I think we conclusively proved that we were better than the team who finished 3rd, by beating them 3 times.
And yet despite beating them twice they still got more points than us which is normally how league tables are decided - I'm a firm believer of the table never lies after 46 games. The other game was a cup match essentially.
Not really splitting hairs. Just basing my opinion on the long established tradition of points gained defining league positions and who performed better across the season. Really don't see how this is controversial tbh.
I can see both points. I certainly agree with you that the play offs results don't provide an accurate indication of who is the best team out of the four. But I don't think it's particularly fair to say Leeds were better than us over the season. A 3 point gap is nothing over 46 games really and we did win all 3 games against them.
Maybe. A 3 point gap is nothing but also everything. The size of the gap is irrelevant to league placing isn't it? If a team wins a title on goal difference it still means they were better than the other team. Just means it was closee. Nobody was calling Blackpool the 3rd best team in the championship when they got promoted I'm absolutely certain.
I get the point that the table is going to provide a pretty accurate view after 46 games. But just 3 points can be down to a bit of luck or a bad decision. Playing each other 3 times, beating them 3 times with an aggregate score of 6-2, is a bigger indicator that we were better than them than 3 points in the league. Edit: I realise this is massively off topic, so to balance it out, Sulemana is **** and we should sell him
Would you have stood by that if we'd finished first and second? That we were the real champions because we beat them and were only 3 points behind? Results against each other is irrelevant in regards league position (bar the points earned) as far as I'm concerned. Points gained has always been the best indicator of a teams quality in a league campaign.
Yeah a bit off topic and wasn't really intended as a large talking point. Main point being that if he wasn't good enough for one of the best teams in the championship he won't be good enough for one of the worst teams in Prem.
Does anyone really give a **** if we were the 3rd or 4th best team in the championship? We are promoted for godssakes and we are now the 20th best team in the premier league!!
Yeah, I’m slightly worried we’re going to get overexcited at transfer committee level by availability of players that helped us get promoted. There’s an awful lot of Dean Hammond types in the squad right now, which RM undoubtedly sees as “good characters”, but they don’t have the requisite quality to keep us in the PL.
Yeah we need to take sentiment out of our transfer business, and that applies to the contract situation for Che and McCarthy, too. While I wouldn't be gutted if they stayed, I personally wouldn't renew either of their contracts as I think we can improve on both of them. RE Fraser, he is a good squad option, but if he takes away too much from our transfer and wage budgets then we should look elsewhere. Has there been any sort of rumour for a LB yet? I definitely don't want us going into the season with Manning as the first choice, and we should look to improve on Perraud too if we can.
I do agree with you about the table giving a mostly accurate picture of the quality of the teams. I’m just yanking your chain a bit really, but in this instance, on the pitch, on the 3 occasions we met them, w were clearly better than Leeds.
TBH, I think the playoffs really should be a one off game between the team finishing 3rd from bottom (in this example) of the premier league and the team finishing 3rd in the championship. Having said that I am happy that we beat Leeds and got promoted, even though we might struggle.
I see Kieran Tierney is available and rumours about a return to Celtic. I know he is not the player that left Celtic but I think we should be going all out for him. We have been weak at LB since Bertrand left and Tierney would give some much needed leadership to the squad. Josh Brownhill has 1-year left on his contract and is another good leader who could be available. Not sure if either would come to us, but think they could be persuaded. These are the kind of players that could give us a fighting chance of staying up.
all depends on money as usual. We have no idea what our budget is, and if THB and hopefully Downes are eating into a large chunk of it. You’d imagine that’s £40m spent if we get both. If we then have like £20m left for everywhere else we are going to need to spread it thin to cover as many holes as we can (pretty similar to the summer before the PL relegation season actually, though we did find a player or 2 that summer)
