OK that is really enough!!!

[chicken 0]

What are some people on about? If we do any of the things that have been suggested this is how our club would look:

Players: Ward, Gallacher, Shackell, Drury, Huckerby, Ashton, Crow, Jarvis and any accademy player that is fit.

Staff: No Doncaster, no Worthy and some have even suggested no Delia.

Thats a far better position to be in isnt it? Oh yes, absoloutly fantastic. The lack of players is down to those that people have said we should sell, leave or get rid of. Look at that. I think that says more about what a useless bunch of supporters there are about.

Nigel Worthington was in the top 15 best achieving managers for the last couple of seasons I believe. Lets get rid of him and then have to look outside of that to find one that is better. We couldnt poach another premiership manager because we need the money for the squad. Worthington is a class manager and it is about time some of the UNREALISTIC whingers credit him for it.

As for the squad we have. It was mostly put together for a promotion campaign. Anybody that was expecting us to be able to finnish mid-table is rediculous. And comparing us to Crystal Palace and WBA is also rather stupid. I have pointed this out before and I will again.

Crystal Palace actually have severall quality players in their along with others that already have premiership experience. Hall, Routledge and AJ are just very good players along with their keeper. Hughes, Granville both have played in the premiership before and have been credited as good players then.

WBA have altimately more money and therefore more ability to attract the large wage demanders. Thats why we have lost out to them to players in the past. The fact that they signed Kanu (even if it was on a free) suggests that their wage ceiling is either more flexible or simply higher than ours.

I think that we have got a good team basis here at the moment. You are allways going to have fringe players and its allways easy to say that we should get rid of them for something better. But if you want a premiership quality player then you have to pay the premiership level of money for them.

If we were in the championship I dare say we could have had Ashton for half the price. But simply being in the premiership means that to get someone that is really good enough will cost. I dont think that many of the supposedly "realistic" whingers take this into account. I will list the team again!

Goalkeepers; Green, Gallacher, Ward, Lewis.

Defenders: Fleming, Docherty, Shackell, Charlton, Drury, Helveg, Edworthy, Brennan.

Midfielders: Francis, Holt, Mulryne, Mcveigh, Jonson, Bently, Safri, Stuart.

Strikers: Huckerby, Ashton, McKenzie, Svensson, Jarvis, Crow, Henderson.

Those in green are those suggested to be sold for rebuilding. Those in red have been mentioned for chucking.

In total we have 27 players at the club. Thats a small squad for premiership duties. There are less games but you need to be in-form for all of them. At the beggining of the season we needed a striker as we were loosing by the odd goal and drawing too often. This end of the season has seen a lack in cohesion at the other end of the pitch probably due to injury to Charlton and loss of form of a couple of other players.

Seriously though. I could see two or three players being released in the summer but no more than that. Even if we get £10 million for going down (another empty prediction) I would like to only see a couple of new faces come in to begin with to see how we get on. A defender and two wing players preferably (Brondby is bar far the best option for defence).

If we go down I dont want good championship players brought in. I

[Viking 0]

Couldnt agree more, well said.  Ive said all along that we were building with the season to come in mind, not the one we are presently playing, and IMO rightly so. 

Short-termism isnt a solid foundation to build a sustainable long term premiership football club on, just ask Sheff Wed, QPR, Barnsley, Leicester, West Ham, Leeds, Wolves, Forest, Derby, Ipswich, Coventry, Sunderland.

Then speak to Charlton and Bolton.

I hate to think what would happen at Fulham, Birmingham, Portsmouth and Blackburn if they came back down.

We are a well organised, intelligently run football club with a long term plan to achieve a sustained run in the premiership.

Im enjoying this season because when we got relegated from the Premiership nine years ago I thought it would take us longer to get back.

We are moving in the right direction,that is away from crippling debts and poor managers and Chairman.

If we go down, lets see in a years time how many fickle supporters are out in front of City Hall again!!!!!!

One step back, two steps forward......bring it on...

[MadDan 0]

Whilst I would agree with much of the above could I perhaps add a couple or so points.

We have not been clearing debts merely addressing the issue of ground development that has handicapped the club for so long with the moronic throwing hissy fits anytime anyone has had the foresight to address this.

We never have had crippling debts more a readiness to quickly address them. Quicker than many others. One of the gravest mistakes this club made was bowing the moronic idiots who demanded the restoration of Mike Walker. A one hit wonder who basked in the glory of others efforts. His subsequent failure at Everton and his disappreance since has proved what a gross mistake that was.

Nor were we ever signing international class players 10 years ago.

Bolton should be seen as one of the over achieving hopefuls whose hideous debts will explode in their face sooner rather than later. Many clubs who have been slowly sinking for quite a few decades have been revitalised on the back of exhorbitant debts. Cardiff are a prime example. Burnley took the same root as did Bury and Stockport. What is not known is how many more are bumping along on a wing and a prayer like a blind drunk staggering home through a minefield.

Whilst I agree that the club has for far longer than is acknowledged ploughed a pretty safe furrow it is always going to be up against the destructive power of SKY TV, the FA and the ready availablity of erratic clubs to get themselves into chronic debt.

The money from SKY has all but destroyed the game as we know it.

For every pound that goes into infrastructure and 20p that goes in to youth development £100 goes into players wage packets and most likely the same gets siphoned out to agents, middlemen and other sundry rogues.

The FA is merely a better class of the above hell, bent on filling their boots via meaningless internationals through their appeal the advertisers and the host of cretinous new fans that have sudenly sprung up.

Games are routinely switched, played at unearthly hours and moved completely to accomodate this farce. Easter, which was always a milestone in the football calender, has been scrapped along with the Charity Shield (it appears) and many other fundemental parts of the FA Cup.

Accepting all this on the basis that it is for the betterment of the game when it is no more than providing a freak show spectacle of our beloved game for the TV fan is a crime in itself.

Apologies for the rant - but my point is that however well our club is ran it is no more than a well behaved family patiently waiting their turn to get off the sinking Titanic that is now our game.

[Cosmic Twin 189]

Great post, Chicken!