A question of identity.

[StraightOuttaCanton]

But I think it's a fair point to say that in the absence of any realistic chance of winning, or even finishing in the top quarter, of the league you are competing in, things like what is being described as an identity for your club become more important.

My attitude last season was that I could take the attritional type of game we played because it was achieving the desired result of promotion, but, if we were ever to establish ourselves in this division to the extent that we would, in effect, start each season contesting for a finishing position of, say, between seventh and fourteenth, then I would want to see more football being played for my season ticket money.

Agreed on that but it sounds like you’ve been conditioned (as have we all by the way) into the lofty ambition of finishing 7th and being happy with it. You add the extra caveat of needing to be entertained for your season ticket money, which is admirable but not essential for everyone.

How many successive years of finishing 7th could you take before you’d want more than entertainment and 7th place for your money?

15? 10? Less?

[lardy]

Agreed on that but it sounds like you’ve been conditioned (as have we all by the way) into the lofty ambition of finishing 7th and being happy with it. You add the extra caveat of needing to be entertained for your season ticket money, which is admirable but not essential for everyone.

How many successive years of finishing 7th could you take before you’d want more than entertainment and 7th place for your money?

15? 10? Less?

We can look at the examples of Stoke and Charlton for a rough answer. Their fans got bored of being where they were and wanted more.

[the other bob wilson]

Agreed on that but it sounds like you’ve been conditioned (as have we all by the way) into the lofty ambition of finishing 7th and being happy with it. You add the extra caveat of needing to be entertained for your season ticket money, which is admirable but not essential for everyone.

How many successive years of finishing 7th could you take before you’d want more than entertainment and 7th place for your money?

15? 10? Less?

I've always said that the novelty of watching City play in the Premier League would wear off pretty quickly and by about our third or fourth season I'd be bored by it. Of course, it's easy for me to say that when I've not been in the situation yet, but I honestly don't feel I'd be prepared to hang around to watch a competition where finishing seventh was the limit of your realistic ambitions for too long - especially if we were still playing the sort of attritional stuff I mentioned earlier.