Club going downhill

[Yellowhammer 82]

When we got promoted with Alex we had a great chance of establishing ourselves as a premier club but we blew it with no investment. we seem to have no ambition now and seem to accept that just playing well for first 20 mins of a game against teams like leeds is good . Farke was a terrible appointment a manager with little experience but it''s not just him ,we need a wealthy backer to move us forward to complete with the top teams or we will as we are now just become a mid table average championship team . Shame, I love the club and have supported them for over 40 years and will always do but football has changed with money being the most important aspect .

[mr footy 30]

When the aim is to stay in this league it not too bad,I''m certain we will be ok and will finish bottom half.

[Herman 8,503]

"......but we blew it with no investment."

Why do people keep trotting out this nonsense. We had lots of investment and now we are where we are because of those investments. We either bought players that turned out to be good on paper only or were a wrong fit for the managers style of football. Long,expensive contracts that we still have to pay off. Risks on good players that didn''t come off (one still here in the medical ward). Players we needed and spent effort chasing were way out of our range from the start. Investment wasn''t the problem. Wrong, risky or didn''t pay off investments was what has hindered us.

[hogesar 8,111]

What on earth makes you think we stood a chance of being one of the established 8 or so premier league clubs?

[BroadstairsR 1,675]

We could at least aim for a bit of yo-yoing though.

It''s good fun and the parachutes are more than useful.

[Jonncfc 28]

[quote user="hogesar"]What on earth makes you think we stood a chance of being one of the established 8 or so premier league clubs?[/quote]

With the current ownership, we didn’t.

[Herman 8,503]

There''s no chance of us becoming an established Prem club in the way it is currently run. There are currently 7 teams that are what you could class as established (Everton are pushing it a bit). All from the three largest cities in England, all owned by bona fide billionaires. The rest are fighting for survival.

[Mello Yello 2,027]

Club going downhill ?......Nah, we''re just going up the hill, backwards....

[he 0]

Investment is not everything. I’m sure there is a lot of players in Div One and Two that can take the step up to become Premier League players. For example Steve Morison, Russel Martin, Anthony Pilkington and Grant Holt to name a few. With a good working scouting system there is a lot of possibilities to find talents out there.

To buy expensive players can be a big risk, as the Van Wolfswinkel fiasco was.

But first the manager needs to be replaced and get in a manager who knows how to find players who can run and fight for the team.

[writeronthestorm 4]

We did invest, but in the "wrong" players (Naismith) or at the "wrong" time (Klose signing in Jan) - poor transfer management coupled with poor game management/tactics did for us in the end.

I, too, lament missed opportunities - had we kept Walker as manager, Sutton, Fox, etc. we could have already been an established Premiership side for many, many years

[Legend Iwan 30]

As others have alluded to, the idea we''d simply become ''established'' in the Premier League with some extra investment is bonkers. Who even counts as established these days?

Three clubs that had been in the top tier for a considerable number of years were relegated last season. Then you had Sunderland the season before that, and Newcastle and Aston Villa three seasons ago. Crystal Palace have been in the PL since 2013, yet are still just aiming to stay in the division. This is the reality.