An honourable mention also to Simon Clifford, a Woodward appointment who I think lasted two months after pissing off the backroom staff: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/football/2005/nov/14/newsstory.sport8
The recruitment of staff is the most difficult and challenging of tasks. It is always a bit of a gamble. The secret is to try and stack the odds as far as you can in your favour.
Plus we have to allow for the invisible cloak of mediocrity, which promising players put on as soon as they arrive with us.
I've brought this thread back up because I didn't get around to post at the time and it's just as relevant now if not more so. I see our situation as three possible scenarios. 1. We want to get back to the PL in the quickest possible time and anything else is a failure. 2. We love playing in the Championship but realise that a successful, exciting season would most likely bring promotion. So being a yo-yo club would be the answer. In other words enjoy being in the Championship, enjoy winning more and enjoy the excitement of a promotion. Then get back as soon as possible and bring parachute payments back with us. But this option obviously also involves the misery of a relegation season and all that includes. 3. Stay in the Championship because of i, ii and iii below regarding the PL. i. We were just making up the numbers (in the PL) and we will never compete with the big boys (mostly true) and just waiting to get the inevitable relegation (untrue imo). Our last spell in the PL was for 11 seasons, whether we were classed as an established PL club is a matter of opinion but in 4 of those seasons we finished well inside the top 10 and another in 11th place. For 8 seasons we finished with 40 or more points. Our stay in the top division before that was 27 seasons. And before that 8 seasons. Since 1966 when we got promoted to the top division for the first time in our history we have spent 45 out of 58 seasons in the top flight. For a club of our size that is incredible and it doesn't support the view that we are not a top flight club. I see it more that we are top flight but going through a poor period. ii. We just wallow around the PL with never a chance of winning anything. That is also mostly true, but if you want to stay in the Championship it would be true there as well but at a lower standard of football and there would certainly be no chance of qualifying for Europe in a good season. iii. We can't compete because of the financial imbalance. That is true compared to the big boys but it wasn't why we got relegated. The annoying thing about our relegation was that spending ability would have been an acceptable reason during Gao's ownership but our failure wasn't due to finances. We may well win more games but as Chilco points out below you have to lose enough not to get promoted. Would it be ok to be close but no cigar every season? Another one like this where frustrating results have cost us an auto place or even losing in the playoffs each year? From a football point of view, we weren't always getting thrashed in the PL, there have been some memorable victories in the last 10years. And coming back from 0-2 against Huddersfield doesn't come close to when we did the the same against Liverpool. To me, winning against teams with less resources and worse players is only enjoyable if it is part of a promotion campaign. If we also become one of those teams and it's competitive but crap football, then that's not for me. There has to be ambition and IMO we should always be trying to be the best we can be. I haven't enjoyed this season as much as some on here, I actually think that some performances have been worse than when we were in the PL but for different reasons. Saturday was one of them. I am obviously in the promotion as quickly as possible camp but I'm not oblivious to the wrongs of the PL and now outside looking in, it does seem worse than when were a part of it. I was never convinced that VAR would be the cure all that people thought it would be. It's actually turned how the game is refereed into an embarrassment. The favouring of the big boys and regular cheating is quite sickening. But despite all that I think we should still be aiming to be back there sooner rather than later.
That’s a first class analysis and pretty much ties in exactly with how I feel. Thanks for expressing it better than I could!
I should explain that I quoted your posts because I agreed with both but wanted to add some thoughts of my own. I could have structured it a bit better than just tacking them on the end. I should also point out that I'm not saying people are wrong to want to stay in the Championship, we all have our reasons for what we want from Saints. My post was more about my thoughts and why staying in this division doesn't do much for me. Just another point I would make about the Championship and the PL. The EFL highlights programme shows some surprisingly great goals being scored every week in the Championship and below. But what it doesn't show is the missed sitters, passes going straight out of play or to the opposition. It doesn't show players who can't control the ball or tackle and continually run into dead ends. These are a more accurate reflection of what watching football outside of the PL is like because it's a regular occurrence. You will have had to sit through some pretty dire stuff at St Mary's before Joe Rothwell scored his worldie. I want to see Saints win, of course I do but doing it against City, Liverpool, Arsenal and Spurs are recent memories and were achieved by very, very good players in the Saints team. It's not an unrealistic aspiration to want to see that at St Mary's again because little old Saints have already done it and not all that long ago.
I want us to win every game, in a fair league with no VAR. The last 30 years has taught me that I don’t really care what league we are in as long as we are competitive. League one, championship, PL, Europa league.. makes no difference to me. I just want to see players that give their all, some goals and some wins. There is no enjoyment being cannon fodder.
Like I said above, there's no right or wrong it's all about personal preference. Totally agree about VAR, I don't think it will ever be accepted because most football people (fans, managers, players, laundry guy, receptionist) don't accept decisions that go against their team by who or whatever makes that decision.
Occasionally you can be cannon fodder, what annoys me now is at the top of the modern game it is 'you will be cannon fodder, know your place'. After Leicester won the league what was the quote by one of the top six chairman - 'This must never happen again'.
The thing that is often overlooked in this debate is that although Saints are highly unlikely to ever win the PL, being in that league give us the finances to fund a team that has a more realistic chance of winning a cup than in the Championship, plus there is also possible European qualification to consider too. The downsides are obviously less wins and goals in the league and VAR but I think a lot of fans have forgotten how good 2012-17 felt at the time.
True, but we made more finals when in the PL, plus that was a different era as it wasn't formed then.
2 (FA Cup v Arsenal and League Cup v Man Utd)? Maybe another one in the 70s/80s that I’m not aware of I get your point, but it’s still so incredibly rare that club our size make it to the final of a domestic cup on any sort of regular basis that I don’t see it as ringing endorsement for being in the PL. Newcastle are probably double the size of us and haven’t won a cup in 100 years or something
