Championship and come back well in 5 years or more of this ****e?

So many on here see it as a pre-requisite to survive at all costs - why?
If we do by some miracle that might even have Stan and Col believing in greater beings survive, what then?
Another round of buying a whole new squad - we're good at that aren't we!!!
Is simply reaching 17th position every year the be all and end all? or
If Tony and cronies take a deep breath and state - OK, let's write off the past 4 years at an enormous loss and let's start again. We invest and plan for a minimum of 5 years in the Championship and maybe one in League 1 and perform the following:
1. A majority of that investment to be spent on preparing the club to live within its means and sustainably, that means developing and maintaining a youth system, the catchment area alone means that someone has seriously failed, when was the last youth product to play regularly for the RRRS.?
2. Invest in a top class scouting team and network, one that is European and Worldwide
3.Recruit a manager and a team around him that we believe in and that develops a footballing system from youth teams all the way to 1st team - yes, I know that will mean we employ someone that will actually want to go and see 14 year olds play - and what's more enjoy it.
4. Thoroughly scrutinize any investment on players over 28 years of age - This investment should be immediately treated as a divestment, meaning that the player will have to guarantee value for money on a wide range of criteria, also benefiting the club in other areas, i.e youth development, training assistant, 1st team mentor etc.


It's all quite simple really, it's not difficult, the main problem is that Football is allowed to be run by football people who are not that clever, or clever people who are so blinded by the aura and sexiness of football people and allow themselves to be blinded from their natural instincts.

There are risks of course -

1. Investors may not want to go in for a guaranteed long term plan - long term planning is more boring, admittedly.
2. Investors may not have the funds for this long term investment.
3. We employ, even with the best due diligence, a management team not up to the job.
4. We're just a doomed club that will never again have peace as we have sold our soul to the Devil that Stan & Col don't believe in!

Which one is it then -

1. Stay in the Premiership at all costs and buy a whole new squad that we can't associate ourselves with - year after year.
2. Risk a long term plan and maybe even go down as far as a League 1 or 2 club but have the chance of coming back as a Swansea, Southampton, Derby, Brentford or others of the same ilk?

Just think of going to or watching from the streams, a side you love that excites you and plays lovely free flowing pass and move, at pace football with no little skill and with plentiful amounts of passion and determination, led by people who instill all those qualities throughout the club from the 12 year old starter to the 85 year old supporter in the stand. Just imagine.

It's a risk though - some of you would rather live like Sunderland and Villa - year after year!!

 

I think the owners are beginning to look long term. TF referred to being on the "back foot" since we went up with NW. There's an element of karma about retaining Harry. We may get a better idea of their intentions over the next day and a half, to see if they pay for quality (if available) for one last throw of the dice.

 

We can also build for the future while staying up, or not?

 

How about another option?

Get rid of Harry once it was obvious that he had lost his mojo and was going to relegate us......................................oh wait....................that was back in November!!

 

I'm 60 now and was hoping that when we went up three years ago it was the beginning of the bigtime after the trials and tribulations of a lifetime supporting the Rs. Sadly, it's turned into a nightmare and I'm fairly resigned to us heading back down now yet again a laughing stock and having set another uneviable Premier League record.

The big problem now is the FFP sanctions which will include a transfer embargo which could see us do a Wolves and nosedive or worse still TF cuts and runs and we go belly-up. I'm still not entirely convinced TF is as solvent as we are led to believe and take the Training Ground and New Stadium hype as just that, hype.

Whatever happens I'll still be there to support us and in a strange way I found watching us in the third tier in 2000-03 far more satisfying (Vauxhall Motors apart) than recent years, we had a unity and sense of being very much part of it that is so lacking now...

 

Unlikely to be sustainable, it is definitely the current preferred option by the owners but it would mean another total upheaval in the Summer, and then another and another until we would drop down. We simply do not have the size to continue down that road.
Do you think it is even a likely possibility?

 

I'd disagree with you there, I think harping on about the time with Warnock is more an exercise to exonerate and rationalize this predicament rather than accept any blame in all this - seems like classic denial to me. I have always believed in actions rather than words.

 

Surely, if a young, long term manager comes in and is told that he can add two players to the squad and then get on with it, while all the youth development etc. is put into place, we would meet all of your wishes?

 

I'm with DT on this, the vengeful, wicked nasty piece of work side of me wants the World to see what a fraud this man is and always has been. He personifies all that is and ever has been wrong with the World of football. Loveable rogue my ar....!
Only bad part of this is that I know I'm cutting off my nose in the process - You know it's guaranteed this basket is going to write a book (lie to someone) on his time with us and how he's had to live through a living Hell.
Oh Tony - be careful who you sleep with you fool.

 

Add 2 players to the squad?
Sorry - Dunne and Hill should not be anywhere near even Championship level.
We don't have a right back, we don't have a midfield, Bobby Zamora?
Isla and Vargas aren't ours.

2 players - are you sure?

 

My point is that stability in the long term would be ensured with such a policy. Why not? Ok, we obviously need to offload more than two. Dunne, Hill, Ferdinand and BZ retire and are replaced by the youngsters that we already have. Isla and Vargas are outside the two, but should be bought. We have enough quality to be able to stay up with a decent manager.
Getting 12 players in every window is why we are in the pony, now!

 

Here is our squad of 25 under the heading of keep/lose:
Keep: Green, McCarthy, Caulker, Yun, Isla, Onuoha, Phillips, Barton, Fer, Faulin, Kranjcar, Henry, Hoilett, Sandro, Austin, Vargas
Lose/retire: Murphy, Troare, Ferdinand, Hill, Dunne, Wright-Philips, Taarabt, Zamora, Zarate
If we stay up or go down we can gain some sort of stability by replacing these 9 with 7 U21s / loaned out players and 2 additional quality signings.
This would be the start of becoming the stable club That Tony and Les are talking about.
Easy?

 

Keep Sandro and lose Adel?

Really?

 

Adel has decided that he wants to go. If he is still here after Dino has gone and the new manager chats him up, then yes, of course. Although, I can't see him staying. Sandro has a long contract and should be an asset if he can avoid being injured.
Was my thinking okay otherwise?

 

We certainly don't need even a season out if the PL to build better coaching systems. Youth teams or for the future. Other PL Clubs of not much geater size than us are and have. Saints, Swans, Stoke for 3. We have to stay in the PL both for financial reasons and it is our sports target. I don't see any reason relegation will benefit, it will be a disaster, with FFS a major disaster possibly.

 

(said in the voice of Kevin Keegan) I really hope we prove them wrong!

It really shouldn't matter what your personal opinion of Harry, if you love the club you should be wanting nothing more than for him to turn it around. Anything else and we're back to square one of trying to put a square peg in a round hole. We need stability, the club tried throwing money at the problem, that didn't work. They're now sticking with their choice of manager, it may or may not work. But if it doesn't and we are relegated, most will see it as a fail, I look at it as the start of stability, because as the OP says, we may well be better off going down and rebuilding. It's just something most fans can't stomach the thought of.

Can you imagine if TF came in on day one and said we aren't ready for the big time, so I'm not spending money and accepting relegation at the start of the season and we'll rebuild from there? How many people would have accepted that as a viable option? You can't fault Fernandes for trying, he's tried it all ways and got nothing for his investment apart from abuse from some moronic fans. It's tough for him to know what to do for the right cause as a result. But if we stick with him he will get it right.

 

Sorry, I disagree completely with the 5 year plan.

There's barely an owner across the world that doesn't want a financially viable club with all the talent produced from youth team and a quality of football that sets them out.

Why don't they all do it? Because the practicalities of it are balanced with the imperitive to keep afloat by maintaining their current league status.

Can you imagine being in League 2, struggling in the league and having the overheads of an academy and a Championship manager's wage (I assume the recruitment of a long term manager would start next season so that would be the case). Add to that, in 5 years, any 10 year old academy players brought in now would be 3 years away from professional contracts so non-league would be a realistic danger. Would you think it's a valid risk then?

Also, by the time we break even, leagues down, we'll be probably 300million in debt with no immediate prospects of financial rewards to even begin to counter that. Personally, our current state is embarassing enough but a third of a billion on a youth team and breaking even? We'd go down in history for an ineptitude that makes our current plight look like a typo on the matchday program.

The world scouts? Why would any prospect relocate to us in the lower leagues having not produced successful players?

I think moderately backing a good, young manager and giving him a remit of buying players under 24, while we maintain the best league position we can, sounds a lot simpler while the academy is getting going.