Could we stay up in the prem?

[Jack Celliers]

Who cares.
It would be nice to see us try again.

[Ozymandias]

No

[Tails]

What a stupid fred.

A decent run in the league and the reading fans return to normal.

Give it a couple of bad results and you lot will be booing.

Not even that, so it seems.

[facaldaqui]

You'd assume we wouldn't stay up, but Brian might make some clever buys. Most teams can't survive easily, but who would have thought this time last year that Birmingham would do so well? Someone has to survive. Would depend on quality of management and clever investment in new players.

Highly unlikely we'll go up, though. We've only scored one goal in open play in two games, and now we have a run of decent teams to face. Wonderful though our run has been, we are still a team with Long and Church as first choice strikers--say no more.

[rollsy]

would like us to go back up, but we wont, and even if we did would get bummed week in week out. winning two fa cup games to prem opposition is no gauge to what we can do, it was a one off caup game, no pressure, the league is different.

[rhroyal]

We'd either spend an obscene sum of cash in order to try to be competitive (and, in all likelihood, fail nonetheless) or wouldn't (and suffer relegation in inevitable fashion, accompanied by the real possibility of shattering Derby County's embarrassing standard of Premiership futility in the transaction --and sorry, but "Oh yeah, well at least we were there" isn't at all clever and has no place in any argument between mature adults possessed of normal cognitive function)

The club's finances would get knocked off kilter as a direct consequence of the "success" of securing an unanticipated season in the top flight; at least one managerial sacking would transpire during the doomed campaign, and the general mood and bearing of the support would veer between surly on good days and, on those less so, downright belligerent

As a consolation prize, the squad would be denuded of first-team regulars sold off to Premier League and promotion-chasing Championship sides over the summer following a wretched and thoroughly forgettable 38-match run deemed utterly unworthy by all concerned of a commemorative season-in-review DVD, after which acquaintances with Swindon Town FC would be renewed at the second level during the 2011/12 season

Happy days!

This.

Building a team for the Premiership takes time, and the process can be upset if you win promotion too early. So much for taking the gold coins and strengthening a level down, it hardly appears to have worked for Derby and Watford. This team will be better placed to fight in the Premiership in a couple of years time. We need to get a team with then prospects of staying together for a while and growing together, both individually and collectively.

We have a few players who could do this. Kebe, Long, Mills, Tabb, Church, Gylfi, Karacan, McAnuff. Possibly even Howard. However, we need to try and phase out the short term options, such as Ivar, Bryn, Rasiak and bring in players who fit in well and offer long term prospects for the team. Notice how I say phase out, not firesale. They still offer short term options to McD. Coppell phased out the likes of Salako, Williams and Forster, amongst others, in a similar way. Then give them a couple of years together, bingo you have the 05/06 with a bit of luck.

I think this process has began already. Win promotion this season, and what Chicago wrote about will stop all that. We'll be back to square 1 in no time.