I believe that we will get promoted. That is my forecast and has been since the start of the season. But I shall caveat that by stating that I am far too old in the tooth to start counting my chickens before they hatch. It is only a forecast. Not a guarantee. An interesting question develops in the event that we do get promoted. Do we keep the manager? Do we keep the style? Or alter one or the other. It is interesting to think about and ineveitably it may be a question the club will have to face, even if at this point just a hypothetical exercise.

The Burnley Way
In the one camp I can see that several fans are saying the Burnley model is the way to go. That is, we get promoted, we keep the style, keep the manager and give it a go. We know that long ball and a physical model can at least make us competitive. It is not possible to out-Arsenal Arsenal. But it possible to give them a good kicking, intimidate them, pile a load of six footers into the box and nick a corner to make it 1-0. Ugly, but effective. But not a style that can take us into the top four. To most fans they will not care, so as long as we survive relegation. But the added bonus of this approach is that you can build on what you’ve got rather than have a large, expensive, and time-consuming squad tear up in the summer as you scramble to alter both style and players. Stability versus instability. It certainly did work for Burnley. But equally one may argue that it has not worked for others.

The Swansea Way
Option two is to try and do what Swansea and Huddersfield have done. Play a better standard of technical football. Be prepared to change the manager, and build a style that is easier on the eye in the Premier League. With a better brand of football you are more likely to get more fans on board, and not give as many an excuse to walk away due the brand of poor football. Or so many think. The reasons I would advise against this move is that to change our brand of football we would need a change of manager, a massive squad overhaul, with board members and the manager spending their time signing players rather than preparing for the season ahead on the training pitch. If you are to play this way then you need to mould this style prior to promotion to the Premier League. Swansea had ingrained their style for a few seasons before promotion. So had Southampton, Bournemouth and Huddersfield with David Wagner.

The Third Way - Stoke model
Ther is another way perhaps. A third way. The slow metamorphosis. One example of a club that did well and has survived many seasons is against the odds, dare I say it, is our old enemy Stoke City. Like Burnley they have done very well, and it was Pulis that got them into the top ten and kept them going. Warnock is aging, and he may only want two seasons left in the game. But if he got us promotion then to me it would be right to reward Warnock for his efforts and to use his experience. Once he decides to leave, it wouldn’t take much of an effort to attract Tony Pulis here who could build on Warnock’s tough team legacy, until we get to a point where we can start using the money bank to buy better players and then morph the style slowly to better football - as Mark Hughes tried to do. I know Hughes got sacked, but the point I am making is that Stoke did it a clever way over time. Accept what you have built as a physical side, consolidate with it and only then slowly tinker the team into a better quality footballing one. You never know, by then someone up-and-coming with a loyalty to home, like, Craig Bellamy, maybe ready to take us to the next level. This is the approach that I would take.

What's your view?