All the table shows is that we've been a midtable club for the last 10 years, on average, which is really any shock, our average finishing position in that time is 10th, if averaging 10th is a terminal decline then I clearly missed all the title challenges in the 90s.
The 90s gave us two title challenges, a fourth place finish, a fifth place finish and lets not forget never out of the top eight between 1996 and 2002. The 90s also delivered two trophies. So we finished 2nd twice, fourth once, fifth once and regularly sixth.
The following decade has been considerably less successful. Saunders_heroes might be a bit extreme to say we are in decline but can anybody argue we have not been regressing?
Decline is exactly the word I took objection to. We've had some decent cup runs with semi-finals and finals since the turn of the millenium, we've been in europe, we looked like outside challengers for the champions league places for a couple of years.
What the direct comparison ignores as well is the widening of the gap between the top of the table and the rest and the fact that 2 sides who were non-entities for much of the 90s are now 2 of the richest clubs in the world who've bought their way to the top table. all of that has shifted the goalposts a little so that our average finish is 2-3 places lower but to call it a decline over the last 10-13 years (because he said decade and since 2000) is just wrong. We've had a slump for the last 3 years and I could live with someone saying we've been in decline since 2010 but to go back to 2000 is wrong for me, there were only 2 seasons between 2000 and 2010 which would be counted as genuinely poor as far as I'm concerned (gt mk2 and dolly's last), we had a poor spell in MONs first season but that 11th was a decent finish given the circumstances.
