Quote Originally Posted by Loramski View Post
Fair enough, thanks for the reply. Personally I'd say that having flirted with relegation twice in a row and being under a transfer embargo made this season more of a battle for survival than Malky going into a Premier League season back then having spent the best part of £50m and having a winning momentum from the season before but that's just my opinion.

Entertainment in sport is a tricky one. Ultimately, a team (or even a sport itself) will lose followers without it but I think sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for. I seem to remember a few sets of fans having protests about the way a team was playing (probably involving Allardyce) but the change of direction led to a drop down the table. Ipswich fans finally chased Mick out the club when they were 12th in the Championship, they finished 24th the following season. How entertaining did they find that? How entertained by Bazball are all the England fans in India this week, the Brighton fans in Rome etc? We had bigger crowds to watch Malky and Warnock's teams than anyone else here, what's the moral of that?

Bulut has been a frustrating character at times this season, of course, but the players seem to be putting the effort in for him and hopefully he's just been concentrating on building the platform that Llan Bluebird talked of earlier and a more palatable end-product will come in time.
I'd like to offer some of my thoughts as well as I think it's a fascinating subject.

Malky. I remember us getting walloped 4-1 at Vicarage Road by his Watford side and some fans thinking then that they wish he could be our manager. I think it's important to be as historically accurate as possible and say that, despite some entertaining games and promotion pushes, Dave Jones wasn't universally popular as manager as we kept falling short season on season. Back then we knew we needed a bit of steel about us if we were going to push on. Looking back now, it might be strange for a club to sack a manager that gets to two successive playoff campaigns, but there was a feeling that if Jones was going to get promotion, he would have done so.

I've never been one for money = guaranteed success. Lots of clubs have wasted money on poor transfers. I've felt it unkind to suggest Malky wouldn't have won promotion without spending. I'm not sure where the £12m figure comes from in his first season with us - I presume that includes wages. It certainly doesn't just come from transfer fees. In his first season we played some terrific stuff. Nobody expected a playoff bid but we managed that, plus a league cup final. I remember how we battered Palace over two legs in that cup semifinal yet it somehow went to penalties. We lost the first leg away from home but played really well. It was a shame that we came up against a West Ham side that was (apart from at home) too good for the Championship.

When Malky came to the club he was given 3 seasons to win promotion. It wasn't Malky's fault that the club decided to reduce that to 2 after his first year. As TOBW rightly said, we changed tactics after that 5-4 at Charlton. In another piece I wrote on here recently, we had 7 successive wins of a single goal that season. It became football where, if we didn't concede, we'd have enough up front. I recall a match, maybe Leicester away on Sky, where we were outplayed, but scored a winner and held on. We had little of that the season before.

There was also another underlying factor - getting to the Premier League. We'd kept missing out, had lost 3 playoff campaigns, while a certain club down the M4 went up through their only playoff campaign. I don't speak for everyone, but that made our failings all the more unpalatable. In just a few seasons they'd become top dogs of Welsh club football. I don't recall many caring how we won promotion, just as long as we did. Even the red shirts, though for some at the time decided it was an act they could not support, and after relegation, more joined in the protests, didn't really dampen the mood when we finally made it. I look back at it now and it feels like an alien side wearing red, but back then I didn't care. Now, I don't feel any connection to the PL side wearing red and even the win over Man City hardly raises a smile, but back then it was just a relief to be there. I look back and think I got that wrong.

When Warnock won promotion, that was on the back of some dreadful stuff, keep it tight, launch it long and win your battles. Yet, we did score some cracking goals that season and could play some exciting football.

Since Warnock's side deservedly went down, we've had little to shout about. Most football has been boring, home form has been one of the worst in the 4 divisions. Long gone are the days of a cult hero to cheer on. We used to love home grown talent coming through but there's been precious little of that. It all feels a long way from the sides we had before we first won promotion.

I've seen some amazing moments as a City fan. I remember my jaw dropping when Earnshaw scored a 30 yarder against Stoke - controlled a long ball on his shoulder and let fly. I saw Whittingham score way too many amazing goals. I saw Chopra make chances in the box out of nothing, McPhail splitting defences with incredible accuracy, Mendez-Laing and Hoilett terrorising fullbacks and scoring extraordinary goals. Even Noone could score something spectacular. At the moment we're getting orgasmic over a goal scored by Diedhiou, which, yes, decent cut back and finish, but it was the sort of goal we used to be used to. Tanner's beauty against the Jacks would have just been a "decent goal" 15 years ago but, because we've been bereft of so many moments like that over the last few seasons as we've struggled and made so many poor decisions on and off the field, they have become special.

Some are happy just to win, don't care how we score and that's fine, that's up to them. I guess I've grown up on watching good football at times with the City (perhaps not Leicester's winner at Ninian Park in 2007 which even Ali was embarrassed to announce), and how much we've fallen. Particularly when the Jacks won promotion, winning meant everything. I know I could be a right arse on here when we lost 15 years ago. Now I don't care. I don't celebrate wins that much (apart from Swansea this season). Most of my experiences watching us at home over the last few seasons is being bored shitless.