Should We.....

[leon]

We're all thinking it. Come on, you know you are. Should we go straight down this season and rebuild hopefully maintaining our core squad and develop youngsters to mount a promotion challenge next season? Or stay up and challenge for Europe next season?

[AthleticoSpizz]

Tough it out...stop bitching about MaccyD....and Que Sera


WE are not Chelsea BTW

[leon]

well vote then, you mad old goat

[AthleticoSpizz]

well vote then, you mad old goat

where is the liberal vote option?

[leon]

well vote then, you mad old goat

where is the liberal vote option?

the first one. Lose but try and pretend its a victory.

[AthleticoSpizz]

I love you Leon

[akranes]

oxf*rd YEAH MAN

[ManchesterRoyals]

Stop starting threads on the Team Board leon and stick it up your b*llocks

But wouldnt mind staying up

[AthleticoSpizz]

yeah,................... what he said

[leon]

Stop starting threads on the Team Board leon and stick it up your b*llocks

But wouldnt mind staying up

we're all in it together. And f*ck off AS you wrinkly old twat

[AthleticoSpizz]

I'm not wrinkly, in my own defence

[southbank1871]

Bringing the l8 night drinking clique to the Team board.

What you drinking Leon?

[ManchesterRoyals]

Corona & carlsberg export here

[AthleticoSpizz]

Bringing the l8 night drinking clique to the Team board.

What you drinking Leon?

AD closed early bankers?

[leon]

Bringing the l8 night drinking clique to the Team board.

What you drinking Leon?

some OK prosecco, red stripe and some Pilsner Urquell. Plus the milk of human kindness.

[AthleticoSpizz]

good effort..................wrong place

[leon]

good effort..................wrong place

this place is a barren waste land. it needs some leon love.

[AthleticoSpizz]

No arguement from me Leon

[yappy]

Being relegated before, with hindsight, wasn't the worst thing to happen to us. It did give us the chance to develop the likes of Pearce, Karacan, Gylfi and Church from the academy, but even the likes of Long and Kebe massively improved from a term in the Championship. I believe we've made some developments to the ground and training facilities and we're generally in a better financial position than we were before we got promoted the first time (even before TSI). So on paper the club is in a stronger situation than it was in 2006, so theoretically we should be in a better position to sustain our stay in the top flight.

Would relegating benefit us now? Probably not.

Firstly the Championship is such a tough league, coming back up is no easy task, even with parachute payments.

Secondly, with the TV money increasing heavily next season we could see the gap between the Championship and Premiership stretch even further (and we already seem to be struggling with the gap!).

Thirdly I'm not convinced we have the same quality of youngsters coming through as we did previously. I remember being relegated last time and there was a lot of hype about the likes of Pearce, Karacan and Henry and I believe most of them had some Championship experience at that stage. I'm not overly convinced the likes of Obita, D-Ath and Taylor will live up to the same standard. You could also argue that of all the youngsters to have come through since we were relegated in 2008, Gylfi is the only one of Premier League standard. Hoping Karacan and Pearce will step up, but for now that remains to be seen.

Lastly, our team is a lot more experienced this time. When we came up in 2006, none of our players had played in the Premiership, whereas this time we do have a fair amount of experience. Even those without Premier League experience tend to have had a few years in the Championship, so I'm not sure dropping down a division would help their development. We have alot of late 20s/early 30s in our squad (for example Shorey, Harte, Gorkss, McAnuff, Leigertwood, Kebe, Roberts, Hunt), so our squad would probably be completely overhauled within a couple of seasons, so dropping down for one season I don't think would aid the teams development.

Whether we can stay up or not is another question altogether...

[LUX]

Prosecco That's the sort of thing RL drinks when she's back from bingo.

Pilsener Urquell OTOH is THE BEST