The Championship is 'a poor league'.

[It's Character Forming 1,166]

I think this thread shows that what it means to call it a "poor league" varies hugely depending on who you ask, and there are even some deluded binners who think it's all about them (bless).

 

It's the flip side of the coin that in pre-season, you get a lot of posters every season saying how strong the Champs is going to be next season i.e. how hard it will be to win promotion from.

 

Personally I think in general it's a pretty average Champs this year, but IMO Leicester who are the sole standout team so far are not as good as Burnley were last year.  Some years you get 2 or 3 teams who are a class above, but not this season, at least not so far.

It's summed up by the fact that we've been pretty indifferent but are still in touch with the playoff positions and have just been able to get an away draw at the team in 2nd.

[Ken Hairy 3,781]

"At the top end, Ipswich, recently promoted from League One"

I think you've answered your own question on the quality of the league. 

[Cowboy 201]

2 hours ago, Canarywary said:

... Sometimes when I watch MOTD in the evening after watching Norwich, I do think 'Christ, this is different level'.

When you say 'sometimes'...

[canarybubbles 1,946]

3 hours ago, dylanisabaddog said:

How many players in The Championship are good enough for the Premier League? The only two I've seen this season are Summervile at Leeds and Clarke at Sunderland. 

 

I don't really agree with this. I think there are many players, including perhaps Sara and Rowe, who would be good enough to get by in a lower-level Premier club if surrounded by decent colleagues. I'm not sure if we put together a squad of the best 25 players in the Champs and put them in the PL,  they would survive, though.

I think last season was exceptionally poor, partly because ourselves and Watford massively underperformed as relegated clubs, and that is proved by how badly all three promoted sides are currently doing. Sheffield United came second last season without really breaking sweat, and IMO they were much worse than the side who ended up runners-up to us in 18/19. Luton were well organised and (dare I say it?) plucky, but little else. Burnley stormed it even more comfortably than we did in 20/21 and look how they are currently doing.

I'd make 18/19 the best Championship for quite a while, with ourselves, Wilder's SU, Bielsa's Leeds, a Villa side with Grealish and a host of good players which even Dean Smith couldn't quite manage to screw up, plus a better West Brom than the current one and a Derby full of great loanees.

[Cowboy 201]

I would say that there are four very good sides at the top, then West Brom plus maybe Hull and Sunderland as good sides then a bit of a mish-mash right down to and including an improving QPR. Fairly standard really, although the top two obviously do have an extraordinary points haul so far.

[king canary 7,679]

I'd argue it is pretty clear the quality of the Championship has diminished post covid, exacerbated somewhat by the Brexit restrictions.

Most teams are now almost entirely reliant on freebies and loans and can't look to the lower levels in Germany or France for players as they won't get work permits. The plus side is clubs now have to look more to their own youth development but the negative is it becomes very difficult to add any real quality if you don't have parachute payments. 

[littleyellowbirdie 2,596]

41 minutes ago, canarybubbles said:

I don't really agree with this. I think there are many players, including perhaps Sara and Rowe, who would be good enough to get by in a lower-level Premier club if surrounded by decent colleagues. I'm not sure if we put together a squad of the best 25 players in the Champs and put them in the PL,  they would survive, though.

I think last season was exceptionally poor, partly because ourselves and Watford massively underperformed as relegated clubs, and that is proved by how badly all three promoted sides are currently doing. Sheffield United came second last season without really breaking sweat, and IMO they were much worse than the side who ended up runners-up to us in 18/19. Luton were well organised and (dare I say it?) plucky, but little else. Burnley stormed it even more comfortably than we did in 20/21 and look how they are currently doing.

I'd make 18/19 the best Championship for quite a while, with ourselves, Wilder's SU, Bielsa's Leeds, a Villa side with Grealish and a host of good players which even Dean Smith couldn't quite manage to screw up, plus a better West Brom than the current one and a Derby full of great loanees.

If some Championship seasons are poorer than others, doesn't the fact that we took the Championship title by comfortable margins only to be relegated by a country mile suggest that those may have been poor Championship seasons?

Edited December 18, 2023 by littleyellowbirdie

[ROBFLECK 132]

I don't think it's a case of the Championship getting poorer....it's about the Premier League getting richer and clubs being loaded with quality players as a consequence.

Premier League table tells you a tale ... it happened to us and it's happening to Burnley🤷‍♂️

[repman 635]

13 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

If some Championship seasons are poorer than others, doesn't the fact that we took the Championship title by comfortable margins only to be relegated by a country mile suggest that those may have been poor Championship seasons?

I don't necessarily think so. Winning the championship and avoiding relegation in the PL are two completely different challenges. I think the 18/19 team is the best example of that, Farke as a coach seems to add much more value when he has good talent to the rest of the league, where he struggles is how to cope when he doesn't have that and needs a much more solid base instead. You could say similar about a lot of the squad in 19/20, their skills didn't work as well when they were no longer the 'protagonists' as Farke would say.

Burnley this season look to be a similar case in my opinion.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,596]

19 minutes ago, repman said:

I don't necessarily think so. Winning the championship and avoiding relegation in the PL are two completely different challenges. I think the 18/19 team is the best example of that, Farke as a coach seems to add much more value when he has good talent to the rest of the league, where he struggles is how to cope when he doesn't have that and needs a much more solid base instead. You could say similar about a lot of the squad in 19/20, their skills didn't work as well when they were no longer the 'protagonists' as Farke would say.

Burnley this season look to be a similar case in my opinion.

They are definitely different challenges, but the challenge is to craft a squad that can overcome both challenges with minimal change in between. The fact we could outdo our peers in both results and style against lower level opposition only to be surpassed by the same peers at a higher level suggests the style itself flattered to deceive.

[Rolf Harris 31]

The championship is better than some countries top leagues. If you can outscore your opponent, you will go up. The premier is a different league all together. We spent 60 million on players and went down. If you can't keep to a well drilled shape and defend, you'll go down. The attacking players are at a different level. Plus leaving the eu as prevented the tapping up of young youth players from the continent. We wouldn't be able to sign all those German players currently. 

[BroadstairsR 2,206]

This constant browbeating with blame hurled in all directions. Even at the very competent, and highly likeable Daniel Farrke. He was as thoughtful and tactically aware manager as any, he just didn't have the ammunition to blend a team capable of competing with the billionaires of the Premier League.

Even Webber, apparently hard-working and eminently dislikeable, gets constant blame, some deserved, some not. The "not" is back to ammunition.

Ammunition means money.

 The game is ruled mostly by big money, not much by incompetent managers, Directors of Football (or whatever the label.)

This constant inquisition about what went wrong under DF, Smith (more obviously not a good appointment) and now the loveable Wagner is pointless.

It's dosh. Our owners were limited in that respect. They brought good and bad times as a result of that, They had luck and bad luck in equal proportions, but more backing would have tipped the balance.

We could well be back in the kitchen with Annatasaio, his approach, know-how, connections and appreciation of manageable debt being necessary to expand any business warmed my heart.

This time around, we might stand the heat. Desist with the inquisitions, my friends. It's money, it's the way football is, it's television money and audiences of millions. It's 20223.

We may well have, belatedly perhaps, entered the modern world of football as it exists in this country nowadays, but entered we have. This time following the hapless ITFC for once in that respect.

I recall my teenage days of waiting at the turnstiles in the wet or cold in order to be let in free at half-time, at being able to move from stand to stand and then using the savings to buy fish and chips at the corner shop before getting the bus home whilst wearing my green and yellow scarf, but that was ages ago. I'm a softer soul these days who needs more comfort, I'm guessing younger beings do as well.

No wonder, there were empty seats galore on Sunday. Times change.

No more inquisitions of recent failures, please. We just didn't have the money to compete.

 

 

Edited December 18, 2023 by BroadstairsR

[It's Character Forming 1,166]

1 hour ago, repman said:

I don't necessarily think so. Winning the championship and avoiding relegation in the PL are two completely different challenges. I think the 18/19 team is the best example of that, Farke as a coach seems to add much more value when he has good talent to the rest of the league, where he struggles is how to cope when he doesn't have that and needs a much more solid base instead. You could say similar about a lot of the squad in 19/20, their skills didn't work as well when they were no longer the 'protagonists' as Farke would say.

Burnley this season look to be a similar case in my opinion.

Interesting comment about Farke.  Also if we look back at the first promotion under Farke, that was a very unusual route to win the Champs where we were free scoring but also had a very porous defence, and also relied on technical quality to make up for not being particularly physical as a side.  It was widely speculated on here before we started the following Prem season that that was likely to be a problem, and so it turned out.

 

For the second Farke promotion, ok people can quote numbers like £60m, but you can't get away from the fact that we lost the two most important members of the promotion winning team (Buendia and Skipp) and replaced neither of them, instead frittering the money away on wide players etc.  Personally I think that next Prem season suffered from very poor recruitment decision making above all else.