hang by a thinner and thinner thread The Premier League hangs like a ripe peach For most here, the only success, But when out of reach, tantalizingly It causes both heartache and stress Unless one can get up and stay up For three, four or five years at least, However many short-lived excursions One makes, won´t amount to a feast And if, at the same time, new faces Aren´t better than those who are here, Any slight advantage one has built up And momentum, will soon disappear So this summer, more than most, perhaps Wheeling and dealing must be right, With a view to building a squad again Which can keep the PL in sight But fail in that area this time As recent Windows all have done, Then this year´s near miss for the play-offs Will feel like a successful one.
I'll take issue with the last line, although agree with the rest. No matter how good or bad next season, or indeed the next five seasons, I don't see anybody looking back on this one as a successful one. Unless your only metric for success is avoiding relegation from the championship. We've achieved the absolute minimum you would expect from this group of players, given their previous heights and current salaries. Failing to be serious contenders for even the play-offs by Christmas is woeful, and the blame has to be shouldered by the players, manager and board.
About the only on positive thing you can say about this shambles of a season is that we are not involved in any nerve shredding relegation fight or promotion tangle. So can watch each game without having to fret about the result as basically all the results are meaningless to us (not quite so for Brighton or Feeds) and we only have pride to play for (been a bit short on supply that this season).
What I was suggesting with the last line DH, was, that if we don´t succeed with recruitment significantly better this window, than we have, the previous ones, we will more than likely end up in a worse position at the end of next season, than we have this, and therefore this season will compare favourably to it.
..in fact I´d go so far as to say, that if we fail with recruitment and/or choice of head coach, we will have a worse season than this one.