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Building a Yo-yo team - West Brom

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The first official signing James Vaughan, a hard-working player with potential providing he stay''s injury free.

The majority of our signings this summer will turn us into a top championship club. At the moment we are without doubt over-achieving and stature wise probably a mid-table championship club.

Staying in the Premiership next year goes without saying would be a massive achievement but should we come down players like Vaughan, CMS, Morrison will make us a huge force in the championship to get promoted again.

West Brom until this season always had a strong championship side / weak premier side but are financially sound and are now looking to establish themselves outright in the Premier.

With Lambert at the helm anything is possible but when the time comes that he moves on it is important that we have a good, strong core squad capable of always challenging for promotion should we be relegated.

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I agree with this completely. Of course all efforts must be made to try and stay in the Premier League but realistically it is going to be a mighty struggle to do this.  Even if you were to spend 100million there would no guarantee of remaining safe and then you would be gambling with the club''s already precarious financial situation.

That is why I hope (and fully believe) that we will not be signing some of the more fanciful names being thrown around on here and in the papers. Players like Owen, Klose, Bullard and Carew would not only demand huge wages but would also be more than likely to jump ship in the event of relegation.  This would have the effect of causing a massive amount of upheaval within  the squad and would seriously damage any attempts to be promoted back again.

Like the OP says it is much better to try and find a group of younger, hungrier and more committed players, something I''m sure Lambert will try to do.  Players like Vaughan, Trotter and Snodgrass would be perfect additions to the team. They would bring an element of class but at the same time would still have something to prove.  Their wages demands are likely to be significantly lower and most importantly they would be less inclined to leave (at least straightaway) if we were relegated.  This would surely leave us in a much stronger position should we find ourselves back in the Championship - even if Lambert were to leave.

There will be those that say having the goal of being a yo-yo club smacks of a lack of ambition but I would have that than find ourselves back in the position we were in pre-lambert or worse still in the position of a Hull or Portsmouth (i.e. financially crippled)

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This is a very good post and it captures my thoughts too, signing the championships very best is the way to do it. Lambert is a genius at cleverly integrating new signings to a squad with high morale. Team is the key word and that is why we''ve enjoyed recent success - a team of average players working together will always beat a team full of individual big time charlies.

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[quote user="lincoln canary"]This is a very good post and it captures my thoughts too, signing the championships very best is the way to do it. Lambert is a genius at cleverly integrating new signings to a squad with high morale. Team is the key word and that is why we''ve enjoyed recent success - a team of average players working together will always beat a team full of individual big time charlies.[/quote]

I''ve never heard the word average bandied about as much as I have this year. Whilst I agree with the sentiments of this post, I don''t in anyway think what we are building is an average team. I''ve seen average many times at Norwich throughout the years and what I have witnessed this year has not been average, neither at a team nor individual level.Would it be too much to ask to give them the credit they deserve and refer to them as good players?

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"At the moment we are without doubt over-achieving"

Utter drivel.

A team is measured and judged by it''s results. We were promoted to the Premier league because we achieved the second highest number of points. We had the highest ''goals for'' tally and the second highest goalscorer in Holt. This was achieved over 46 games - two games against every team, so no fluke or lucky games, it was simply down to consistency.

"The majority of our signings this summer ...."

More ridiculous guff, You have no knowledge of exactly who we will sign, other than the type of player. If there is any indication of the type of player it will be one who will fit into Lamberts winning mentality. And have the ability to compete at this level, with the mindset to want to compete - consistently.

" but should we come down players like Vaughan, CMS, Morrison "

Blimey just when you think it could not get any more absurd, he posts up this. Many of the players we sign will be based on the extra income we now have. A huge chunk of that will go if we are relegated, as will many of these type of players (see Blackpool, Brum ,WHU).

As things stand we go into next season on a very sound footing. Financially we are stable, and we do not have a dodgy foreign owner or an egomaniacal ''hinvestor'' in charge. The coach/managerial team has a proven record of success. It will not be our ''success so much that will stop us being relegated, it will be the failings of other clubs, Both Brum and WHU were basket cases financially wise, Blackpool were on crowds 10,000 less than us, it has an impact as their failure to strenghthen in January showed.

It will be far easier to ''achieve'' 40 points in the Premier League than it will be to ''achieve 80 plus points in the Championship. I should imagine everyone at the club will be aware of this.

Just a shame a few of our fans aren''t

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I partially agree with the post. I disagre that we have over achieved and are in reality a mid table championship club.How can that be we got promoted over 46 games you are where you deserve to be. A good side with some very good players and a top manager, I think a lot o people will be surprised just how good some of our players will be next season, Hoolahan, Holt, Jackson and Crofts and Russell Martin in particular.

I do agree that the way forward is to buy top championship players some of whome will come off. If you get relegated however the good ones may still choose to leave to stay in the premiership as the 3 relegated clubs are finding already. I honestly think the gap between mid table premiership and championship is as close as ever and possibly getting closer. More promoted clubs are managing to survive. I think we will and that the yo yo will not come into place. The secret is if you survive season 1 you must not be complacent and slip down in season 2. it probably takes 5 or 6 seasons of shrewd management to turn a club like Fulham into an established premiership club

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i actually think vaughan (and maybe morrison) will be two of the cheaper signings lambert makes this summer, i wont be shocked to see more spent on the midfield and defence than the strikers, id guess there will be a couple of other squad players brought in but then maybe one or two bigger signings with that little bit of class that you need in this league.I also think we will surprise people and be fighting in that little mid table league between 6 and 14, probably finishing just outside the top ten. Ive been very cynical about the past two seasons and proven wrong twice, time to have some faith. yo yo team my left testicle

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This is a really good post by the OP and some very good responses both agreeing and disagreeing.

I think a signing like Vaughan indicates where we are in terms of our forward strategy. He''s got unfulfilled potential but has signed for a manager who is making a name for himself in making the most of such players. In a better team than Palace he would have scored a lot more last season and now he''s in such a team he has an opportunity to meet up to the expectations he''s had since he was 16.

He''s a big signing for a club like ours only IF he plays sufficient games and scores sufficient goals to make us pay the full £2.5m for his services. The basic fee which is supposedly 750k-1.75m is nothing we weren''t prepared to pay in January when promotion was far from certain. And whilst I imagine his wages are at the upper end of our scale, I doubt he''s on as much as the very highest earners such as Holty because he still has to prove himself at this club, and in football in general.

Essentially he''s a good Championship signing but who has the potential to be a success in the Premiership too. Which is much like the status our club sits at in the grand scheme of things.

Unless he gets 20 plus goals next season and gets on the fringes of the England team, it''s unlikely he''s going to be running off and deserting us. If he flops or injury gets the best of him then we''re only losing that initial 750k-£1.75m which with our current status plus parachute payments is not going to kill us. Most likely of all is that he simply fits in well with the team and for us to get a player as good as the rest of our team for the money we''ve spent, is a good investment.

I''m confident that we can do well in the Premiership, but we have to balance realism as well. Many teams do come straight back down and often teams that have had such a massive rise as ours suffer a "burst bubble" effect. With a signing like Vaughan, he''s unlikely to think himself too good to play in the Championship if we go down so he''s a signing that builds for the longer term which can only be a good thing.

Last time we went up we brought in players like Helveg and Jonsson who were never going to be here for anything other than Premiership football. This time I''m glad to see that Lambert doesn''t seem to be targetting the likes of Klose or any of the other big name Charlie''s we''ve been linked with by eager teenagers on Dodgy Rumours.com. who would come in for a season with a mental attitude of "I''m here for a year to play Premiership football on the off chance that it may last longer".

With Vaughan though, as with much of our squad, there is no glass ceiling. Although the status of Norwich and the players on paper is that we''re top end Championship with Premier potential, there''s nothing stopping us being solid Premiership participants in the longer term.

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That 7 year plan of becoming a yo-yo team always worried me a bit but after McNally''s comments just after we got promoted where I believe he said "we''re going for it" or "we WILL stay up" I am feeling much more confident now.  We will sign the players Lambert wants to sign and I have no doubt that they will be good enough to stay up or if we go down they will be good enough to go straight back up.  When you look at our squad at the beginning of the season and compare the ''names'' to the other teams it wont seem as good but we will all know that they will be good enough and I will have every confidence of staying up.

 

In Lambert we trust and we know we wont be left with a bunch of players who will want to leave straight away if we go down.

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I really don''t like the term over-achieving.

There isn''t a set layout as to where every club should finish, the same 6 clubs don''t get relegated/promoted to/from the Premiership every season.

As already mentioned in the replied, we have played 46 games this season. We have finished second as a result of playing 46 games, every other team played in the same number of games and didn''t finish second. We played above expectation, but i really don''t think you can over-achive for a whole season. Results like beating Man.U 2-0, that was maybe a game in which we over achieved, but over a whole season, its a result of being consistent, winning well, grinding out results, bouncing back after not winning etc. If we finished in the top half next season, and then did it again the season after without much change to the team that does it next season, would that be two seasons of over achieving? Or would it be expected in the second season, despite the first, relegation was expected?

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