have a look at this first before reading my opinion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premier_League for quite some time now I have been of the opinion/belief that we need to change the view that we are or should be , due to history, be a club of the second tier. The inception of the 'Premier League' changed that forever... and not just for us but for quite a few clubs too. It also had a knock on effect to the rest of the pyramid of English football too. Early on in that Wiki article it tell us why the 'Prem' came about.... MONEY and TV deals, in other words GREED... it's that simple. So now the fact is that we have many many players coming in from overseas to play in the 'Premier League' and they are touting it as the best league in the world.. This will make up and coming players from all over the world want to make it in the 'Prem'. This has a knock on effect which means that really good players have to take a step down and play in lower leagues than the 'Prem'. That's why the gulf between the 'Prem' and the championship is so sizeable. The gulf gets bigger as you go down the pyramid. So unless you get investment on a huge scale you are not gonna make it that far. OK so maybe Leicester was a maverick in that case. So what do the new owners want, and do they truly understand the English football pyramid, and even the local fan base that they have now tapped onto. They talk of the 'Matchday experience' I will say to them ****** .. great big hairy ****** to that. Football fans need one thing only... success its that simple. Dancing girls , bouncy castles, circus acts etc... success is the one and only ingredient that matters to the 9 out of 10 football fans. Once this new regime grasps that and invests into a playing squad that can do the job...then and only then will they get plaudits from the fanbase... but unless they do invest then we are now approaching the level we are worthy of... league one....but right now their apparent silence is deafening.
Grandfathertyke and myself have debated this. He has long held the view that our 'centre of gravity' has in recent years shifted to the third tier. The last three seasons suggest that our attempts to escape this gravity pull are doomed to failure if the outlook of the previous owner continues - as seems to be in prospect under the new regime up to now. The other thing to note is that our approach of scouring the lower leagues for development prospects is now widely used by other clubs, making it a difficult market to extract value from. And we no longer have the highly-rated coaching staff to exploit such raw recruits. Investment is the only way forward if we are to be anything other than a yoyo club at best.
There's no doubt that smaller clubs who have found rich owners have shoved us down from bottom third of the championship to yo yo status. I'm hoping the acquisition of rich benefactors of our own will swing the pendulum back. I don't believe for a second they've bought us to let us stagnate.
It’s 25 yrs since the Premiership came into existence , we’ve spent 21 ( I think ) of those in the 2nd tier or above , which isn’t much different from our previous history ( 60’s and 70’s being the exception ) We are not just a 2nd tier club we are THE 2nd tier club , no amount of Keith Hill dream killer talk will alter that . If we go down we’ll be back soon enough
What chance of Grimsby Town, Northampton Town or Leyton Orient playing in the Premier? All have played in the old First Division since WW2.
This season is the 26th Premier league/premiership season. We have spent 6 of those seasons in the 3rd tier. This still backs up the point you are making just thought I'd clarify it. It was our 4th season at that level when we won at the millennium stadium. And last time it took 2 seasons to get promoted.
Yep - the Patrick Cryne era reduced our position to a bottom Championship / League 1 club. And we have been stuck there for over a decade. Treading water and going nowhere.
Actually we have spent much more time at division two or above since the premier league's inception than we ever did before. Since the premier league began we have spent 77% of the time at division two or higher, prior to the premier league we spent just 52% of the time above division three. 26 seasons since premiership began 20 at division two or higher 6 below division two 26 seasons prior to the premier league 11 at division two or higher 15 below division two Total prior to premier league 57 Seasons at division two or higher 35 seasons below division two
Interesting thread. We have certainly spent more seasons in the second flight fighting relegation, rather than pushing for promotion, with some notable exceptions. I do expect us to bounce back within a couple of seasons. Hopefully when we do we'll make a better fist of things, but that remains to be seen.
Exactly. If you look at our average historic position in the whole league structure I think it's somewhere in the low to mid forties. That puts us, on average, about where we are now. My guess would be that if you took an average solely of our second tier position it would be around 16th. It doesnt take many Bournemouths, Fulhams, Blackburns, Readings, Wigans, who have acquired money from rich backers to push us lower down. The only way to counter that is to be well run and get a good side together every few years or to acquire money of our own.
That's interesting reading ST I wonder if a comparison of the average league finish in div 2 from our promotion in 1981 to our promotion in 1997 against the period 2001 to current day. I included the period 92-97 in the first period as the Premier league was still in its infancy and had not skewed the football landscape at that time. I exclude 98-00 as this would be influenced by the post Prem season bounce. I think I'll take a look at that as I don't know the answer but I admit I do have some preconceptions. Back later
Ok, based on the parameters above in the first period we finished an average position of 11th with a lowest position of 19th in 89/90 and the highest of 2nd (guess when) We were comfortably mid table during the rest of the period. In the second period the average position was 19th, highest 17th in 10/11 lowest 23rd in 13/14. I don't think this necessarily proves anything, but to me it indicates that the position of the club has changed from a solid second tier club to that of a perennial struggler in the second tier or a top league one club. Why ? Could be Premier league failure money, Bosman, rich owners vanity projects. etc... it all boils down to money, take your pick.
not arguing the history as that's a fact, Just pointing out that silly money has made for many clubs to take a step down the ladder a little... that's what the future is bringing. Unless we too get a good deal of backing then we will remain that step or two back.
The town/fanbase imho place us at the lower end of the 2nd tier/top end of the 3rd tier, its getting harder to compete with those teams who can pull in around 20k fans a game. But in the 3rd tier we're one of the largest towns/attendance clubs, there's simply no inbetween. So prolonged periods in the Championship are probably overachievement whereas the same in League One is probably underachievement. For me the answer lies in the Academy, we've got to get some more first teamers out of that, then we can compete better.
