Competitive in Championship v uncompetitive in PL?

[monkeyboy]

Right, before the hand grenades start flying - I'm not suggesting I want us relegated or anything that silly.

Just a hypothetical question, how would you feel watching a competitive Villa in a lower league v being massively uncompetitive in the PL week in week out

Nothing behind the question - just one that was asked of me in the pub yesterday - i struggled to answer it to be honest.

Selfishly would love to go to VP with confidence and in expectation (and would clearly rather this was in the PL - however this currently means dropping a division) rather than what i go with now, which is expecting to lose and be appalled by the quality of the football we play, which is likely to be the case for the foreseeable future with Lambert's experiment failing and Lerner budget constraints

Wondered how others would answer the question :-)

UTV

[olaftab]

No no no. That would be terrible. Aston Villa has to be in the top division always competitive or not. If it was just about winning matches in any standard  how about Conference or wherever....no thanks.

[taylorsworkrate]

I sense this thread will get a very welcome reception!

[itbrvilla]

Competitive please. We are no longer the big club the fans think we are. Give it 10-15 years and well be 6-7 most successful club in England. I doubt this load of rubbish would be competitive in the championship.

[Legion]

Competitive in the Premier League.

[Mortimer's Bear]

Premier League every time.

[monkeyboy]

Competitive in the PL is of course the right answer,

[monkeyboy]

I sense this thread will get a very welcome reception!

I think you may be right :-)

[richtheholtender]

Has it really come to this?

[olaftab]

There we go sorted. Please lock this thread.

[Steve kirk]

In each of the last three and a half seasons I have suffered terribly worrying about relegation and it has been a real strain but for all that its sticking around in the top flight for me over the pain and humiliation of relegation, Villa have spent almost all of their history in the top division, that is where our great club should always be.

[Villa in Denmark]

The question is surely redundant.
If your competitive in the championship, you're likely to get promoted back into the situation you've just left, just with a year's parachute payments instead of the full pack of Sky filthy lucre.

If you're not competitive you're on your way to joining the likes of Forest, Wednesday or Leeds with years in the wilderness, not just because of player wages / contracts, but the whole infrastructure of the club is based around PL incomes. Shirt / kit sponsorships, corporate entertainment (which would require maintenance of the facilities, without the income). Bodymore Heath facilities will suddenly look a lot less attractive to young players, regardless of how cutting edge the facilities actually are.

We've seen how difficult and painful it's been to try and rebalance our finances whilst still having the Sky money.  Imagine what it would be like with ca. half the revenue streams over. 2 - 3 years.

[Clampy]

If being competitive means beating the likes of Barnsley and Huddersfield, i'd rather us stick to the Premier.

[Lastfootstamper]

Was the question posed by a follower of one of our other local sides? Sounds like the sort of thing they come out with to justify their team's yoyoing. Whilst exciting, swaggering, cavalier football is something we'd all love to see, dropping down a division is no guarantee of its arrival.
We belong in the top division.
Eventually things will get better. They always have.
These may be dark days, but they are very, very far from our grand old club's darkest. We'll be back, maybe not to the pinnacle of our finest hour, but we will, and we shall hold our heads high, and it will be in the premier.

[eastie]

How bizarre.
Not many clubs go down and remain competitive in the championship, see blackburn, Bolton, blues, wigan, wolves .....