Would it be more fun if we went down?

[PaulWinch again]

The reason we've been battling it out down the bottom of the Premier league for the last few years is that we're a club that is managed appalling from the highest level down. If we went down we'd been a Championship club that's appallingly managed from the top down and therefore given time we'd see similar results.

[olaftab]

No

[joe_c]

There is not one single positive about getting relegated.  Not one.

Less likelihood of fixtures being fucked about with for TV but that's about it.

[PeterWithesShin]

There is not one single positive about getting relegated.  Not one.

Less likelihood of fixtures being fucked about with for TV but that's about it.

We'd be the live game nearly every week.

[Des Little]

There is not one single positive about getting relegated.  Not one.

Less likelihood of fixtures being fucked about with for TV but that's about it.

That's hardly a positive.  Playing a home league game against someone like Brentford is depressing whether it's 3pm Saturday or 6am on a Tuesday.

[PeterWithesShin]

Rotherham at home on a Tuesday evening will be so much fun.

[NeilH]

I remember last time, I remember the pain of going down which was only nullified slightly by the arrival of Sir Graham. I remember the god awful home games, Bluenoses and Baggies fans at my school laughing as we struggled at home. I have no rose tinted view of the away days, just constant agro and a final day stuck on a crumbling terrace with a load of ticketless fans. The only redeeming feature to this whole sorry affair was a belief that we not only had the right man to get us up, but the right man to rebuild us to where we had been only a few years earlier. You can also add to that the fact that dropping out was not a calamitous back then, due to the sums of money involved.
Fast forward to us dropping out, given Lerner’s record of choosing new managers, the loss of revenue, national humiliation and the very real danger that we would not bounce back and therefore join the likes of Bolton, Blackburn, Leeds, Sheff Weds, Notts Forest, Derby County and so on in the ‘they were once big’ club; you can shove the notion where the sun don’t shine.

[Tom_Mc9?]

Rotherham at home on a Tuesday evening will be so much fun.

I'd imagine it's currently more fun than Arsenal away on a Sunday.

[CT]

Loved the away trips of 87/88, but back then we had a plan.

This time round, no, no way. It wouldn't be in the slightest bit fun.

[PeterWithesShin]

Rotherham at home on a Tuesday evening will be so much fun.

I'd imagine it's currently more fun than Arsenal away on a Sunday.

Based on Leyton Orient at home in midweek I'd imagine it isn't.

[Tom_Mc9?]

Fair enough. As long as things remain how they are, we're in a lose-lose situation. Misery and woe.

[cdbearsfan]

The only real upsides I could see are that we would have a lot of new grounds to go to and that we'd be more likely to win.

Addressing the first one, the new grounds. It would be more difficult to get tickets for a lot of them with an average capacity of 20,000 compared to 40,000 in the top flight. Season ticket holders, at least, can more-or-less pick and choose which away games they go to at present and quite a few go on general sale. It'd be much more difficult in the division below. Plus the extra eight games a season would necessitate a load of games being played midweek, particularly if we or our opponents had decent runs in the FA Cup.

Regarding the increased likelihood of victory. It's hardly an absolute certainty at any rate given our form against dross over the last few years. Also, while yesterday was no fun, for most of us the bitterness of defeat was negated slightly by the prior knowledge that we'd probably lose. Defeat against Rotherham or Milton Keynes would be much more difficult to take than defeat against even quite awful Premier League teams like QPR and Leicester.

For the future, it would be disastrous. We'd have to sell all our major assets and at knock-down price. At present we think we could have enough to survive in the top flight and if we spent a bit of cash we could finish mid-table. If we sold all our better players, even if we did come straight back up we'd have to spend a fortune just to have a chance of seventeenth place.

If you get annoyed at the media failing to take into account our history and regard us as a big club now, good luck tolerating how they'll see us down there.

It would be utterly humiliating for a club of our stature to get relegated. There's no guarantee we would come back.

It's a "no" from me.

[anton hillman]

There is a belief from some posters to the question posed that we run the risk of becoming another Sheffield Wed or worse if we take the drop. Given the financial gap that now exists between the upper flight and the res,t this could certainly happen and is a sobering prospect for any Villa fan. Remember though that other clubs like West Ham and Newcastle have managed to come back up in recent seasons stronger for the experience rather than disappear like Sheffield and Leeds.

I believe that looking at what is now going on and after Saturday's debacle we need to be realistic. Relegation could occur and looks increasingly likely. Under the present set up we can't go on dodging the bullet for much longer.

If it does happen I wonder whether there is a contingency plan in place at AVFC for dealing with the consequences. Somehow I doubt it

[PeterWithesShin]

West Ham still needed the play-offs to come back up, a winner 3 mins from time in the final. That is a bit of a lottery, not hard to imagine they'd have been screwed if they hadn't got through.

[not3bad]

Any fun to be gleaned would be appreciated in hindsight, rather than at the time.