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I wouldn't describe it as readily accepting failure but recognising we're a "young" club compared to others mentioned in this thread and that staying positive and together gave us the best chance of staying up. We're a young club in that we have spent the last 8 years trying to be one thing for 5 minutes and then trying to be something else 5 minutes later so we didn't really get anywhere; Warnock was celebrated because he took that on with us in the relegation spots and made a team that could earn promotion. Next year will be a third and final year of Warnock so that stability needed to do what so many "smaller" clubs have done before getting into the premier league in building a strong structure off the pitch.
At the moment, it seems almost impossible to establish what the club's long-term goals are. The owner says next to nothing these days (which is probably a good thing), the board are largely anonymous and the manager is very much a short-term solution given his advanced age and his obvious limitations. The club gained an unexpected promotion to the top-flight but immediately began down-playing its chances of staying there and budgeted accordingly. It's really hard to gauge what the ambitions are.
Club is healthier financially than it has been for years and just had its highest league position finish in nearly 60 years.
We all dream bigger but I think it would be wrong to rubbish the achievements of the club over the last couple of years.
Plenty of clubs have shown "ambition" and are now struggling in the championship or lower.
Imagine the doom and impending armageddon on here had we spent 100m and got relegated.
I personally thought we could stay up, but accepted it would be very difficult and as a result I can't say I'm surprised by what has happened.
I could say more, but I'll just ask one question - is an Academy that has produced one player (currently on loan to Port Vale, but not in their eighteen yesterday) who has started a league match for the first team in the last five seasons (and that was just one end of season affair with nothing riding on it) yet costs I believe in excess of a million pounds a year to run a sign of a well run club?
So many people missing the point in this thread - or at least the point I was trying to make in my blog piece.
We averaged nearly 31,500 at the gate over the course of this season, that's the eleventh highest in the Premier League. This has to mean therefore that, if you take out the two clubs who finished below us and are going down, there are seven teams in the division who have survived in the top flight for at least two seasons on lower gates than us.
Also, we are the only club ever to have spent at least two years in the Premier League to be relegated every time we have competed in it - shouldn't what I have said in this and the previous paragraph be incompatible?
We may have been in the Premier League, but our infrastructure and planning gives the impression of being League One standard at times.
We may have been in the Premier League, but our infrastructure and planning gives the impression of being League One standard at times.
A couple of points I'd like to make. Regarding the 'quality' of our squad, I think it takes a minimum of 3 seasons with judicious and shrewd activity in the transfer market, to at least produce a squad capable of challenging for promotion to the Premier League - followed by equally judicious and prudent signings to have a chance of staying there. City didn't really 'build' until the season before we went up, and definitely were - and are - woefully poor when looking for new talent.
Whilst I completely agree that we are 'league one' in infrastructure, planning, recruitment, scouting, player development, apart from the football side, the club, the stadium, the supporters, staff, always come across as 'Premier League'. We don't look out of place as some others. That's the easy bit, though..
The problem with that is that it could well be argued that Norwich have not had three years building their squad - it was put together largely in one year due to a combination of excellent, relatively cheap, recruitment and high quality young talent from their Academy.
Also, every other side that has spent at least two seasons in the Premier League in it's history has been able to survive for at least one season apart from us.
Therefore, while I can see where you coming from about how long it takes to put together a Championship promotion winning side and an "established" Premier League one, there are exceptions to that rule out there.
How comfortable would people have been with us rolling-the-dice and potentially significantly increasing our indebtedness to Tan again given recent history?
Comparing us to other similar sized clubs is pointless. None of them had debts of 120 million odd going up did they? We are still suffering from the effects of total mismanagement 5/6 years ago. I’d be happy to be almost debt free again and sustainable possibly. Maybe then we could invest a bit more wisely and stay up. Apart from Madine, who ironically we might well get money for, I think I signings were good. Perfect for another go at least and I’m sure most are still worth what we paid. Bournemouth have spent quite a bit in getting there, how they c@n sustain that on 12000 crowds I dint know. One bad transfer season like Swansea and I guess they will be gone too. I think if we went up next year again, almost debt free we might do better. It will be interesting to see how sheff Utd and Norwich get on compared to us and Fulham. The battle of the bottom 8 as it is....
It's been said many times before - gate revenue isn't the major factor like it used to be years ago.... TV money is! Unless of course you're a Manchester United of this world pulling in 78,000 fans every home game and with massive commercial revenue from replica kits sales etc.
We need some chants to reflect this.
"Going down, but in the black"
"We've got Sue Davies bookkeeping
We've got Danny Jones Ledger Entrying
We've got Gordon Hughes Tax Loopholing us out
We've got the best accountants in the land"
"Your bottomline is shit, and you know it is"
Ceeee
Aayyyy
Esssss
AITCH
Efff
Elll
Oooo
Double-U
CASHFLOW clap clap clap
CASHFLOW clap clap clap
[QUOTE= The club gained an unexpected promotion to the top-flight [/QUOTE]
Maybe thats why it was a bonus season
One way of reducing debt, would be to get a more efficient and coherent infrastructure which would, hopefully, ensure better value for money for the club - getting someone in who could bring this about should not cost a huge amount in the grand scheme of things either.
A lot of whingey bitching going on about why we aren't the perfect club, nothing was done drastically wrong this season and if it hadn't been for an absolutely tragic event we would have probably stayed up.. Yo-yoing is fun anyway, it's the world's richest and most competitive league, to be involved in promotion and relegation scraps in and out of that league is great - enjoyed this season and can't wait for the next one - BLOOOBIRDS!!