Press ganged

[darren woolley]

Great read Dave how we could do with another Sid Cowans in midfield Dave.

[Scratchins]

That may be true, but my point remains valid. There is no point in having an under 23 squad if it doesn't deliver, or if we are going to continue to loan in players from other teams reserves.

Christian Purslow agrees with you. At the AVST meeting last Wednesday he said that the U23 team should be the reserves and not have anyone without 1st team potential;our own youngsters with promise and players on the way back from injury. No more aging players with no resale value.

[dave.woodhall]

It should have started with Eric Black.

I've never thought that he did it deliberately, but he could have done much more in the  time when we were absolutely and totally doomed. You look at that lot in Smethwick last year and although they were effectively relegated with a month to go they battled and got a sense of purpose for the forthcoming season, whereas we kicked off in the Championship with much the same air of defeatism that we arrived with.

[paul_e]

It should have started with Eric Black.

I've never thought that he did it deliberately, but he could have done much more in the  time when we were absolutely and totally doomed. You look at that lot in Smethwick last year and although they were effectively relegated with a month to go they battled and got a sense of purpose for the forthcoming season, whereas we kicked off in the Championship with much the same air of defeatism that we arrived with.

I got really annoyed with Black at the time because it was clear that we were done so it should've been the start of the rebuild instead of some sort of cathartic exercise of being able to boo at shit like Lescott for the last 7-8 games of the season. I don't know if it'd have made much of a difference but whimpering out the rest of the fixtures to get to the summer is, in my opinion, the true low point, that's the only time where I really disliked the club.

[hilts_coolerking]

It seems a reasonable theory that if we were to go up this season, as unlikely as that appears as things stand, we'd get battered in the Premier League unless we revamped not just the team but half the first team squad, and therefore we might be better staying down for another season to regroup under new owners and a new management team.  I can see some logic in that.

Leaving aside the sour grapesy 'okay we failed to get promoted but we didn't want promotion anyway' aspect to it, as each season goes by in the Championship we fall further behind those we're trying to catch.  Another season of attempted strengthening for us is another season of the same for everyone else.  We may get stronger ourselves but there's no guarantee that that puts us ahead of the rest.  You have to consider that if we do stay down, some of our better players will leave which will, at least initially, make us weaker than we were to start with.

On balance I'd much much rather have promotion this season. I don't see that another season in the Championship will necessarily make us better prepared for survival in the Premier League should we reach it.  And in any case why assume that we'd get promoted next season?  As we've seen, one season down here can become two and then three.

[villa `cross the mersey]

Good post Robbo - I  posted in a similar vein on the Dean Smith thread

[Damo70]

I believe that no player should be taken on loan unless there is an agreement to buy. Our leading goal scorer belongs to another club and will not be with us next season, our key defender before getting injured belongs to another club and on form they will keep him. How can you build a solid foundation when some of the bricks are to be removed when the building is complete.
One or two in an emergency can be justified but as a club we have sacrificed long term planning and team unity for a get rich quick Ponzi scheme that always ends in disaster.
If my recollection is accurate Smith has already stated he is not fond of loaning players for me that is a positive but as a supporter I have to recognise that any fundamental change takes time and results will be inconsistent, if we still believe that we are too good for this division we are doomed.

The agreement to buy loan idea is good in theory, but if we had that as a hard and fast rule and Chelsea didn't agree regarding Abraham and we had then backed out altogether we would have been cutting off our nose to spite our face. And that would then happen with other players too.

[dcdavecollett]

Good article -though it was my view that it was Hull hanging on at the end, not us.