End of season blues

[Foxy2600 301]

Objectively, assuming we went up and lost nobody, kept the loanees and bought some talent in the CB, AMF and another CF - say £100m worth, could we compete and get 40 points? 

If not, what’s the alternative? As I said in a previous post, every other year I’m upbeat and rewarded. But it’s an empty feeling because once in the Prem, what’s the point of being there? 

So pessimistically, for me to have two upbeat years on the bounce, we need to take our squad up with us, play the fringe players week in week out in the Prem and instead throw the kitchen sink at a Cup Run, whilst embracing the inevitable relegation and more parachute payments. What’s the point in being another Brighton,  Newcastle, Burnley, Southampton or Palace? Just so we can join the Plucky Little........brigade?

[Yorkshire Canary 118]

We love our club but we have to be realistic without significant outside investment our glass ceiling is being a top championship club, getting promoted every now and again and having short stays in the PL. If we have a successful manager they will be pinched like Lambert was and the same goes for the players. We have a lot of players at this club that will  need to be moved on even if we are in the championship let alone the PL. We have a hard core of 3 or 4 players that can justly count themselves as being PL quality. No younger players have broken through unfortunately this season in sharp contrast to 2  to 3 seasons ago when  Maddison, Lewis, Godfrey, Aarons ,Buendia and Cantwell arrived on the scene, which is both a worry and disappointment. Of the more mature players Krul is still at the top of his game so is Gibson and Hanley, but then we are pretty thin on the ground, Vrancic, Steipermann, Hernandez and Tettey are way past their best, Pukki is still good but past his best, Hugill looks a decent championship striker, Dowell just looks off the pace as does Platecha

[Bonzo 198]

If we go up we shall be stronger than before - even if we lose one or two first team players.

Our last foray into the Premiership came a little ahead of time but I wouldn't underestimate how much our squad and managerial team would have learned from that experience. Many of the lessons were painful but our manager and squad know what the Premiership is all about from first hand experience. 

The leadership is not going to bet the farm on black or red if we do go up as we all know. That's not our style.

Instead my guess is that they will have a ready made list of players who would also be accepting of the reality that we are a top 26 team and not perennial Premiership club. Talented players who have been overlooked or undervalued, players who would want to play for us and not players who think that they are doing us a favour by joining this club. 

Indeed we have been recruiting along these lines already with Giannoulis and Gibson being examples. Our financial stability is also a positive, our facilities are more than adequate and our footballing ethos is unambiguous, with more than enough importance given to developing young players.

Other clubs will outbid us on salaries and fees for established stars at the peak of their careers as we know. 

If we take Gibson and Giannoulis as a possible template for next year this means we might be paying £5-8M for players who would be able to successfully operate in the Premiership.

Premiership football will also be a huge draw for young and up and coming players, particularly with our reputation for giving opportunities to young players based on talent rather than experience. 

It is not inconceivable that given a budget of £30m to play with we could make 4 or 5 high caliber additions.

We do need to sell players too. If players outgrow us it vindicates what we are doing provided we can develop or identify better successors. 

A player's career might well be short but the next superstar is just around the corner either waiting to be discovered or in the cases of Krul and Gibson to be rediscovered.  

[Petriix 2,835]

1. We're not guaranteed to go up.
2. Last season in the Premier League we started really well, had a catastrophic number of injuries, suffered more than most to VAR then had a terrible end to the season after the enforced Covid break. We could have easily stayed up with that squad with slightly better fortune.
3. We have a better squad now. Players have developed , the tactics have evolved, we are better balanced.
4. The bank balance would be better than ever after promotion. We genuinely wouldn't need to sell anyone and, if we did, we would be rolling in cash. We only need to worry about losing our best players if we *don't* go up.

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

I think the OP has a point. Its all hypothetical anyway, so whats wrong with his points?

Hypothetically we could lose our three best players and Skipp. And Skipp might well be the key one. I do wonder if we would have done better last season with him in the team.

I think we know that Hanley may not be up to the EPL. And I would include Vrancic and MacLean in that.

So hypothetically, we could be looking at replacing seven of the current team. And they are the best ones.

So what would that cost? So why sell our three best players knowing we would have to spend a fortune on players not so good.

And with Brexit kicking in, I think foreign internationals will be at a higher premium.

[dylanisabaddog 4,919]

17 hours ago, Midlands Yellow said:

So we could survive if promoted even after all the likely departures? You weren’t so confident in recent weeks. 

I think it's more a case of thinking that if Webber and Farke can't keep Norwich up then no one can. It looks like there's going to be a huge amount of money available and I wouldn't be comfortable entrusting it to anyone else. But we're probably going to be asking them to buy 5 or 6 players for around £90m and expect them to get all those signings right. That's an enormous challenge. 

My despondency in the past has been more to do with the general state of football than with our club. It used to be possible for a team as good as ours to survive but the Premier League is now so strong that it's almost impossible on a self funded basis. With a fully fit squad we are cruising past teams that are pushing for the play offs yet we all know this team would struggle against all but the bottom 4 or 5 in the Premier League. 

Basically we're asking for a miracle. A whole season with no major injuries to start with. And we're probably looking at changing half the team in two months and getting them up and running immediately. On the plus side, two of the three relegation places will probably be taken by whoever goes up with us, so we're just looking for one team to have a really bad year. 

We could also do with a helpful fixture list but that's highly unlikely to happen. 

Obviously Brexit hasn't helped our model and I don't have any confidence that there are many players in the Championship capable of making the step up. That is unless Brentford manage to make a mess of it. But the signing of the Greek guy should give us some confidence. All we need is another 5 like him......