Ten years of under-performing points to issues all the way to the top. Good discussion on the Open All Rs podcast this week... https://open.spotify.com/episode/1MCFuGT86JWtFqLUGZnVcr?si=ffqBCo_DSc-2bSybs-pdPA
I keep on coming back to the fact that we haven’t finished higher than ninth in the last nine seasons and certainly aren’t going to this season. We have become one of those miserable teams that always flirts with relegation, soon to become one of those even more miserable teams, like Rotherham and Barnsley, which bounce between League One and the Championship, until ultimately finding their level….in League One. Or lower. So be it. Everything about the club, including its leadership and ownership, is low quality. I had the misfortune to deal with the box office a couple of weeks ago. They have had the same ‘you are in a queue’ message for at least three years, featuring Chair and Adomah. I had to call because the website wasn’t working properly, didn’t send purchased tickets. It’s falling apart at the seams, like the stadium. The next few months are going to be horrible.
No team has the automatic right to be in any particular division but the reality is we're a third division team that punched way above our weight in the mid 70s, mid 80s and early 90s. That bubble burst and Chris Wright drove us to the brink and despite three seasons in the Premier League we've really not been at the races in between those 'successful' years. Our home is our handicap along with second rate owners who have no real vision. With rich owners who can't spend due to crackpot rules we're heading back where we came from all those years ago and you just have to look at Charlton and Reading as an example of once established PL clubs that bit the dust and can't get out of that decline. How many League One sides would we beat with the current team? We were saying the same thing when Ainsworth departed and, ironically, look at Wycombe now, leading the charge to replace us...
Not quite so ironic as we took him off their hands and they have not felt the need to take him back. Their current success is down to GA only to a very very small degree. There is another factor at play here and that is the demands and expectations of both the owners and us, the supporters. We all get paralysed by the fear that if the club is relegated we will never get back and some even doubt that we will even survive. That can't be healthy or lead to long-term success.
