What's the point....

[Cyclops]

. This thread is becoming a weekly post and it’s so strange. How are we going to rebuild our squad without PL money? With our wage bill and let players on decent money, you can’t.

Good to know that loads of posters have the same concerns - and if Tan and his accountants were bothered about income in the past, they would have invested far more than the niggardly £50m they did out of £120m last time.

[Pedro de la Rosa]

Good to know that loads of posters have the same concerns - and if Tan and his accountants were bothered about income in the past, they would have invested far more than the niggardly £50m they did out of £120m last time.

Fulham and Villa spending 100m worked well, didn't it? How do you suggest we improve without PL money? If we rip it up and start again there's a very good chance we won't get back. We can't pick and chose your promotion, you have to take the opportunities you get.

[NYCBlue]

Fulham and Villa spending 100m worked well, didn't it? How do you suggest we improve without PL money? If we rip it up and start again there's a very good chance we won't get back. We can't pick and chose your promotion, you have to take the opportunities you get.

You keep saying this, but spending £35M didn't work either. Obviously spending more money doesn't give you any guarantees but a squad of better players has to be better than a squad of limited ones right? The last time we went up, our squad just wasn't good enough and our best player was a loanee who seemed to lose all motivation when we needed him most. I think the "not wanting to get promoted" school of thought is more about not wanting to get relegated after one season again. Maybe Harris will be a better EPL manager than Warnock, maybe he'll buy better players. I think he's gradually improved the way the team sets up and plays football. So who knows?

[Pedro de la Rosa]

You keep saying this, but spending £35M didn't work either. Obviously spending more money doesn't give you any guarantees but a squad of better players has to be better than a squad of limited ones right? The last time we went up, our squad just wasn't good enough and our best player was a loanee who seemed to lose all motivation when we needed him most. I think the "not wanting to get promoted" school of thought is more about not wanting to get relegated after one season again. Maybe Harris will be a better EPL manager than Warnock, maybe he'll buy better players. I think he's gradually improved the way the team sets up and plays football. So who knows?

Are we going to be able to fix the problems we have in the Champ? No. Can you guarantee promotion at any time? No. If we can get promoted, it is a ****ing mental argument. If you don't want to see us lose every other week, that's a fair point but every single side outside the top 6 does that.

Also, had Sala survived, I think we'd have pulled it off.

[Eric the Half a Bee]

Fulham and Villa spending 100m worked well, didn't it? How do you suggest we improve without PL money? If we rip it up and start again there's a very good chance we won't get back. We can't pick and chose your promotion, you have to take the opportunities you get.

Part of it is building a team over a few seasons that grows together. Throwing money at promotion doesn't always work well, though it did in Wolves' case. Swansea are a perfect example of that. They improved what they could bit by bit and the players were good enough when they won promotion to not only stay up, but to do quite well initially.

That's why I think that had we won promotion a decade ago, we'd have been ok. We had some good footballers who would have been fine in the top flight that had played with each other for a few years. Age was on our side in many cases as well.

[Pedro de la Rosa]

Part of it is building a team over a few seasons that grows together. Throwing money at promotion doesn't always work well, though it did in Wolves' case. Swansea are a perfect example of that. They improved what they could bit by bit and the players were good enough when they won promotion to not only stay up, but to do quite well initially.

That's why I think that had we won promotion a decade ago, we'd have been ok. We had some good footballers who would have been fine in the top flight that had played with each other for a few years. Age was on our side in many cases as well.

We don't have the money to do that, and the clubs that have built over a few years have often come up from League One. The sides that have gone up and stayed up recently, have flown up through League One (Sheff Utd, Leicester, Southampton) or have spent an absolute fortune in the Championship (Newcastle, Leicester, Wolves etc). The exception is Burnley.