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seanbeenstattoo

seanbeenstattoo

Piss down the back of their legs. Precious.
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I ask this question having just read WBA move up to 9th in the Prem following theit 4-0 victory over Burnley.
WBA are an established Premiership outfit. Unlikely to win it or qualify for any European slots,yet likely to retain Prem status indefinately.
Burnley are probably going to be relegated again this season and will retain huge sums of money to bounce back as they have previously.

Both clubs have fan bases no way better than ours so is it unreasonable to expect us to get to and remain in the premiership?

Personally I think we have as much potential or more than either of the aforementioned along with Sunderland,Swansea,Watford,Palace,Bourenmouth,Hull,Middlebro,Southampton and Leicester.

Think about that. You may not agree with all my names but I'm sure you'll agree with most.

We are on the first stage of a journey Wilder knows as a man with SUFC DNA has to take us back to and keep us in the top flight.
 



seanbeenstattoo said:
I ask this question having just read WBA move up to 9th in the Prem following theit 4-0 victory over Burnley.
WBA are an established Premiership outfit. Unlikely to win it or qualify for any European slots,yet likely to retain Prem status indefinately.
Burnley are probably going to be relegated again this season and will retain huge sums of money to bounce back as they have previously.

Both clubs have fan bases no way better than ours so is it unreasonable to expect us to get to and remain in the premiership?

Personally I think we have as much potential or more than either of the aforementioned along with Sunderland,Swansea,Watford,Palace,Bourenmouth,Hull,Middlebro,Southampton and Leicester.

Think about that. You may not agree with all my names but I'm sure you'll agree with most.

We are on the first stage of a journey Wilder knows as a man with SUFC DNA has to take us back to and keep us in the top flight.
Click to expand...
You can easily make a case Fir is being an established premiership club. The trouble is, there's about 15 clubs outside the premiership, in the same position, but already in the queue.

And another problem is that TV money can give the likes of Bournemouth the chance to become remain and become established.

In the end, it's better just to enjoy the journey than worry too much about the destination.

UTB
 
Quite honestly SBT I just want us out of this league, battering the Pigs twice a season in the Championship and capable of pushing for the play offs. The PL has no appeal for me at present, in fact the vast majority of games bore me senseless. The ratio of foreign / homegrown players not to mention wages has gone so far out of kilter that I think it is now irreparable , although that problem is steadily creeping down the leagues. The Championship is a much more exciting and unpredictable league with some really, really good football on display. Let's get there and consolidate, I would be a happy bunny for a few years at least.
 
You have to aim as high as possible or you might as well not compete. I have no time for the "don't want the Premiership" view. You go for the gold medal, not the silver; First on the podium, not also-ran. Ask Leicester.

We have greater potential than the majority of those clubs mentioned by SBT. Then again, so do half the clubs in the Championship. I believe we could exist as an established Premiership team. Indeed we could already be just that if KM and OBN had not fucked up the Prem season between them.
 
I want to beat the bastards in front of us on any given week. That's how you go further.
 
I just wana keep watching the wizards winning right now.
It's been so long since we've been motoring along nicely like this, that I just hope it carries on!
Promotion would be amazing and reestablishing ourselves as a top 6 championship side over the next 2 seasons would be excellent in my honest opinion!
COYRAWW!!
 
I just want us to be a club who have a chance of reaching the top flight. It's a big uphill battle just to get to that stage. The sort of timescale we could be looking at for that is similar to what it would've been to actually be in the PL had we got out of L1 when we should've done. Instead we've fucked around for 6 years and in that time the Championship has changed completely.

We should be able to emulate the likes of West Brom but with the way football's changed it's a much longer term aspiration than it might have been.

The Championship's a good league to be in anyway. Good standard, open, unpredictable, big crowds, good stadiums, good clubs. You could take 10+ clubs out of that league and swap them for 10+ in the PL and the PL would improve massively. But that also highlights the difficulty in getting to the PL. There are a lot of big clubs in the Championship who'd all naturally compete at a similar level to us - and almost all of them will have more money than us. Then you've got nothing clubs like Bournemouth up in the PL, reaping the financial rewards, establishing themselves and clogging things up so it takes longer to restore the natural order, meaning the bigger clubs stay in the Championship and make it more difficult - not to mention the incentive and belief it gives other smaller clubs.
 
I want us to be an honest club in our current home with passionate fans and a squad of players that plays as though pulling on that shirt is an incredible privilege that any one of us would give our right arm for. I don't crave constant success but I would love us to build up to the stage where we flirt regularly with the top flight. Probably more importantly than that however, would be a cup win at Wembley. Just one would do me. A perfect day in glorious isolation to look back on and smile.
 
No SBT you are wrong

All of the above clubs have much more potential than us

Sheffield United have been very successful at one thing :
Lowering the expectation of almost everybody that supports them

If you start with no expectations you cannot fail
 



I agree with some of the comments from above about not wanting to be watching a load of foreign diving mercenaries who couldn't give a to55 about the club. However, there is no reason that you can't play honest exciting physical football in The Premier League with a team who love the club that they play for. I bet you can't find a single Foxes fan who would rather be in The Champ.

The key is getting a genuine Manager with his head clear of his own ar5e. We are lucky to have one such at present and so I can dream of Tufty leading out a team of real footballers and giving us the ride of our lives.

I enjoyed our years at the top of The Champ but I agree with SBT that we are big enough and well-enough resourced to become an established Prem fixture. In my opinion we are also lucky enough to have the best British manager in all of the Leagues - and by God we have earned that luck. Please let it continue.

By the way, I thought The Baggies played well tonight - Pulis is my second favourite!

But back to reality - let's bury Bury!

UTB
 
Most of my top experiences watching us have been either in the playoffs (excl. Finals obviously) or in the cups.

The beauty of cup games is everything is riding on the result - if you lose you're out- so they have potential for huge excitement and entertainment. Yet if you do lose it's not a disaster. Focus simply shifts back to the league.
Because of this teams are free to let go and play to their full potential, and we get games such as the ones in the past decade vs Leeds, Liverpool, Arsenal, West Ham and Spurs etc

I want to be a top Championship side for definite.
Premiership- sure, if we make it great. Not desperate to get there.
But for amazing games and top memories, give me a good cup run any day of the week (and maybe even a trophy some day..)
 
seanbeenstattoo said:
I could'nt care less about February and neither I suspect does Wilder. I'm prepared to gamble that like me he cares only about 3 points in our next game.
Take your eye of what's right in front of you and you get a fuck off slap in the face. There's an awful lot of battles ahead before (fuck) February.
Click to expand...

seanbeenstattoo said:
It will if we embark on a sequence of catastrophic results starting this Saturday and are 5th bottom by Feb 1st.
I stopped day dreaming about 3 months down the line when I was 12.
Each to their own.
Click to expand...

seanbeenstattoo said:
The possibilities and permutations for things to go to shit are endless.
We were walking promotion till Ched had a cream pie.
I know people can post what they want and quite rightly but what the fuck is the point of looking at what MIGHT be months away.
EEL back to Wolves in Jan. Sharp injured. Moore injured.
Utterly pointless looking beyond the next game.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
1 I
seanbeenstattoo said:
I ask this question having just read WBA move up to 9th in the Prem following theit 4-0 victory over Burnley.
WBA are an established Premiership outfit. Unlikely to win it or qualify for any European slots,yet likely to retain Prem status indefinately.
Burnley are probably going to be relegated again this season and will retain huge sums of money to bounce back as they have previously.

Both clubs have fan bases no way better than ours so is it unreasonable to expect us to get to and remain in the premiership?

Personally I think we have as much potential or more than either of the aforementioned along with Sunderland,Swansea,Watford,Palace,Bourenmouth,Hull,Middlebro,Southampton and Leicester.

Think about that. You may not agree with all my names but I'm sure you'll agree with most.

We are on the first stage of a journey Wilder knows as a man with SUFC DNA has to take us back to and keep us in the top flight.[/QU

1. Promoted this season
2. Promoted next season
3. Invested in so we can compete at the top level

That will do for starters.

And what do I not want us to be?

1. The plaything of some foreign owner who has no regard for our tradition and history and doesn't take the fans views into account.
2. In administration.
3. Lower down the league than Wednesday.

Not too much to ask is it?
Click to expand...
 
Dont agree that the likes of WBA and Burnley are Prem clubs indefinitely. I think they are yo-yo clubs, same as Sunderland and a few others. However, could we be similar or better? Yes - definitely and our past history proves it. But looking ahead here's what I want us to be:

1. Promoted this season
2. Promoted next season
3. Invested in so we can compete at the top level

That will do for starters.

And what do I not want us to be?

1. The plaything of some foreign owner who has no regard for our tradition and history and doesn't take the fans views into account.
2. In administration.
3. Lower down the league than Wednesday.

Not too much to ask is it?
 
I have seen us:

- finish ninth in the top division
- reach 4 FA Cup semi finals
- reach 2 league cup semi finals

I want us to better these achievements.

And I have no desire to enter see another playoff final, but if we reach one, I'd like us to win it. Even scoring a goal would be something.
 
I want us in the Championship, to start with, equipped with a team which will stay in the championship and push to challenge for promotion.

No one has mentioned yet the bleak possibility of us flogging anyone in the JTW.

Just like we do.

pommpey
 
We are a theoretical country mile off being an established side in the premier league.

I would love us to make that kind of progress, however I'm afraid I just don't see it under the current owner. The only way that it would be possible is if we either receive a huge windfall for investment in the side.....or we have a manager who is good enough and given the time to build slowly. The timescale would probably be double for the latter of the two.

I personally would like to see my club competing with the top sides week in week out, getting to cup finals, the odd foray into Europe. I also have no issue with the arrival of foreign players as realistically it's the only way to compete.
I agree that in theory if Bournemouth, WBA, Hull etc etc can do it then so the chuff should we. But the pessimist in me says there are too many things needed to change for us to manage it.
 
the PL is great but all this Sunday afternoon, Sunday evening, Monday night, Friday night football is a pain in the arse, football should be played on Saturday afternoon at 3.00pm.

I loved it when we were in the PL and hate seeing teams like Bournmouth, WBA, Leicester, Watford, Southampton, Burnley, Middlesborough, Palace, Hull, Stoke, Sunderland and Swansea up there when we're more than capable of playing a higher standard of football than these teams, infact i've just looked at the PL table for the first time in years and we're a bigger club than those outside of the top 7.

My realistic expectation would be we're a steady mid-table PL side, we've won the FA Cup and we've pushed for a European place once in a while, like someone said i'm sure there are 15 plus teams outside the PL who think the same and in League 1 we're not even in the queue to be in the PL anytime soon.
 
You need to look at your reason for being, what the french refer to as a raison d'etre, and believe this to be so. Moping about in the lower rungs of football life has, shame-ingly, been the expectation of the supporters of this club, so much so that we almost expect it. We've forgotten what it's like to exist alongside the best teams in the UK, where we once played week in, week out. We had a team in those days to be proud of, but with alarming acceptance one owner of the club after another has come to seal our acceptance as one of English football's also-rans. For far too long we've underwhelmed, we've not had the leadership that other, lesser clubs have shown.

We can discuss the various qualities of clubs like Palace, B'mouth, or Burnley, but they've had the drive from the very top of their clubs to take them to the pinnacle of English football, the Premiership. Instead, what we've had are successful businessmen who enter football and believe that they can run this club as they have run any other businesses. They've been beguiled by the vanity if owning a professional football club, but the reality is that all they are are guardians of SUFC, until the moment when they decide to jump ship and sell their shares for a profit. Good luck to 'em, but none of this answers why they first wanted to own SUFC? To be successful? If that's the case then as chairmen they have failed everyone. McCabe, for a brief moment, oversaw our return to the top tier, but we looked out of place and were never able to cope with the demands we confronted every week. McCabe just wasn't equipped to lead this club, neither was the manager, so we were relegated and since then we've seen a deterioration of expectations, until we've settled into what some seem happy to regard as a level of football that suits the aims and objectives of SUFC.

For me everything begins at the top, and at the top of this club we have two owners, one a failed guardian of the Blades, the other still to show his hand and show us that he's prepared to push this club forward. We finally have a decent manager, but without that driving force at the very top, what's the point of being SUFC? To exist amongst the lower levels of football season after season? Or to show we have the capabilities to succeed, first in the Championship, and then, once we're fit to challenge, to enter the Premiership with the leadership that has vision and drive, not the weak-wristed suits who shouldn't be here in the first place.
 
It's unlikely many more clubs that haven't been in the PL in the last couple of years will get promoted from the championship.

If Brighton do it this season they could be one of the last. If we assume Newcastle go up and Villa go up through the playoffs (for argument's sake) then next season Norwich will still be on full parachute payments, as will the three clubs that go down. Chances are, the promoted clubs will be three of the four clubs on full parachute payments. And the same the next year and the next.

Occasionally a club will fall apart, like Blackburn or Wigan so there's still a small chance a non-parachute payment receiving club will go up but it won't be the norm. This situation will eventually lead to the championship clubs agreeing to a PL2 but until then we'll see the same five or six clubs getting relegated from the PL and then getting promoted again.
 
It's a hard question for me to answer, because my affinity with the club has never been conditional on success or even the hope of it (just as well really).

What I will say is that there is a wide gulf of difference between ambition and expectation. Some of the clubs we see in the Premier League now, who were nowhere in sight 10-15 years ago have reached that level on the back of having an ambitious drive to move forward. Making positive decisions and gaining positive results.
On the other hand, many nominally "big" clubs have slid into considerable decline, crushed under the weight of their own expectations and no shortage of terrible planning. In short (and perhaps simplisticly), ambition is positive and expectation is negative.

Moving forward- however you choose to define that- depends on shedding the baggage of history and accepting the reality of your environment. The appointment of Chris Wilder is a case in point. A sizeable number of supporters were of the opinion that such an appointment was somehow "beneath" us at first, believing that his lack of pedigree at the higher levels would take us nowhere, despite the fact that contrary to this view it was actually the big name managers who have failed us in recent times.

Lastly, we have no right to think ourselves more deserving of success than the half dozen or so clubs in the Premier League when they have done their job and we haven't. There's a staggering level of arrogance in such a notion, and it will only serve to hold us back.
 
I was in a pub with SBT about a year ago when an older United fan gave us his insight into Sheffield United

"We are a Championship club no better"

"Our history is one of a Championship club"

"We shouldn't be in the Premier League"

He seemed totally oblivious to the fact that the Premier League is made up Bournemouth, Palace, West Brom, Burnley, Southampton, Stoke, Leicester, Watford, Swansea, West Ham, Middlesbrough and Hull.
That's more than half of the division taken up by clubs traditionally smaller than United

Then you can add teams to that list that have been regular Premier League members over the last 20 years or so, teams like Wolves, Derby, Forest, Blackburn, Bolton, Leeds, Birmingham, Coventry, Portsmouth, QPR, Fulham and Wigan,

SBT and I made this point to him but he still couldn't see it.
And we call Wendies brainwashed.

At least their brainwashed into positivity
 



Tyler Durden said:
It's a hard question for me to answer, because my affinity with the club has never been conditional on success or even the hope of it (just as well really).

What I will say is that there is a wide gulf of difference between ambition and expectation. Some of the clubs we see in the Premier League now, who were nowhere in sight 10-15 years ago have reached that level on the back of having an ambitious drive to move forward. Making positive decisions and gaining positive results.
On the other hand, many nominally "big" clubs have slid into considerable decline, crushed under the weight of their own expectations and no shortage of terrible planning. In short (and perhaps simplisticly), ambition is positive and expectation is negative.

Moving forward- however you choose to define that- depends on shedding the baggage of history and accepting the reality of your environment. The appointment of Chris Wilder is a case in point. A sizeable number of supporters were of the opinion that such an appointment was somehow "beneath" us at first, believing that his lack of pedigree at the higher levels would take us nowhere, despite the fact that contrary to this view it was actually the big name managers who have failed us in recent times.

Lastly, we have no right to think ourselves more deserving of success than the half dozen or so clubs in the Premier League when they have done their job and we haven't. There's a staggering level of arrogance in such a notion, and it will only serve to hold us back.
Click to expand...


This applies to us:

no shortage of terrible planning
Click to expand...

In our case, I don't think we've lacked ambition but McCabe's ill-founded expectation that his methods would lead to success have laid us low. The fans' expectations seem secondary.

When we've cut our costs (under Birch and Winter), we've not done it with any intelligence. And when we've spent money, it's been with equal short termism.

Personally I want us to be in the Premiership - that's a fair ambition. But then the club needs realistic expectation too. WBA have been good at that. Charlton lost it after so many good years under Curbishley and were punished severely. Swansea are probably losing their realism of expectation right now.
 
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