I'm not trying to exonerate the manager, but who decided that we should recruit players in this way?
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Probably because VT thought that he was being taken to the cleaners in previous transfers and he thought that a transfer committee might sort that problem. As a consequence it seems that the current arrangements allow for shambolic transfer recruitment but within budget.
That is only one part of the jigsaw though StT...
Warnock has done magnificently in certain areas... he brought the fans together and brought the team together and brought a sense of team spirit.
You have to also concede though that his playing style is limited if you are to stay up and also there were cheaper players available who he ignored. Also I wonder if we miss out on players who worry about the game time they will get and the style of play we adopt
Signings we spent money on last season such as Reid, Cunningham and Smithies were hardly given game time... so it was wasted investment rather than lack of investment.
Also it is alarming that he has completely neglected the youth system and there is still no route for young players to make their way into the senior squad
We didn't have the weakest squad in the division, it's pretty obvious Huddersfield did and, for all of their spending, Fulham were shambolic defensively - they only got as close to us as they did because of a decent run after their relegation had been confirmed. Claims such as yours play right into the didn't we do well to get so close to staying up mentality that takes no account of facts such as the size of our average attendance last season - we should be on a par with clubs like Leicester, Brighton, Wolves and Southampton given our potential and doing better than teams such as Watford and Bournemouth, but as soon as we get close to doing so, we get all coy and have the football equivalent of a nose bleed.
Our first choice XI was better than Huddersfield and Fulham last season, but we did have the weakest squad in the division - remember the subs bench at Fulham.
Sunderland had an average attendance of over 32,000 playing in League One last season. Leeds had an average attendance of over 34,000 and they haven't played in the Premier League for 15 years. It just doesn't matter in modern football.
What chance is there of Pack being fit tonight?
We were relegated because we could not score enough goals. Only one team score less than us and they finished rock bottom.
However, one team conceded more than us and stayed up because they scored 21 more goals which delivered 11 more points.
We didn't have a premier league striker at the start of the season, and the one we signed/were in the process of signing/never signed met an unfortunate fate. We were unlucky, but we were certainly not significantly worse than Burnley or Brighton. And if the Chelsea game had VAR we might well still be up.