Shaun Rice
Well-known member
- Joined
- 16 Dec 2017
- Messages
- 1,218
On the one hand, today's result doesn't completely deflate me about the prospects for the season. Barnsley are clearly an excellent side who will be there or thereabouts at season's end. So that's likely one of the season's toughest games out the way early.
It does, however, depress me a little about the state of football nowadays. There's always been a bit of a gap between the Premier League and Championship, but there was never much of a gulf between the bottom of the Championship and League One. Now there seems to be a chasm. With teams in the division above us paying fees for players, on a semi-regular basis, that are bigger than our annual revenue.
Last year the three teams that came down went straight back up again; Bolton did it the season before; You'd have to think that Barnsley & Sunderland will be strong favorites to do the same this year....with only the fact that Burton were punching above their weight for a couple of years leaving a spot open for someone else.
Makes you wonder what hope we have in the medium term to better our lot significantly. Unless someone takes us over with sufficient resources to sort through the stadium issues, then a solid finish in League One and a good cup run would seem to be about the summit of our realistic ambitions at the moment. Which isn't the worst thing in the world - it's a good league, with some fun opponents - but hardly matches the dreams of the 80s or even 90s.
Modern football, eh?
Absolutely true, good post.
I actually thought tiger was going to be the man to bridge the gap between the finances required in league one and the championship. All the talk about Eastwood seeing the list of targets and signing, Tiger at the forum “wow these are championship players” and “it’s going to be an exciting season”. Him having a meeting with Ka$$am etc. I don’t think it’s quite gone to plan. I still think he might be the man but it’l be through partnerships like Singha and bringing other investors in because, well actually that’s more sustainable.
Regarding the match yesterday and the team. Firstly terrible news regarding Samir. Hope he’s back playing soon but it’ll not be until Christmas that we see him!
I’m not going to slate individual players in this post but in general we were exposed in a few areas.
In the final 3rd we’re simply not good enough. We were not good enough last season and as it stands not much has changed.
Our midfield was massively exposed against Leeds a week or so ago and it was again today.
Finally we struggled down the flanks but I doubt we’ll see many teams that are able to expose us quite as much as they did.
There’s still time for Tiger, KR and the rest of the back room team to turn this around but I thing as you posted the gulf between us and the championship is vast right now.