I see a lot of people post things along the lines of "I'd rather stay in the Championship for a few years until we're ready for the Premier League", and it baffles me every time. If we somehow manage to scrape through the play offs, then we're ready for the Premier League by virtue of being better than 21 other teams in the league. I think what people mean is that we should stay in the Chmapionship until we have a team ready-made to compete at a good level in the Prem. But the thing is... that simply doesn't happen. Look at Burnley last year, they absolutely ran away with the Championship and are now looking dead certs to get relegated. The gulf between the two leagues is huge, personally I think we need to jump at any chance of promotion, take the money, try our best, and if we come straight back down, so be it. I know people say they don't want to go up just to be the punching bags of the Prem but the reality is that's what happens to almost every promoted team (see the current bottom 3). The best anyone can hope for is that we're slightly less of a punching bag than 3 other teams, manage to stay up by the skin of our teeth, and then build from there. It's not pretty, but it's the sad reality of modern football. The idea that we should hang around in the lower league waiting until we somehow manage to end up with a squad full of Premier League quality players who decided to play in a division below them for no apparent reason, is just fantasy, imo.
Ipswich seem to think there ready We can’t build a top class premiership team whitest in the championship Can we
Being good enough to get promoted out of one league does not automatically mean you are good enough for the league above. This team would get destroyed every week in the PL
Of course we do all we can to get back to the top flight. This is the longest spell we have had outside the top flight in our 140+ year history, but as you say yourself Burnley pissed this league last season and are nailed on for a relegation spot. I dread to think what it would be like if we somehow managed to scrape promotion through the play offs. The Mags have lost 8 of their last 9 nine games excluding their game against us, in which they didn't even have to break sweat to beat us 3-0 at home. It will be grim
Did Burnley not gain promotion with 4 loanees who all returned to their parent clubs if I remember correctly. Therefore not a good yardstick?
I genuinely think our club have a well thought through plan it just hurts when we lose a game, I’m happy to leave it to them as long as we’re not visibly worsening.
I want to wait till those clubs who run the Premier League **** off to some European super league. Then it might just be a fair playing field, so fair that even VAR might have a part in the modern game.
Unlike say Luton we wouldn’t have to spend any great proportion of the windfall on infrastructure, that’s all being sorted now. Would free us up to make decent investments in the squad.
Aye and I think the more we bring in income the more we use the same model but with higher quality. In the end we are in a position to compete for elite young players.
I said it last season. But I also said I wanted us to the championship and finish around 10th (which I maintain would’ve been a cracking season). When it came to the play offs I was pretty “meh” about it. I wasn’t bothered about going up, but once we beat Luton, my feelings changed!! If we go up we go up, I don’t “not want to”, but it doesn’t bother me if we don’t yet!
The point is, when you go up, you invest in players to keep you up, then build from there. I.E, Brighton and Aston Villa. Who after surviving the lower end of the PL, are now challenging at the top end of it. I don’t get those who don’t want to go up because they don’t want to see us struggle in the prem. We might as well go back down to league 1 where we can win even more games?
What the same dof who has taken us out of league 1 n into the top 6 of the championship (joint 6th at the minute) while lowering the average age of the squad within 3 yrs?? I get you hate beale but speakman has done a cracking job in taking us forward as a club on the field
Ok aye agree the playing squad has been improved thankfully. Maybe speakman and Harvey should concentrate on the players and a more competent dof sorts the HC/manager out. By the way they haven't achieved a miracle - safc 7th in the 2nd tier is below our par standing in English football. Let's not lose sight of that FFS.
We will go up when the time is right, im not in a rush to get to the PL and feel we will get there when we are ready I just want to enjoy the football we play (i haven't enjoyed it this season for the most part)
They have nailed the previous appts though so suppose they have credit in that sense as well We have no god given right to be 7th in the championship tho. Our club has been a mess for yrs before speakman n kld came in so lets no lose sight of that. We had no recruitment team in place, no data team, we were selling off every promising youngster for nxt to nothing and we had no sellable assets in our squad. We spent 4 yrs in L1 so we were a L1 team on the pitch, theyve transformed us to a playoff team in the league above in a short space of time From working for a pro team i know it takes yrs to get a good scouting team in place so the fact they've done pretty well in the recruitment side of things in a short space is impressive. They havent been perfect but no recruitment team is Just because you hate this appt doesn't mean you should lose sight of where we have come in a short space of time
