Not sulking pal, just chatting about our club. Difference of opinions are the food and drink of this forum and Hilts may well be spot on. Then again neither he, me nor anyone outside the board and Warnock know what happened in the summer and probabaly never will. Still think we can find a way to keep out of the bottom 3, but we've just made it more difficult for ourselves. Masky's OP on the thread raised a question rightly or wrongly - the rest of the posts are in response to that.
I won’t accept this yo yo attitude. How many clubs have gone down from the PL and not gone straight back up? The answer is to look at the Championship table which shows plenty of ex PL teams who’ve floundered in the Championship and some who’ve dropped into League 1. Getting to the PL and relying on your existing squad with no major surgery is suicidal. Tan needs to explain himself.
You didn’t need hindsight to realise last seasons defence and centre forwards would struggle at this level. It wasn’t that long ago the majority of these players lost 4 in 4 and were soundly beaten by Derby and just scraped into the autos due to a surprising Birmingham win over Fulham. Didn’t the management realise then some of those players were just not going to cut it at PL level? Naivety or blind optimism or just poor foresight?
Didn't suggest you or anyone else was sulking. I said if we don't improve over the next few games we will have to consider what can be done in the present and move on from the past. As you said we are all able to share our opinions.
Tan doesn't need to explain himself. The guy is the owner. His first goal is to make the club stable. How he does that is up to him. At this point, he doesn't have anything to explain!
Morning all (afternoon Temple). Whether anyone thinks Tan needs to explain himself or not is irrelevant - it ain't gonna happen. For whatever reason - money/naivety/player loyalty/sheer incompetence at this level - we missed the boat in the summer and we'll never know why. Just 6 weeks after the start of the season, we are now talking about bringing in 2 or 3 players in January, some 3 months ahead. That just confirms that our summer approach to this "season in the sun" was flawed and is biting us on the arse right now. If Warnock reckons we need them in January then it's an admission that we needed them now. To whom do you point the finger? Tan, Dalman, Warnock & Co? Anyone's guess is as good as mine and I suppose it doesn't matter other than it needs to be recognised and addressed by those concerned. Having said that and missed the last 2 home games, I'm going take up my seat and expect to see City beat Fulham next Saturday.
On average, one of the 3 promoted teams stays up and one relegated team comes straight back up. Not great odds. There are exceptional seasons but that's the long term trend.
I see it this way.....we had a better than expected season last go out and got the promised land (?) when not expected. We are ahead of the plan and a bit lost. But spending big in the summer was no guarantee and we didn't have the money anyway (and we probably didn't have the attraction, either). So we have to manage with what we have. We are still getting over (IMHO) the effects of the last foray into the big time. We may survive yet. If not, we are in a much better state going back to the Championship. We will not have a fire sale and need to try and balance the books like some. That is what takes teams straight through. If Mr Tan wants to try and buy our way out in January, then it might be worth a punt but that is what Swansea did and look at the outcome. A new manager will cost in terms of pay-off and golden hello or whatever...with no guarantee of survival. we are still in debt, albeit to a kind creditor. But to expect him to dob in more with low chances of success is unreasonable. He may well see stability and 'live to fight another day' as a better option. His decision and I would respect it as being his. He dug id out of the mire some years ago in a big way and we should always be thankful for that. I know it is a bitter pill, Sparkey, but it is better than the euthanasia we were facing and we are beginning, hopefully, to pay our way.
Furter - it's not a bitter pill pal - just an opinion. There seems to be some misunderstanding of what is being said on here. No one (at least not me) is suggesting we should "buy our way out of trouble" - that's like double or quitting a casino bet and the route to disaster. There has to be a middle ground in all this and I believe we've erred on the cautionary side of life in the Prem to the extent that we've created a problem that only an out and out optimist would have ignored. We've under-invested a portion of our guaranteed income for this season and put ourselves under pressure to the point that we are now talking about remedying the situation in January. That sucks and smacks of bad decision making unless of course as some have said, our intention always was to go back down, make ourselves more financially solvent and try to bounce back with some dosh to spend. The trouble with that is if we do go down, there will be two other Prem teams coming with us, each with £50M to spend. That's apart from those we are going to face already down there - are they all going to be sat on their hands and let us walk the League? One fact that sticks out a mile is that it's extremely difficult if not impossible to build a Premier side in the Championship - you can only really build it once you've got up here. Wolves, Villa, Derby and Middlesbrough tried it last season and Forest seem to be trying it this season - Wolves did it and the others fell by the wayside and are in financial strife because of it. The opportunity to establish the club was this season now we are up, and up till now we've blown it.
This story in the WM today is laughable. Why would one of Europe’s better strikers want to come to a club likely to be in bottom 3 and who do not pay high wages? https://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport...diff-city-crystal-palace-southampton-15285091
Case of two and two equals five. Cardiff want a striker, Djeko wants PL football = result. Totally ignoring the fact there are at least fifteen other clubs in PL who a) he'd rather go to and b) would welcome him & pay higher wages than us.
Whiffle, couldn't have said it any better myself mate... I can certainly understand some disappointment but the negativity does get to me a little. It's blatantly obvious we wanted a striker but for one reason or another couldn't get one in time. I genuinely thought big Ken had the attributes to make an impression in the Prem . Ditto Hoilett (who has been way below his best so far). I actually thought that defensively all we needed was another specialist right back as Jazz is injured too often and I wasn't sure how Peltier would fare... I certainly didn't want Bruno back there as he got exposed too often in the Championship. Oddly Bruno has been one of our better players and Bamba and Morrison have struggled a bit. Personally I don't think it was out of the question to expect our defence to mostly step up to the plate and our opening games seemed to mainly back that up. Warnock obviously wanted a couple more players but just couldn't land them.... hence his comments about January. We were always likely to have the worst chance of survival so I don't see what's changed ? A little more luck and we could have been 4 or 5 points better off by now. The future is bright and secure no matter what this season and to me that is more important than anything!
I guess we are proud fans and take the derisory comments personally! I think most of us enjoyed The Championship more, as we could win and lose! A bit of excitement, but not in the big league...I haven’t had much to laugh about this season...well not since Doris told me about the size of Aber’s appendage! About the size of a wart apparantly! Poor Aber!
Get what you are saying Masky (about the criticism, NOT Aber's appendage ) but for me the criticism (such as we shouldn't be here, we're an embarrassment and a bunch of long ball cloggers etc) which is coming from so called pundits and experts is just a symptom of the snobbery that the Premier League tries to promote and encourage so as not to damage the "brand". If you listen to Shaun Dyche's interview after the Burnley game he showed her was far more knowledgeable than any of the shock jock hacks and the brain dead sheep that swallow their comments without an original thought in their own heads!
Sorry guys, forget the journo hacks and "expert" pundits, many of you might not understand any negativity on here, but for my part I don't get all this complacency. The club might, just might have got this wrong and no amount of KTF 'ing is going to solve that. How does anyone know how why Warnock and Co failed to get players in? We are only guessing as to the cause saying "for one reason or another", but the bottom line was summer transfer dealings were appalling. Why did we pay £10M for Reid who Warnock has openly said he doesn't see as a striker? For that matter he hasn't figured in the side to any meaningfull extent in any position so far. We could have saved that 10 mill and left him where he was, pushed the boat out a bit and brought Murphy's team mate Maddison with him. I watched those two take Villa apart at the back end of the season for Norwich and now he's turning it on at Leicester. As for the other business, do me a favour! Invisibe man Smithies, Championship (at best) standard Cunningham are about it. Only the late late show of Camarasa and Arter on loan hold any credibility and they were last minute throws of the dice having wasted two months waiting for Grujic. We are not currently equipped for life in the Premier League. Hence the early admission that we need some players in January which in turn is an admission that we got it wrong this summer. Don't take this personally, but there another Confucious saying missing from the Joke thread at the top of the board - it goes something like this..............."Man with head stuck up arse see **** all".........
