Probably going to be the most active League One board in a while, next season... @Commachio @Ron @Rocky blue army @sensiblegreeny @Wooperts_duck Bring them all over until i move the teams. So do we all think Sunderland will go straight back up?
Nah relegation only joking it's gonna be a tough league next season for wycombe just hope we get a good start
I'm resigning. I hate ferrets slightly less than I dislike Steve Evans but a lot more than Exeter who still might come up. Argyle fans love Ainsworth and I bet you when we play Wycombe at Home Park they go into overdrive with offers of love and affection. Sunderland SHOULD go up but saying should has never been much of a guide to anything. At least there will be another team in the league that has the chance of buying anyone on two legs who can still kick a ball like Pompey do. If they can get rid of the crap that clearly do not want to earn their wages and buy in a decent class of player who does then they will go up. If they have to retain the players who have brought them to where they are in consecutive seasons then their parachute money will count for feck all.
If Sunderland do half decent, the crowds will flock back. We may have spent years in the Prem, but we are not footballing snobs. Should be a good season,
I have said this so many time before but once more won't hurt. There shouldn't be any snobs in football whoever you are or wherever you have played. Teams are where they are because that's where they have earned to be. Nobody has any god given right to be higher than they are despite their supposed size and everyone starts a season on zero and earns their position. My club has never been in the top league and it was always my dream to see them there once before I die. I'm nearly 70 now so I think that might end up a pipe dream I will never witness. But, from what I see at the top of the food chain I'm not totally convinced I'm missing anything. The premier league is bought and paid for with no more than a handful of clubs with the sort of resources to win it unless a fluke occurs where a club doesn't read the script. The premiership has sold it's soul for the proverbial 30 pieces of silver that is TV money. Give me the cut and thrust of the lower leagues anyday where pretty much anyone can beat anyone else and often do. It's far more honest.
Comm, I don't know how often you get to watch Sunderland but you will enjoy it down here mate. The fans are friendlier when travelling away. Worst experience of recent years, probably Wolves, forgot they were no longer in the Prem, their stewards and their fans were utter dickhead flag waving Prem has-beens. Hated them, and have no desire to go back to their ground again. Best experiences, places like Notts County, who are in the L2 play-offs, in the shadow of Forest but friendly fans who you could share a pint with in a proper pub and have no trouble and many others like them. Although places like Burton and Fleetwood just seem so far for me these days. Least liked match day experience, probably places like Shrewsbury (unless they go up), usual complex miles from a decent boozer. Have a clubhouse on site but at the away end but away fans are not allowed in! Well i got in but that's another story.
One would think Sunderland had the money and the class to go straight back up. I suppose it will depend on the manager - who it is, who he keeps and who he buys/loans and whether or not he is a motivator. If they keep the same manager who has taken them down (from the Premier?) I guess he doesn't fit the "motivator" role. I don't know anything about Sunderland. The last time I saw them they were in the Premier.
Our new chairman has said we'll have a budget that some championship clubs would envy. If we can keep the likes of Paddy McNair we should bounce straight back. No excuses.
To put things in perspective Saf, our whole budget last year was about 2.5M (I think) - how much are your parachute payments?
Our debt to the former chairman is protected against those payments so I think any transfer fees will be coming out of the new guys pockets. We signed about 10 players last season for a combined spend of 1.25m so we understand poverty. Blackburn and Wigan didn't even spend one million last season. We could have about 5 million to spend.
When i say budget mate, i'm including wages - £2.5 Million, was the maximum under the financial fair play rules that we could spend because it was 60% of our turnover. Also Blackburn bought Dack off us for £750,000 - They also bought another Ex-Gills Dominic Samuel for an undisclosed fee, which was probably not far short of Dack's fee, so they must have spent way more than £1M and that's not even including agents fees.
They all lie through their teeth and fiddle the books to suit brb so you will never know exactly what team spend how much and on who. Hardly any club pays a fee in leagues one and two because mostly they can't. Anyone who can starts with a huge advantage.
Gills rarely pay fees but i believe Blackburn may have spent over half a million since 2017...i know it was 1.2M prior to that....half of our entire player budget.
I was reading a thread on your board a little while ago and have to say it fair made me smile. It's the one about league one football grounds. There was one about being a big fish in "their little pond". Not one iota of a thought that it's also your little pond now. The trouble with big fish in little ponds is that they often get stranded there. There is also a comment about supporters of these little tiny clubs being in awe of your ground and thinking it's like visiting Wembley. I actually don't think there is one ounce of patronising in the comment either. It may come as a shock to some of your followers that even supporters of Accrington Stanley might have travelled around the World and visited even bigger places than the Stadium of Light. I only use Accrington as the example as it was mentioned in the thread. As for not relying on parachute payments that may well be true and I suspect it is. The point though is you will still receive them and just that fact alone will give your Club an almighty advantage over the vast majority of the rest of league one. This leads most people to believe that you SHOULD go up at the first time of asking. No pressure then. I don't though subscribe to the belief that most teams will up their game just because you are that days opponents. You are 6 points in a season the same as all the rest. If my club concentrated more on those 6 points above all other 6 points I for one would be well pissed off with them. I would hope they would play every game at full tilt with the intention of winning it.