When I lived in the UK, Duncan, I had Morrisons tastes with an Asda income. It's a tragic combination.
Amazingly, we have a Lidl on Gozo. As far as I know, it's the only out-of-town biggish supermarket on the island. I go to the local mini-market in my 'village'. It is full of old people who can never work out what coins they need to use to pay for their purchases. Including me.
This is a purely theoretical idea and doesn’t hold water in practice. It’s hugely outdated. It worked 40 years ago. It might have worked 20 years ago. Not now. More time in the Championship erodes the team’s strength in depth. That’s the truth of how the moneybags football hierarchy has developed over 25 years. There’s no chance of us developing a c.60% Premier League squad in the Championship and then getting promoted, it’s a pipe dream. And whatever’s in that pipe is a hallucinogen. The only way, now, is to develop a team ethos, around a core of borderline players, who then get you promoted. Then you need a PL season where the ethos is not destroyed - that requires luck in games, luck in lack of injuries to key personnel at key times, luck in momentum of wins, luck in timing of who you play at what stage in their season, luck with the refereeing decisions, luck with the handful of new signings (not too many to break the ethos) and confident decision making, as well as players learning and stepping up. Second season then requires incremental improvements in the squad without damaging ethos, but still needs plenty of luck. Then thereafter keep building up quality. That’s how we did it under Lambert, it’s how pretty much every successful promoted team has achieved it since. There’s no other way. And even then, you can have an unlucky third season where you really should survive and you’re back to square one (Hughton’s second season).
I noticed this Summer that the supermarkets in Victoria (?Greens) do home delivery! Welcome to the 21st Century!
Great post, Rob. The idea that you can slowly build up a team to survive in the Prem while you are in the Championship and then spring promotion once you are ready is total fantasy. If you stay in the Championship, there's only one thing you end up doing: stagnating. EDIT: Also, we would lose our key players and have to start re-building all over again. It's very likely, for instance, that we will lose Omobamidele if we fail to go up this season. I know I can't prove this, but IMO the general quality of the Championship has gone down since our turn-around season of 2018-19. If we stick around, we'll be dragged down with it.
So two seasons is "slowly"? And two season is "staying in the Championship"? Do Sheffield United show signs of "stagnation"? Did Bournemouth "stagnate" after failing to make an immediate return to the EPL? It isn't "likely" at all. We have our "key" players contracted until at least 2025. As has been the case since Webber arrived, they will leave only if it is the club's interest to cash in on them. The generally accepted view, in contrast, is that the Championship is becoming more and more like the EPL, with a "top" six or eight "elite" clubs, a rump of uncompetitive teams yo-yoing between the 2nd and 3rd tiers, and a more stable group in the middle. On this view, the competition for promotion is actually getting more intense and the top Championship clubs stronger with every passing season. We are in the top group, and two seasons in the Championship (with parachute payments) is not going to alter that.
I sometimes think that if I were to post that 2 + 2 = 4, the usual suspects would be on here arguing that I was wrong.
Slower than one season, yes. And that’s a silly point because how can you guarantee building a 60% Premier League quality squad in two Championship seasons? Oh, have Sheffield United been promoted and stayed up? And have Bournemouth stayed up? Huge if true. I missed that. The irony is I wouldn’t say either of their squads is rippling with PL quality, they have actually followed my mantra (just it took two seasons in Bournemouth’s case to get promoted and whether Blades succeed no-one knows yet).
This is unintentionally hilarious and a brilliant insight into the mind of someone absolutely refusing to accept anyone could ever think differently. Robbie genuinely believes his opinions are as concrete facts as 2+2=4 No wonder he struggles to believe anyone could possibly ever have any sort of good reason to disagree with his factual opinions. They are “2+2=4” The “fact” that his opinions might be grounded on a series of challengeable (sometimes fundamentally flawed) further opinions dressed up as facts must be completely beyond his contemplation. That would mean “2” might be wrong!!
Surely, it is not that difficult to understand that a prolonged spell in the Championship would affect Norwich far more than the likes of Sheffield and Bournemouth, given that their far wealthier owners are able to cover any shortfalls in revenue. I think if we fail to gain promotion this season, it will not be the end of the world. But each year that we spend in the Championship after that, makes getting promoted progressively more difficult. As much as I admired Farke, I think Smith is a very capable manager who will comfortably get us promoted this season. Yes, we have scraped a couple of recent victories, but we also lost a couple games we deserved better fortune. OTBC !
So last season Fulham Bournemouth and Forest went up . Fulham are copying our yo yo rushing back up method which of course means they aren't ready , Bournemouth were sensible last season and purposely stayed down to strengthen their squad to EPL standards apparently, does that means Forest must be really Premier league ready as they have been preparing to go back for decades ? Tell any manager from any league that getting promoted would be a mistake and failing to go up is in fact very wise. It's more likely Robbie has chosen 2 seasons which may change later to 3 if we fail to go up next season to pretend that it's all a grand master plan . Of course the quality players you need for survival would rather choose a team like Huddersfield who stayed in the Championship rather than Forest who can offer them top flight football and higher wages. 2 seasons relegated means that if they don't go up in the 3rd season where parachute payments end , a self funding club like ours would be forced to sell players to keep the big telly and fancy floodlights on . Not to mention players like Aarons, Omobamidele , Nunez etc etc moving on to forward their careers . To pretend that failure to go up is a positive thing is mental , would Smith need to throw games to avoid the dreaded premature promotion ? Yes in Robbieworld 2+2 does = 3
You are certainly smart enough, Robbie, to know what induction is. The problem is that you think it applies to everyone else, but not to you. You have your preconceived ideas and then you scrabble around for evidence to prove those ideas. As I'm sure you are well aware, this is the very opposite of inductive thinking. It is what pseudo-scientists do, not what real scientists do. Your response to Hanley is a perfect example of this. You have decided that Hanley is a poor defender. So every time someone shows evidence to the contrary, such as the number of times he has won MOTM or the graphic recently on here suggesting he is very good statistically, you go looking for another statistic which supports your opinion. This is more like numerology than real science. You live under the illusion that you are more objective and logical and intellectually gifted than the rest of us poor benighted morons on here. You're not. You are just more supercilious.
Back on topic, can someone do that clever team graphic? Pukki back in, with Cantwell. Dowell and Sinani dropped. I like it. Interesting to see where Sargent plays - I’d quite like a 4411 with Pukki and Sargent rotating as the extra midfielder/man up top
