Where Did It All Go Wrong....

[Ads]

Football fans love to be dramatic. We don't measure in tiny percentages, which in reality is all that separates the very best from the ordinary (and when you play against a professional or an ex-professional you truly appreciate just how bloody ordinary you are) but instead its miles. And not just miles, but incalculable miles up to the truly desperate light years.

Utter bollocks, as clubs continue to prove and will always continue to prove. Let's hope we're one of them sooner rather than later.

[ChicagoLion]

Football fans love to be dramatic. We don't measure in tiny percentages, which in reality is all that separates the very best from the ordinary (and when you play against a professional or an ex-professional you truly appreciate just how bloody ordinary you are) but instead its miles. And not just miles, but incalculable miles up to the truly desperate light years.

Utter bollocks, as clubs continue to prove and will always continue to prove. Let's hope we're one of them sooner rather than later.

Your optimistic predictions don’t tend to stand the test of time sadly.

[Chris Smith]

Football fans love to be dramatic. We don't measure in tiny percentages, which in reality is all that separates the very best from the ordinary (and when you play against a professional or an ex-professional you truly appreciate just how bloody ordinary you are) but instead its miles. And not just miles, but incalculable miles up to the truly desperate light years.

Utter bollocks, as clubs continue to prove and will always continue to prove. Let's hope we're one of them sooner rather than later.

Your optimistic predictions don’t tend to stand the test of time sadly.

Wolves are the most recent example supporting what Ads says.

[Ads]

Football fans love to be dramatic. We don't measure in tiny percentages, which in reality is all that separates the very best from the ordinary (and when you play against a professional or an ex-professional you truly appreciate just how bloody ordinary you are) but instead its miles. And not just miles, but incalculable miles up to the truly desperate light years.

Utter bollocks, as clubs continue to prove and will always continue to prove. Let's hope we're one of them sooner rather than later.

Your optimistic predictions don’t tend to stand the test of time sadly.

I've not made a prediction, its a comment on a predilection of football fans to dramatise.

I imagine there were several people with lee jeans and black shoes on, down in the dumps post Brighton, heading to the 3rd tier, no washing machines to tat. "Wim light year away bae wae". And now in a blink of an eye they're suddenly competing. Like Sheffield United. Like just about every club who makes consistently good recruitment decisions.

Light years. Ok.

[brian green]

Trouble is Ads, respectfully, that consistently good recruitment decisions are, in football, as rare as owners who are treble minted.  We can see what Bournemout and Watford and Brighton have done but it is the doing of it that is the hard part.  If my Auntie had balls she would be my Uncle reality.

[Ads]

Trouble is Ads, respectfully, that consistently good recruitment decisions are, in football, as rare as owners who are treble minted.  We can see what Bournemout and Watford and Brighton have done but it is the doing of it that is the hard part.  If my Auntie had balls she would be my Uncle reality.

Absolutely, clubs rise and fall all the time. The game has changed in some respects with the Champions League to provide a consistent cash cow. That cow is milked and keeps clubs at the very pinnacle. But plenty still have aspirations to get to that level and scrap about in the rungs below.

For most of my years Spurs have been mid-table wank, but then I could have sworn I saw them being robbed by a dodgy penalty decision in a European Cup final.

They didn't spend for 18 months and guess what? They're mid-table.

[Risso]

Oh to be mid table wank!

[tomd2103]

Football fans love to be dramatic. We don't measure in tiny percentages, which in reality is all that separates the very best from the ordinary (and when you play against a professional or an ex-professional you truly appreciate just how bloody ordinary you are) but instead its miles. And not just miles, but incalculable miles up to the truly desperate light years.

Utter bollocks, as clubs continue to prove and will always continue to prove. Let's hope we're one of them sooner rather than later.

Your optimistic predictions don’t tend to stand the test of time sadly.

Wolves are the most recent example supporting what Ads says.

They aren't really Chris, as they have a unique set up there that can't really be replicated anywhere else. 

Seeing where Burnley and Sheffield United currently are though, would suggest finishing in the top ten on a regular basis could be achievable with the right set up.

A thought struck me watching those two play at the weekend that given the usually spaced out nature of the Premier League (few midweek games, international breaks etc.) the old adage of taking one game at a time is very applicable to that league. 

For most of the teams in it, it requires a very short-term approach and the spread out nature of the games allows plenty of time for preparation.  Being solid, well organised and nicking goals where possible are the key and I think it is probably why Steve Bruce has done a better job so far at Newcastle than he did at a club where the onus was on trying to be on the front foot and taking the game to teams.

[Drummond]

The best, possibly only great, appointment of recent years is Klopp. He's done a magnificent job up there, the bastard and Liverpool will thrive on it for some time.

As for us, well we appointed one of our own who'd done reasonably well elsewhere. He's growing, learning and developing, he was never the finished article. So why are people now expecting a rapid improvement? Seriously what did you expect? Younger, more inexperienced people make mistakes and over time they learn.

None of us know what will happen next year. Last season, Smith inherited all of Bruce's players, brought in a couple and we were, against all the odds, promoted. This season. we've not achieved what we'd hoped we would. But for some individual errors in games, by players and coaches, we'd be fairly safe right now. This was never a smooth road, and Smith needs the chance to drive it, the car's not a write-off, it's just got some scratches on it and needs a service.

[Ads]

Wolves maximise what they've got. Leicester do, Sheffield United do, Burnley do. Its why they're successful relative to their means and aspirations. No different to Liverpool or Man City. There's no alchemy to success in football; buy well. We don't and haven't for years.

[brian green]

Absolutely.  I once went to Belfast on a business trip with Bob Lord.  He was such a tight arsed curmudgeon I got off the plane feeling glad that we had Ellis, that is what Bob Lord was like.  Back then I would have predicted Burnley doing an Accrington Stanley.  Now we look up to them reverentially.

[dave.woodhall]

And for every "Why are Spurs so much better than us when we used to be above them?" there's an Ipswich, Derby, Stoke, Coventry who were two divisions better than us and playing in Europe when I started going regularly.

[Ads]

Exactly so. Things can and do change, all the time in football and not always for the better, but equally, not always for the worst. And you're never more than two or three good transfer  windows away from success or disaster.

[Risso]

The Premier League

Wolves maximise what they've got. Leicester do, Sheffield United do, Burnley do. Its why they're successful relative to their means and aspirations. No different to Liverpool or Man City. There's no alchemy to success in football; buy well. We don't and haven't for years.

Buy and sell well, and appoint good managers. 

[SoccerHQ]

Abraham played his part in getting us promoted. I can't understand how anyone can see a downside to that.

I think that was a big turning point. In normal seasons we'd have signed him for 25m as he'd have wanted to play week in week out and he'd enjoyed it here. Doubt we'd have signed Wesley instead who came in at a similar price.

Chelsea getting that banned really messed us over as they've never shown much interest before in blooding home grown players. Sarri showed little interest in them and was talking about extending Higuain's loan for another season. Instead he went back to Italy and they went for the first English manager of the Abramovich era who was signed purely because he knew many of the young players (had two of them on loan with him at Derby).

A bit of a perfect storm we got caught up in and it's cost us 6-8 points I think.