There's Europa to aspire to...it's progress...Burnley managed it...even though they made a pigs ear of it. That takes a club to another level then you can build from there and aim for regular Europa. Lesta should have gone that route after they won the league but they have lacked serious ambition since that opportunity presented itself to them
Baby steps Comm...look at Sevilla in Spain. Mainland Europe has more respect for the Europa than British clubs do for some reason.
Im not talking about Spurs mate..we play in the Champions league. I'm talking about little clubs looking for a purpose in their PL existence. It's great playing in Europe however you can get it.
It's easy to knock it but it's what every team in the lower leagues is aspiring to. While you might hear people supporting struggling PL clubs saying no big deal I would rather be in the Championship, all the Championship clubs are trying to get promotion to the PL and their fans expect them to compete for that. You don't hear many of them saying - I will stick with this I am happy in the Championship. The feelgood factor we got from our run in the latter part of last season made it worthwhile. The general feeling was that with the right investment this summer we could consolidate at the bottom of the top 10 but it didn't happen and now we are struggling again. I posted this on our board yesterday and there is an amazing correlation between what clubs pay in average first team wages and how they do. There are a few notable exceptions. Man Utd are seriously overpaying their players for what they are achieving, as are West Ham and Crystal Palace and Southampton. Spurs are overachieving as are Bournemouth currently. But there are big gaps between first 5 and rest, then between 6-11 and 12-20.
You know me Comm. I love statistics as long as they don't include 6 in a row. You have a chance of setting up a proper FA Cup NE Derby if you can win this weekend.
7th is enough if top 6 clubs win both cups though or win a cup itself obviously. We qualified for Europe in consecutive seasons recently. The trip to Milan was only just over two years ago!
