That's the key to January in my opinion, we can't afford a huge squad and need a few to go before we bring in others
We've got a lot of very very good young signings right and a few wrong which will happen. If we do go up we have some extremely sellable assets which bring mega money to which you then have more money to recruit the next youth player but at a higher level. We will be a very attractive proposition in the prem for any young player wanting to progress in regards to crowds, facilities and the simple fact we give youth a chance.
It's strange as I want to get promoted and to go as high as we possibly can as a club, but I also don't miss the prem and I don't even watch MOTD which is a shame really as it used to be my go to program as it should for any football fan, but II am pretty happy with where we are as a club at present. I follow the results of some games on sky bet etc but never watch any games. I am pretty happy ish where we are at present going forward to where I think we belong, but we knew it won't happen overnight and would take years after the double relegation with high wage players who didn't give a toss . That doesn't mean i am happy to be in the championship as we as a club deserve to be higher but it is a cracking league TBF and it is where we are at present so let's just enjoy bringing the lads on who are giving us everything as let's face it, how many times have we all said we just want a team that tries and gives 100#5 for the shirt and the club? I think we have that at the minute
Can’t understand fans who are loving the championship, loving the football, loving our players and saying it’s the best football they’ve seen us play want to go into the premiership where it’s basically s hite
The thing is we want to keep the likes of Rigg, Jobe Cirkin etc We will have a way way better chance of doing that in the prem and if we have to sell them, then we would get a lot more money for them there. It's a tricky one
It’s not tricky for me, we will probably lose them anyway, and the players we need will be lined up already, so we will carry on playing great football in a great league and still being very happy. I can’t imagine what this forum will be like after a season in the premiership, well I can actually, s hit.
A very good thread, and although there are mentions across other threads about where the club are going, its good to get it in one place and hear everyones views. Overall, I am happy with the way the club is progressing. The current playing squad alone is now worth much more than you could buy the whole club for 3-4 years ago. Other (off field) things are taking a bit more time, and progress being made. Success though, is subjective. I would be quite happy to be a solid premier league outfit with a squad of players who genuinely look like they want to play for us, and maybe a sniff of a cup/europe now and again. An alternative is to gamble with mercenaries, who could take you to the next level, or take you down 2 divisions in the blink of an eye (which has been done and then we were made to watch the whole thing again on TV.....) I also think that the way the club interacts with the community is important - from engaging with the fans, to having an academy to capture the talent, and other community projects which gets young lads and lasses in the NE involved.
The players who come are generally very keen to be here and ambitious. If they see themselves as better than Sunderland they need to prove it which can only benefit us. I know I’ve said this before but we currently have six or seven players we couldn’t hope to sign. There’s no way we could buy Jobe for example, he’s worth six times what the whole squad cost us. I was talking to someone ‘old school’ earlier who is connected to the club. He struggles with the current model because it looks like three ‘quality signings’ could drag us over the line. My response is that we’ve tried every other way possible and got nowhere. Quinn’s magic carpet is shoved on a shelf in the back of the garage and Short’s £200m left us worse off than when he arrived. KLD clearly has vision and intelligence … … I’ll give that a chance even if I can’t always see what’s in front of me.
A couple of points have been rumbling around my brain and connect to what you're saying. We played Sheffield United, gave them a very tough game and just lost out in the end. Fast forward a year and replay the game with the same sides. I reckon we would be too good for them as our team will be 10 to 20% better due to the development of various players. The second idea is about promotion this year, versus going up in 25/26. It is touch and go whether we will have enough to go up now. If we do, it may not be very convincingly. Extrapolate that and our side would need a lot of work to compete in the PL. With another year of building and development, I think we will be stronger in 25/26 with a chance to dominate the Championship. Go up with a stronger side and less chopping and changing should be needed which will also lesson the risk of damaging the very high team spirit.
Agree with a lot of this, I know promotion has to be the aim but absolutely nothing excites me about the premier league, closed shop at the top, VAR, soulless clubs, fan bases full of tourists, the championship is the highest level of ‘proper football’ left in this country all of the fans of the newly promoted sides that I see/talk to hate it and miss the championship, going from winning to losing fairly regularly will play a factor in that of course too
Spot on mate, the premiership is s hit and all those on here who can’t wait to get there will be clambering over each other to tell you how s hit it is if we get battered every week.
