Hi all. I'd be lying if I said I didn't want us to stay in the Premier League. Football, for me, is about pride first and foremost, and nothing would have made me prouder of the club than another year in the Premier League. But there have been times over the last three years where I've found myself losing interest in the club and football in general because, in the Premier League, all you're ever fighting for is survival. If you get into Europe you'll be in serious trouble in the league the following season - look at Newcastle and Swansea as recent examples. If you want incredible football, the Premier League is the place to be. But if you want excitement, attacking football from a team in yellow and value for money, the Championship's the place to be. If you want East Anglian derbies again, the Championship's the place to be. And if you want Tuesday night games and a bloody great atmosphere at Carrow Road again, then we'll finally get it next season. I'm not saying things are perfect, but we were always going to go down at some point. As the old cliche goes, it's how you react and bounce back that's most important. City Till I Die. HFM.
It's all part of the sport. 3 teams have to go down. We weren't good enough so we are one of the 3. It's not the end of the world. The club will still be there next season and we just have to get behind the players and manager and get ourselves back up. We had stagnated and it'll be nice to freshen things up.
Time for a major player clear out. Bring in some who have more bottle to fight in adversity, and promote a few of the youngsters. Though we hope our time of adversity is over.
great post would have been nice to stay, but we'll be back. I don't think many of us expected to stay in the PL for 3 seasons back in May 2011 did we? off the pitch, things are in great shape too. A really good platform to build on compared to the mistakes made in the past.
Spot on, my feelings exactly. I don't mind people arguing the toss over what percentage blame to apportion between Hughton, McNally, Adams, the players, the fans or next door neighbour's cat. There is no definite answer on that one. But if I see someone say that getting relegated has "undone all the work since 2009" or words to that effect one more time, I hope everyone will forgive me if I tear that person's throat out. We are better positioned than we have been since 1994 (excluding maybe the beginning of this season).
I agree with you in essence Hucks, but rest assured the Championship can be just as miserable and unforgiving a league as the Premier, unless we´re able to be competitive. Whichever league you´re in, it´s only interesting and exciting if you do well in it, just because we´ll be a relatively big fish in a little pond now, won´t automatically guarantee us success. Totally agree that life in the Premier for us, will always be about survival, but life in the Championship never is quite as rosy for those relegated teams as they think it´s going to be. Fingers crossed we will find it as rosy as we hope.
Cheers fella. RBF, I understand where you're coming from, and obviously there is a chance we will struggle. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather we were in the Premier League, but when you get things right in the Championship the rewards feel like so much more.
That is clearly true, but we ought to be a little bit careful in assuming that the sort of times we had down there with Lambert, are going to be the rule rather than the exception. If we can find a Lambert mark II, they could be again, but if not, who knows, and our bargaining and attracting powers will not be quite as good next year as they have been the last 3 years. On that particular front, I´d try for Steve Clarke, if he´d come.
Your fans have been a credit to the prem lads. I'm sure we'll see you again up at our place in the not too distant future. All the best for next season. Keep the faith. ACS
i hope people don't expect to bounce straight back. i think if we make the right managerial appointment we will stand a very good chance, but if everyone approaches the start of the season as if we're a shoe-in for the top two then we'll be screwed before we've even started. there were a lot of people laughing off the thought of being in a dog fight this season! very, very foolish but not unusual. realistically, our best chance to go up will be at the first time of asking but we will have the safety net of the farcically big parachute payments lurking in the background. But if we don't go up next season it will only get harder and harder.
