Have we fallen at all?

[Besthorpe-48 110]

Couldn't find the post so started this thread.

The post said making the play offs was a sign of how far the club had fallen.

Being old I remember 1957 when city were 92nd in the football league.

So I have just analysed the finishing positions over the whole length of the 96 seasons since we joined the football league.

Answer average position is 36 th or 16th I the champs. No fall there.

In only 31 seasons out of 96 have we finished 26th or better.

Being generous I also calculated the 51 seasons since the first promotion to div 1 in 1972. Average position is that familiar one of 1st in the championship. Not much of a fall there.

Be interested in comments.

[Ulfotto 773]

Will be interesting to see what the replies suggest. I personally think where we are now is about par.

However I think there is rightly some frustration that given out recent history we have only managed one season in the premier league where we weren’t a promoted team or the season ended in relegation. Given how football is going the opportunity we had to really establish ourselves may never come again.

[king canary 8,644]

11 minutes ago, Ulfotto said:

Will be interesting to see what the replies suggest. I personally think where we are now is about par.

However I think there is rightly some frustration that given out recent history we have only managed one season in the premier league where we weren’t a promoted team or the season ended in relegation. Given how football is going the opportunity we had to really establish ourselves may never come again.

 I think this is largely it.

As others will doubtless point out the idea of an 'established' club in the top flight outside of the top 6 or 7 is largely a myth- all teams are one or two bad seasons from relegation. However it is frustrating that we've made such a poor fist of it the last few times we've gone up.

I put a very boring spreadsheet together ages ago about what other, similar sized clubs have achieved since the turn of the millennium and generally we've been steadier than most- the highs haven't been as high, the lows haven't been as low. The question in some ways is would you trade extended spells in League One/lower Championship for a cup win/short European run/extended spell in the Premier League.

[shefcanary 2,901]

13 minutes ago, Besthorpe-48 said:

Be interested in comments.

This is an intersting thread from my perspective, because I think people can only really argue this looking forward, not back.

But no-one can argue with your view from the perspective of a 50+ something. I have discussed on here before however (you can argue they are entitled but) a lot of our 20 something fans will only look back to the period from 2010 onwards. Your argument then starts to fail with them. 

I'm not saying you are wrong, just that now there is a large part of our supporter base who have a very different perspective.

My current view is that you are better to focus on ground capacity as a more fitting barometer for sense checking and looking forward. Carrow Road's current capacity would actually mirror your own view based on past performance, currently 29th in England (which given we currently sit 28th may mean we are overperforming, just). (Source: List of English football stadiums by capacity - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )

My contention for many years is that to truly compete at the top we have to be more ambitious in terms of the stadium. Plenty of people on here have disagreed with me before and probably still will, but my hope is that Attanasio will back capital investment to improve our chances. Currently Southampton at 32,505 hold the valuable 17th place in this ranking, I would still argue we could regularly fill a ground with a 35,000 capacity in the EPL, which would take us to around 14th. 

It's one theory, but I also agree Sunderland, Middlesbrough, Wednesday, Derby, Cardiff, Southampton, Coventry and Leicester currently would disprove it as none of them are in the EPL but all are in the top 20! 

Another way would be by ranking your owner's wealth, but until Attanasio takes full control and in lieu of the EFL approval of his owner/ directorship, with Smith & Jones wealth currently Norwich would barely hold on to a place in League 2! It would take Attanasio to gain full control, plus providing access via his business partner and the other 17% shareholders in Norfolk Ltd to put us in the EPL!!

So that's 3 ways you can argue we haven't really fallen, and one way from the youngsters to argue we have.

All grist to the mill.

[Old Shuck 280]

Yep, rock bottom of the Division Three (South) table at the end of the 1956/57 season and had to apply for re-election.

One of four times we have had to do that.

King's Lynn were one of the clubs applying to replace us-along with, amongst others, Peterborough & Bedford Town*.

Luckily, we got 48 votes in our favour and, comfortably, stayed put.

But what a season. 8 wins from 46, 94 goals conceded (including losing 7-1 at Torquay) and, of 30 players used that season in total, seven who made less than five appearances, including such yellow and green luminaries as Mike Cole, Bob Heffer and Cameron Buchanan.

Thankfully we also had Johnny Gavin and Ralph Hunt, who scored 36 goals between them-or it might have been even worse!

* Bedford beat us 4-2 in the FA Cup 1st round-and at home!

[hogesar 10,536]

As a 32 year old, I'm generally quite happy the club is regularly challenging for promotion from the Championship. I'm not sure how this weighs up against different people / age groups. 

I guess where things differ is I'm not one of those who thinks the Premier League is the be all and end-all. 

Of course I want us to get promoted because it means we've enjoyed a fantastic season. I cant say I'm as angry as others when we inevitably get relegated though. I'd suggest the only season I really had higher expectations was the RvW season and well, yes.

[king canary 8,644]

18 minutes ago, shefcanary said:

But no-one can argue with your view from the perspective of a 50+ something. I have discussed on here before however (you can argue they are entitled but) a lot of our 20 something fans will only look back to the period from 2010 onwards. Your argument then starts to fail with them. 

I'm not saying you are wrong, just that now there is a large part of our supporter base who have a very different perspective.

I think this is a really interesting point.

It is easy for someone in their 60's to sit back and say 'it's all cyclical, I remember when we were awful in 1968 but brilliant in 1988' but to expect a 26 year old to consider that in their thinking isn't going to happen. I don't think it is entitled to base it on your own experience.

[Bigbrenn 86]

In life you can look back at missed opportunities or reflect on really incredible highs. You just accept it and move on but with football, it's the hope that gets me. Just that lingering 'what if?' Or 'if only?'. I suppose it mirrors life for many. 

Don't know if I've just made myself happier or a bit melancholy......

 

[Monty13 2,710]

There’s definitely recency bias. However there’s also good reason for that in some ways and depends how you apply it.

I don’t think being in the playoffs can be seen as a failure. However I do think failure to make them in two successive seasons given our recent financial advantages could be seen as so, although it’s based on the context of the last decade or so.

Let’s not forget Alex Neil was sacked and a new regime and strategy implemented due to the failure of finishing 8th.

I think there’s an argument to look at our entire history and where our natural place may be. I think there’s also an argument to look at things from the beginning of the PL and the massive changes that have occurred and judge our position on that average which ,without crunching the numbers, I’d assume even with a season in League 1 and some purgatory mid table Champ years is better.

Edited February 21 by Monty13

[shefcanary 2,901]

1 minute ago, Monty13 said:

I don’t think being in the playoffs can be seen as a failure.

Just to be clear, I based my view above on us currently in 8th, not in the play-offs. We now need at least two clubs with a bigger ground capacity above us to go on a worse run than ourselves to achieve a play-off position, and that does seem unlikely.

If you are saying play-offs is minimum achievement to say we haven't fallen (back to the old "top 26 club" again), then I'd strongly argue from your perspective we have fallen.

But 8th, no.

Small margins maybe, but important ones.

[king canary 8,644]

The other issue is the ever changing context of football.

Even over the last decade football has changed immeasurably. The sort of transfer strategy we applied under Lambert or even Hughton isn't possible now- you're not getting a Nathan Redmond for £2m or a Robert Snodgrass for £3.5m or even a Michael Turner for less than £2m. The gaps keep widening to the extent we see Villa or Forest spending £100m or £200m just to be able to finish 17th in that first season. 

The top teams are also have the money and depth to monopolise the major cup competitions- Leciester are the only non 'big 6' winner of the FA Cup in the last 10 years and the League Cup has been won by one of Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool and Man U every year for the last 11. So even that route for success seems to be largely closed off (although Hull, Villa, Palace, Watford, Sunderland and Southampton have all reached a final in that time, which would be fun).

So the question in some ways becomes what is achievable in this current climate? Survival in the Premier League for a few years and maybe a cup run is about what we can aspire to?

[Robert N. LiM 5,944]

20 hours ago, king canary said:

The other issue is the ever changing context of football.

Even over the last decade football has changed immeasurably. The sort of transfer strategy we applied under Lambert or even Hughton isn't possible now- you're not getting a Nathan Redmond for £2m or a Robert Snodgrass for £3.5m or even a Michael Turner for less than £2m. The gaps keep widening to the extent we see Villa or Forest spending £100m or £200m just to be able to finish 17th in that first season. 

The top teams are also have the money and depth to monopolise the major cup competitions- Leciester are the only non 'big 6' winner of the FA Cup in the last 10 years and the League Cup has been won by one of Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool and Man U every year for the last 11. So even that route for success seems to be largely closed off (although Hull, Villa, Palace, Watford, Sunderland and Southampton have all reached a final in that time, which would be fun).

So the question in some ways becomes what is achievable in this current climate? Survival in the Premier League for a few years and maybe a cup run is about what we can aspire to?

This is of course all true. Given our lack of financial muscle our recent achievements have been remarkable. A minor flipside to this, though, is that our access to parachute payments have given us a decent advantage when back in the Champs. We shouldn't really be scrabbling around in eight with that extra cash,  which is another reason why current frustration is not unreasonable.

Edited February 22 by Robert N. LiM
typo

[king canary 8,644]

37 minutes ago, hogesar said:

As a 32 year old, I'm generally quite happy the club is regularly challenging for promotion from the Championship. I'm not sure how this weighs up against different people / age groups. 

I guess where things differ is I'm not one of those who thinks the Premier League is the be all and end-all. 

Of course I want us to get promoted because it means we've enjoyed a fantastic season. I cant say I'm as angry as others when we inevitably get relegated though. I'd suggest the only season I really had higher expectations was the RvW season and well, yes.

I'm 35 so not much older than you and while I don't find myself angry after a relegation I did find the last couple tough to take because we were so uncompetitive. 

In the first season we went into the relegation zone in October, never got out of it and sat rock bottom from boxing day until the end of the season, finishing 14 points off safety. The second one we spent a total of one 'game week' outside of the relegation zone (and even then we'd played at least two more games than the teams below us) and spent a total of 29 weeks bottom of the league, finishing 16 points off safety.

I get sometimes fans expectations can be too high but I genuinely think fans would have felt 'OK' about those seasons if we'd been relegated but had maybe been competitive and finished 4 or 5 points off safety, rather than essentially being relegated by Christmas. I don't think expecting that is too much.

[hogesar 10,536]

18 minutes ago, king canary said:

I'm 35 so not much older than you and while I don't find myself angry after a relegation I did find the last couple tough to take because we were so uncompetitive. 

In the first season we went into the relegation zone in October, never got out of it and sat rock bottom from boxing day until the end of the season, finishing 14 points off safety. The second one we spent a total of one 'game week' outside of the relegation zone (and even then we'd played at least two more games than the teams below us) and spent a total of 29 weeks bottom of the league, finishing 16 points off safety.

I get sometimes fans expectations can be too high but I genuinely think fans would have felt 'OK' about those seasons if we'd been relegated but had maybe been competitive and finished 4 or 5 points off safety, rather than essentially being relegated by Christmas. I don't think expecting that is too much.

The first relegation was weird for me. Normally I think I'd have been far more angry about our no-show but I'd been to Leicester at home which we'd won and obviously the Spurs Cup game. 

Then when everything restarted without fans I had so much going on outside of football to worry about I guess I didn't get very involved and especially with not being able to go.

Had the same results happened with fans in the stadium I doubt Farke would have had the opportunity for the second title win...

[nutty nigel 7,870]

So over the last 10 years our average position is roughly 24th

Over the last 20 years our average position is roughly 26th

Over the last 30 years our average position is roughly 27th

C'est la vie say the old folks...

[Besthorpe-48 110]

Thank you all so much. It is good to have a reasoned discussion about an interesting but perhaps academic topic without resort to any abuse for foul language.

I am by the way 75 and my first visit to Carrow Road was on 2 October 1954 when we drew 1 1 with qpr. So first weekend of October this year will be my 70th anniversary.

Hope we are playing one of the big 6 at home then

Thanks again

Besthorpe

[lake district canary 4,779]

5 minutes ago, hogesar said:

The first relegation was weird for me. Normally I think I'd have been far more angry about our no-show but I'd been to Leicester at home which we'd won and obviously the Spurs Cup game. 

Then when everything restarted without fans I had so much going on outside of football to worry about I guess I didn't get very involved and especially with not being able to go.

Had the same results happened with fans in the stadium I doubt Farke would have had the opportunity for the second title win...

It was such a strange time. That season was heading towards an interesting conclusion up to lockdown - we were still competitive as demonstrated against Leicester and that could easily have carried through to the end of the season had it not been for lockdown - so at least a fighting end to the season, even if we had still been relegated. 

A good fight to the end of the season would have given a completely different reflection of Farke's ability in the PL too. As it was we got every pundit, newspaper, fans from other clubs - and many of our own fans - stuck with the "he can't get results in the PL", lumping the end of that season with the start of the second PL season, which to me has always been ridiculous, given the unprecedented conditions of those times. Always struck me as such a simplistic way of looking at it - an easy accusation - yes, we had a terrible end to that season, but we were the least resourced club - and people who say that lockdown "was the same for all clubs" are ignoring circumstances.

If we had put in a good fight in an uninterupted season, which I believe we were on the way to doing, followed by that good championship season, the hunting pack of pundits, media and blinkered fans, would not have had the ammunition and temerity to call for Farke's sacking after just a few games into another difficult PL season, again without the extra ability players we needed to do well.

Farke was unlucky and he should not have been sacked on the strength of the so called stats of "hasn't won in the  PL in 21 games", or however many it was. No point in mithering over it now, we are on the up at the moment with Wagner - but watching him do well at Leeds is quite difficult to take, given he was such a good fit for our club.

[chicken 3,045]

2 hours ago, Ulfotto said:

Will be interesting to see what the replies suggest. I personally think where we are now is about par.

However I think there is rightly some frustration that given out recent history we have only managed one season in the premier league where we weren’t a promoted team or the season ended in relegation. Given how football is going the opportunity we had to really establish ourselves may never come again.

I think that if you are applying this to the last 15yrs you are at least a decade late on this one.

I think under Chase, we had the best opportunity to become Premier League established, we had been already, but the money was just starting to happen. Had he had spent the money on keeping us in the premier league and not on the land near the ground that wouldn't be realised for 15+ yrs there is nothing saying we wouldn't have had even more of a premier league run then.

I think similar could be said of promotion under Worthington. There is absolutely zero doubt that had we signed Ashton in the summer, as Worthington wanted, rather than January, we would have stayed up. One goal, in one draw, to turn it into a win and we would have stayed up.

Then we had Lambert and, I think arguably as important or more so, Culverhouse and Karsa. That team appeared to have it covered and had they stayed together, with us, I think we would have had a good shout at establishing ourselves. Lambert had other ambitions though, that ultimately were grander than the other two it would seem.

There is an argument that says it gets harder every year - IMHO, it certainly does without additional investment and owners putting the club into debt so they are not liable for it.

However, it really is worth noting that Tzolis, if rumours are to be believed, is our first ever £10m+ player (though I have heard it is less than £10m and more £9.75m). It doesn't really matter to be honest, but if you go down the list of teams from the premier league and championship, how many of them have spent more than £10m on a player before us? And how long before us? 

We know that Leicester, Leeds, Southampton, West Brom and Watford have paid much further north of £10m for a single player and on multiple occasions, some managed multiple in a single transfer window.

Hull City, who have experienced a similar sort of recent history, albeit perhaps a bit better in the premier league, brought in players like Ryan Mason(16/17), Abel Hernandez(14/15) and a good 5-6 players of £5m or more. And Hull are not as good/big a club as us. It's more about realising that the boat of ease left a long time ago, I would say when Man City were taken over is probably a good a pointer as to when that ship sailed, that was 2008.

That's when the money got even more silly than it already was.

[chicken 3,045]

1 hour ago, Robert N. LiM said:

This is of course all true. Given our lack of financial muscle our recemt achievements have been remarkable. A minor flipside to this, though, is that our access to parachute payments have given us a decent advantage when back in the Champs. We shouldn't really be scrabbling around in eight with that extra cash,  which is another reason why current frustration is not unreasonable.

I think balance is always needed though, admittedly as an impassioned fan it can be difficult at times to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.

The parachute payments are primarily to try and help clubs that are relegated to continue to pay players that have high wages and who, perhaps, didn't make the grade and so are stuck in terms of potential suitors to offload them onto or at least suitors willing to pay the same sort of wage.

The first time we went up, we had something like £5-10m to spend on which we mainly spent it on loans - long term they are risk free, but potentially if with an agreed fee upon survival, it also can be a good idea. We needed promotion to sort us out financially. Covid struck and created a financial hole we didn't need. We sold Godfrey to help alleviate that and provide more money for the squad.

In comparison, upon relegation this time round, we had tried to roll the dice and take a gamble with spending money. Wages mainly. Which sucked up a lot of the parachute payments to the degree that we went to the bank for a forward - we took a loan against the parachute payment income and another against known player trading income.

In hindsight, which is obviously a wonderful thing to have, it may have been better to cut our losses on some players upon relegation. Rather than sell Pukki, we kept him by activating a clause that paid him more money in wages. We had been offered a fee, and in my mind, there is no doubt we took another gamble then and hoped he could score the number of goals we needed to get a play off place. He was a shadow of his former self IMHO, and cut a lonely figure at times. As much as I like Pukki, I do also think that he is a type of player that plays in a particular way, not a massive all-rounder. So when the inevitable happened and that squad started to crumble as did his prowess.

We probably should have looked to offload Aarons, Pukki, Cantwell, Byram, Krul, Sinani, McGovern and other fringe players like Placheta, Sorensen back then, just to free up space and reset. Personally I would have also looked at Gibson who has rarely looked the same player since the promotion season and is rumoured to be our highest earning player currently. However, he represents one of those players parachute payments were meant to help with, I'm not sure he'd be paid as well anywhere else - would he look to move if it meant being on less money? Supposedly there was interest in Hanley too...

In reality, last season we finished playing an incredibly inexperienced squad and it gave us a run of results that highlighted what a lack of experience can do. This season, we have had that experience on and off the pitch and the younger players appear to be playing more consistently. IMHO we still lack numbers in the all important 26-30 bracket - but those tend to be more expensive.

In short, I think we have quality in our squad, but it's still not very deep - and that is an issue this club has always struggled with since relegation in the 1990's. People argue about players having been part of promotions before - they have, but past achievements don't always indicate future ones, especially as players age. Onel, Hanley, Gibson, McLean - all have seen promotions before but all are 30+, add Barnes and Duffy to that list though elsewhere. I think that leaves Giannoulis and Sorensen as the only other two in our squad to have been part of the last promotion side, the latter hardly being a regular first teamer. 

We are a team in a transitional period in terms of the footballing aspect and a club in transition in the boardroom. 

[Yellow Fever 4,388]

I'm of the 'older' generation but I don't like negativity.

I think we can 'make it ' in the EPL - certainly survive (just) but we'll need to set out our stall so as not to get beat too easy. Defensively solid first. For all of Farke's pretty football in the  EPL - we were far to easy to score against. We weren't (usually) Man City (lite) apart from on one occasion.....

Much like Brighton, Bournemouth, Brentford (which were never EPL clubs) it's a question of getting there, parking the bus if need be and then building again from there! Possibly not too pretty for a season or two!

[ricardo 7,928]

We were never 92nd in the football league.

The third division was split into North and South divisions

There were 22 teams in Divisions one and two and 24 teams in each of the third divisions so at worse we were 68th equal.

😀

 

[ricardo 7,928]

3 hours ago, Old Shuck said:

 

* Bedford beat us 4-2 in the FA Cup 1st round-and at home!

I stood behind the Barclay goal for that game.

[Old Shuck 280]

16 minutes ago, ricardo said:

I stood behind the Barclay goal for that game.

Was it as bad as it looks?

[Robert N. LiM 5,944]

1 hour ago, chicken said:

I think balance is always needed though, admittedly as an impassioned fan it can be difficult at times to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.

Good post, agree with almost all of it. As you say, there are some pretty good reasons why we don't seem to have benefited from those two Farke seasons in the PL. But that doesn't stop it being immensely frustrating that we went from a team that was consistently too good for the Championship to being back among the pack. There's a real sense of 'so near but yet so far'.

 

1 hour ago, chicken said:

We are a team in a transitional period in terms of the footballing aspect and a club in transition in the boardroom. 

Yes, absolutely. In hindsight (or not?), might have been good to signal this to the fans on relegation, so that the departures of the bigger earners that you mention might have been accepted more readily by fans. Stuart Webber's long goodbye really didn't help in this regard - we seemed to stop ignoring the noise and take a more short-term approach, presumably in the hope of him going out with the club back in the PL. In the end we fell between two stools, not going back up, nor really beginning the rebuild - another cause of frustration.

[Robert N. LiM 5,944]

2 hours ago, lake district canary said:

Farke was unlucky and he should not have been sacked on the strength of the so called stats of "hasn't won in the  PL in 21 games", or however many it was. No point in mithering over it now, we are on the up at the moment with Wagner - but watching him do well at Leeds is quite difficult to take, given he was such a good fit for our club.

Such a relief to finally find out what you think about the sacking of Daniel Farke 😉

[chicken 3,045]

2 minutes ago, Robert N. LiM said:

.But that doesn't stop it being immensely frustrating that we went from a team that was consistently too good for the Championship to being back among the pack. There's a real sense of 'so near but yet so far'.

I believe this is the crux of it. And for me, I think it is totally possible to set yourself up to succeed at the championship and play a style and brand of football that is almost too good for it, whilst at the same time, actually be building a team that is susceptible to premier league rigours.

I think we sometimes see that in the league and FA cups, teams flying in their respective leagues, then play a side in the division above and get beaten, sometimes soundly so.

As Yellow Fever says, whilst you do need goals, you also need to be defensively mean as a team, not just the back four. As good as Cantwell and Buendia looked in midfield and Rashica after, they were not always the best at the defensive side of the game. Compare them to Pilkington and Bennett out wide - you would argue that Pilkington possessed something going forwards but both were good at covering back and getting "stuck in"... Pilkington also had that gamesmanship to his game as well, a niggly to the opponent edge.

We've lacked the steel that Lambert side had since the large portion of that squad went. Never mind Tettey, but Neil should never have sold Bradley Johnson. 

[Yellow Fever 4,388]

4 minutes ago, Robert N. LiM said:

Good post, agree with almost all of it. As you say, there are some pretty good reasons why we don't seem to have benefited from those two Farke seasons in the PL. But that doesn't stop it being immensely frustrating that we went from a team that was consistently too good for the Championship to being back among the pack. There's a real sense of 'so near but yet so far'.

But that's the point I made elsewhere.

Being too good for the Championship doesn't necessarily set you up for surviving in the EPL as per Farke. Expansive pretty football against lesser teams when you have better players might work well - but against the better EPL teams who themselves have better players one mistake and you're punished.

Walking the Championship is a different mindset / approach for scrapping in the EPL. Many games might be like Southampton at home! If you can't win don't get beat!

[Yellow Fever 4,388]

1 minute ago, chicken said:

I believe this is the crux of it. And for me, I think it is totally possible to set yourself up to succeed at the championship and play a style and brand of football that is almost too good for it, whilst at the same time, actually be building a team that is susceptible to premier league rigours.

I think we sometimes see that in the league and FA cups, teams flying in their respective leagues, then play a side in the division above and get beaten, sometimes soundly so.

As Yellow Fever says, whilst you do need goals, you also need to be defensively mean as a team, not just the back four. As good as Cantwell and Buendia looked in midfield and Rashica after, they were not always the best at the defensive side of the game. Compare them to Pilkington and Bennett out wide - you would argue that Pilkington possessed something going forwards but both were good at covering back and getting "stuck in"... Pilkington also had that gamesmanship to his game as well, a niggly to the opponent edge.

We've lacked the steel that Lambert side had since the large portion of that squad went. Never mind Tettey, but Neil should never have sold Bradley Johnson. 

Snap

[Robert N. LiM 5,944]

Just now, Yellow Fever said:

But that's the point I made elsewhere.

Being too good for the Championship doesn't necessarily set you up for surviving in the EPL as per Farke. Expansive pretty football against lesser teams when you have better players might work well - but against the better EPL teams who themselves have better players one mistake and you're punished.

Walking the Championship is a different mindset / approach for scrapping in the EPL. Many games might be like Southampton at home! If you can't win don't get beat!

Yes, totally agree with that.

[Robert N. LiM 5,944]

2 minutes ago, chicken said:

I believe this is the crux of it. And for me, I think it is totally possible to set yourself up to succeed at the championship and play a style and brand of football that is almost too good for it, whilst at the same time, actually be building a team that is susceptible to premier league rigours.

I think we sometimes see that in the league and FA cups, teams flying in their respective leagues, then play a side in the division above and get beaten, sometimes soundly so.

As Yellow Fever says, whilst you do need goals, you also need to be defensively mean as a team, not just the back four. As good as Cantwell and Buendia looked in midfield and Rashica after, they were not always the best at the defensive side of the game. Compare them to Pilkington and Bennett out wide - you would argue that Pilkington possessed something going forwards but both were good at covering back and getting "stuck in"... Pilkington also had that gamesmanship to his game as well, a niggly to the opponent edge.

We've lacked the steel that Lambert side had since the large portion of that squad went. Never mind Tettey, but Neil should never have sold Bradley Johnson. 

Yes, agree, except for the bit about Buendía, who always had an edge about him and got better and better at the defensive side of the game. Probably my favourite goal of the second Farke title season was Pukki's against Huddersfield in the 7-0, when Emi won a ball that wasn't even a 50/50 near the touchline, played a one-two (iirc) then an inch-perfect through ball to Teemu, who was already making one of those trademark curved runs. Emi/Teemu in excelsis.

And just to piggyback on @yellowfever's similar point, yes that expansive style of football was probably ill-suited to being adapted in the PL, but personally I have few regrets. It was just so beautiful to watch. Those middle three seasons of Farkeball are my favourite since the early 90s, with all due respect to the Lambert team which was very exciting and much more resilient.