Our unluckiest season?

[Ted Danson]

Well, so far, Brewster hasn't exactly enabled his case to go knock on Wilder's door and say, 'hey up boss, about these wages ...' has he?

We're I Wilder I'd be giving him the 'long stare' and ask him to shut the door behind him.

pommpey

Exactly, so if Brewster goes to another club he wont have the power to demand high wages. So wages are a better measure to gage the players ability and if we cant afford the high wages then we cant afford the best players

 

[pommpey]

Exactly, so if Brewster goes to another club he wont have the power to demand high wages. So wages are a better measure to gage the players ability and if we cant afford the high wages then we cant afford the best players

However, if he has the nous and footballing maturity to outfox his opponents and have ten goals by now (which, given £23m you'd expect) do you think Wilder would change? He's still getting a 'goals bonus' and an appearance fee, plus sponsorship, commercial tie ins and other fringe benefits. Put it this way, even if we had Aguero playing for us at the moment, given the sloppybob served up by our midfield three pissketeers, even he'd struggle to second guess a run, a through ball or even get on the end of one of Norwood's devastating, arrow-like, driven crosses into the first defender.

pommpey

 

[Working Class Hero]

It's our unluckiest season since.... last season.

Nothing can be more unlucky than a worldwide bleeding pandemic getting in the way of qualifying for Europe for the first time ever.

 

[Ted Danson]

However, if he has the nous and footballing maturity to outfox his opponents and have ten goals by now (which, given £23m you'd expect) do you think Wilder would change? He's still getting a 'goals bonus' and an appearance fee, plus sponsorship, commercial tie ins and other fringe benefits. Put it this way, even if we had Aguero playing for us at the moment, given the sloppybob served up by our midfield three pissketeers, even he'd struggle to second guess a run, a through ball or even get on the end of one of Norwood's devastating, arrow-like, driven crosses into the first defender.

pommpey

the goal bonuses and such are just performance related pay which is often done as a risk free way of paying people more as you cant afford to guarantee a big wage to start with unless certain things happen so I dont count these as wages. Its like getting a salesman in and because you cant offer a big basic wage you give them better commission so you only pay them if they've performed and in theory made you money. A good proven salesman would want a guaranteed basic wage much higher than the other one but would accept a smaller percentage of commission as they already have a larger portion guaranteed.

If we had Aguero in this team then yes, he wouldnt excel as well as he does at city but then youd just have one team member on big wages, if you increased the wages across the board then every player would be performing better ()or a better performer) and then youd get the best out of Aguero too.

It all comes down to if you pay peanuts you get monkeys and relatively speaking in the Prem we pay peanuts and I think thats fair enough as we simply dont have the money. To get into debt to the levels where we could buy a team of proven prem players would be a huge gamble and not guarantee success, look at Fulham the other year for instance. we could easily end up in a similar situation to when that knobhead Robson was in charge and financially fucked us for over a decade. As it stands we'll go down and be well prepared to come back up again financially

 

[Kop sufferer]

Very interesting and varied views on this thread, but if you take an average most who post on here probably link it down to wages. Pay top dollar and you get athleticism, skill and consistency, the down side is lack of loyalty and passion for the club and sometimes being a knobhead on social media etc, it all probably boils down to the owners choice of either wanting instant glory at any cost or being a responsible custodian of the club, as CW would put it.

 

[Silent Blade]

1984-5
1991-2 maybe
1996-7
1997-8
2008-9 maybe
2009-10
2010-11
2011-12 maybe
2014-15 maybe

Right, let me look at seasons 1991-92, 1996-97 and 1997-98 as they are the ones I remember the best out of your list.

This season up to game 24 (and after the summer signings) I would say that Wilder's first choice line up as he thought pre-season would be

Ramsdale, Baldock, Stevens, Basham, Egan, O'Connell, Berge, Norwood, Fleck, McGoldrick, McBurnie. Only Ramsdale, Basham, Norwood and McGoldrick didnt have injuries that sidelined them for a month at least (it looks like Egan will be out for a long time)

1991-92. Bassett always liked to have a big squad with options and he is a "horses for courses" type of manager when it comes to selecting the line ups. Wilder prefers a smaller squad and having the same players playing the same system for years.

Let's look at Bassett's preferred line up for the first 26 league games of the season (as we played 42 games that season so I have added two to the 24 games when comparing injuries for the 1991-92 and for this seasons). Not an easy task because it is complicated by the departures of Booker, Jones, Agana and Wood with Gayle and Gage coming in Sept, Oct and Nov

Tracey, Pemberton, Cowan, Gannon, Gayle, Beesley, Bryson, Hoyland, Agana, Deane, Whitehouse. Based on the highest number of appearances for the first 26 league matches, this was our "usual" line up. Only Tracey, Cowan, Hoyland and Deane had injuries/illness which sidelined them for at least a month. Who else? Am quite sure Gage was preferred to Pemberton soon after he signed (dont remember if Pembo was injured at the time?).

With 14 games to go this season we had more injuries than we had after 26 games in 1991-92.

Based on appearances for the first 28 league games of the 1996/97 season our "usual" line up was Kelly, Short, Sandford, Hutchison, Vonk, Holdsworth (signed in October), White, Patterson, Taylor, Walker, Whitehouse. Only Short, Vonk and Whitehouse had injuries that sidelined them for at least a month. Who else?

Based on appearances for the first 28 league games of the 1997/98 season our "usual" line up was Tracey, Borbokis, Quinn, McGrath, Tiler (left us in November), Holdsworth, Patterson (left us in December), Marker, Fjortoft, Deane, Whitehouse. Tracey was dropped for Kelly in December, McGrath and Whitehouse had career ending injuries (so we can count them two) so there was only Borbokis who was injured for more than a month to make it three.

I have a feeling that you have been just looking at the number of players we had used during the seasons in your list and used guesswork in thinking we had more injuries in these seasons than this season (remember we have 14 league games left and we probably will have further injuries). I have done the hard work on researching for injuries during the 1991-92, 1996-97 and 1997-98 seasons and I am confident that the injury list this season has been worse so I am not going to do the research on the other seasons you have listed. You do it if you want to prove me wrong!

In the 1996-97 and 1997-98 seasons we had more spending power than most of the clubs in the same division. We cannot say the same about this season and I wonder how many clubs in the PL have relegation clauses in the players' contracts (which is why it is harder for Wilder to bring in the players he wanted)

 

[true99blade]

Not sure how anyone could disagree that we haven’t been very unlucky regarding a few factors this season, more unlucky than most if not all teams in the league.
Regardless, we should be doing better than 11 points and losing 19 from 24 games. Can’t hide behind excuses really, but everyone at the club is aware of that.

 

[ancientblade]

Not sure how anyone could disagree that we haven’t been very unlucky regarding a few factors this season, more unlucky than most if not all teams in the league.
Regardless, we should be doing better than 11 points and losing 19 from 24 games. Can’t hide behind excuses really, but everyone at the club is aware of that.heres

might help if we could put the ball in the net

 

[Silent Blade]

So was last season our luckiest season ever?

I wouldnt disagree with this, we took the PL by surprise last season and we were lucky that we didnt have too many injuries. Since I started supporting the Blades, finishing 6th in 1974-75 was the highest we had finished and it surprised me a lot too because we had sold a key player in Geoff Salmons and Ken Furphy broght in "third division" players.

 

[Begley]

You have misunderstood the wages issue. It isn't that the club couldn't have afforded the wages, it was that the club wanted to stick within its wage structure. Wilder didn't want to bring in two or three players earning money that was not compatible with wages paid to current players and the club couldn't afford to up everyone's wages significantly in one go. Another thing that rarely gets mentioned is whether clubs add high wage reduction clauses for relegation, which I assume we do.
You can argue the rights and wrongs of this, especially in hindsight. We have one player refusing to sign his new contract offer (and not even one of our best or key players) and Wilder obviously wanted to avoid the risk of pissing off his squad of loyal, hard working and successful players with high earning additions.

Yeah, I agree with the knock-on effect to other players wages and it is a challenge. But his is the same for a lot of clubs, not just Sheffield United. If / when Man Utd / Chelsea give a player 300k a week does that mean the players earning 150k will want a pay rise to keep in tune with the 300k. I read recently that DeBruyne was pissed off with the new contract City offered him. I have no idea what the numbers are but it must have been north of a quarter of a million week. I think clubs need to manage this.

Specifically re the Blades. If, as u say it was not about affordability and it was about wage structure then I think the club needs to assess what it is trying to achieve. If a club wants to play in the PL and earn PL money each year then they have to pay PL wages. There is no way a club can survive by paying significantly below what other clubs are playing for similar players. This will cause just as much if not more issues than starting to introduce new higher wages for existing players.

My overall opinion is that if a club wants to play in the PL and collect the 150m a year they need to accept that the 150m cannot all be invested into upcoming talent and managed with a low-cost structure. A decent % of the 150m must be paid out in ridiculously high wages. But earning 150m for playing 38 games of football is ridiculous too. It appears to me that Sheffield United wanted to collect the 150m but did not want the costs associated with ongoing retention of the 150m a year. To me, this was the wrong decision IF Sheffield United wanted to stay in the PL. If the objective was to collect the 150m and return to the Championship then that's not a problem and could be a good strategy but spending over 100m on players doesn't match with that. Norwich got it right by spending fcuk all and collecting their money and Newcastle get it more or less right by paying 'enough' ridiculous wages to maintain their PL status.

I really can't see that CW was the decision-maker on this strategy. CW is a football man from the old school and I think that is why so many neutrals and other fans admire and respect the man. He has done remarkably well at SU but I am guessing from a footballing perspective he doesn't really give a fcuk how much players earn, he just wants the right player for each position. To me someone very senior at Sheff Utd made a very bad call, it may have been through inexperience but definitely and in attempt to take a low risk approach to transfers and salaries they actually took a huge risk to the footballing side of the club. I see a lot of fans defending CW, which btw I think is the right thing to do as the current situation is not his fault. He can only play with the cards he is dealt. However, I do think he really felt the pressure and this pushed him into some poor decision making with regard to tactics and player selection. I am sure he will learn from this and will no doubt bounce back stronger and better but the problems at senior management level in SU must be addressed imo or CW will eventually become the fall-guy.

 

[ChrisBlade]

Nor is being in a position where one goal is the difference between staying up and going down.

In an isolated universe, no. But as a club, you come where you come from. Of course, we had tons of opportunities to get out or win points that would have made Wigan academic. But back then, we were almost without a shadow of a doubt expected by everybody to finish bottom. Odds were stacked against us before the season kicked off.

To hit the post in the last match in that manner was unlucky. To go down on 38 points was also unlucky, if (i) those points are enough in 9 out of 10 seasons and (ii) you drop in during the last match in which several tiny things went the way of Wigan on a knife edge.

Your emotionally somewhat distant and detached view of football that everything is down to skill or your own fault strikes me as a bit simplistic. A team that hits the bar 4 in a match surely is more unfortunate than one that hasn't ventured into the opposition's half? It is over-simplistic to say both should have upped their attacking game and as they both remained scoreless, they were not good enough and should not bemoan bad fortune?

As I said, luck is only a contributing factor, not an explanation. We were unlucky in my world is never an excuse or a cop-out, either, but simply an acknowledgment that sometimes not being good enough to get what you want might hurt more or less (depending on your own mentality) because on top of it all, minute intangibles did not turn out for you.

Yes, if you keep missing penalties like we did in 2006/2007, you have to question skill and mentality. But you will not convince me that, on a common sense level, the Warnock relegation - accepting that all relegated sides by definition will be among the worst in their division, of course - had a number of contributory factors that go beyond "our fault" or "not good enough".

Man U had a glorious side under Fergie. But they were damn lucky to win the Champions League against Bayern in Fergie time. You had to be there and score, they stayed brave, yadda, yadda, yadda. They were a super team. But heavens also favored them.

How about the non-goal at West Ham? A blatant shit call - unlucky? Or still all down to our lack of skill? Tevez? Unlucky or not? When does it tot up to more than "should have done better ourselves"? If it ever does?

I am opposite to Hamburg. Football is a game of 90% of skill. The players control their physique, skill set or mentality. They do not control things like bobbles or bounces, or the finger's width that makes them score or miss. They force percentages. Better players have better outcomes and play for better teams. But individual moments and the statistical outliers when things that usually are rare suddenly happen several times, feature in the 10% that are beyond control. A part of those 10% is luck or rub of the green.

I have always wondered whether Webber was haunted by that. Because what do you tell yourself that evening? He rolled many years of training into one moment and came out with what would have been the goal of the season in the entire Prem if that goes in. Extreme pressure, time to think, full knowledge that this is likely to be pivotal. And he gets it admirably right, but misses by a finger's width. If I was him, to deny luck played a part in that and to say "well, not good enough, needed to do better, the grass was wet" would give me suicidal tendencies. But maybe I am just a shifty fuck who weazels out of full accountability? And no, I am not Danny Webber, either.

 

[robbiez666]

Call me Nostradamus, but here's a thread from summer where I was ridiculed for predicting this using my basic grasp of sports science and understanding of how poor our squad depth was.

https://www.s24su.com/forum/index.php?threads/injuries.80073/

We have been unlucky with injuries, but so have a lot of teams. Our lack of squad depth means it's a much bigger problem for us.

THE LACK OF JACK RODWELL HAS COST US DEARLY

 

[Hamburg Blade]

Yeah, I agree with the knock-on effect to other players wages and it is a challenge. But his is the same for a lot of clubs, not just Sheffield United. If / when Man Utd / Chelsea give a player 300k a week does that mean the players earning 150k will want a pay rise to keep in tune with the 300k. I read recently that DeBruyne was pissed off with the new contract City offered him. I have no idea what the numbers are but it must have been north of a quarter of a million week. I think clubs need to manage this.

Specifically re the Blades. If, as u say it was not about affordability and it was about wage structure then I think the club needs to assess what it is trying to achieve. If a club wants to play in the PL and earn PL money each year then they have to pay PL wages. There is no way a club can survive by paying significantly below what other clubs are playing for similar players. This will cause just as much if not more issues than starting to introduce new higher wages for existing players.

My overall opinion is that if a club wants to play in the PL and collect the 150m a year they need to accept that the 150m cannot all be invested into upcoming talent and managed with a low-cost structure. A decent % of the 150m must be paid out in ridiculously high wages. But earning 150m for playing 38 games of football is ridiculous too. It appears to me that Sheffield United wanted to collect the 150m but did not want the costs associated with ongoing retention of the 150m a year. To me, this was the wrong decision IF Sheffield United wanted to stay in the PL. If the objective was to collect the 150m and return to the Championship then that's not a problem and could be a good strategy but spending over 100m on players doesn't match with that. Norwich got it right by spending fcuk all and collecting their money and Newcastle get it more or less right by paying 'enough' ridiculous wages to maintain their PL status.

I really can't see that CW was the decision-maker on this strategy. CW is a football man from the old school and I think that is why so many neutrals and other fans admire and respect the man. He has done remarkably well at SU but I am guessing from a footballing perspective he doesn't really give a fcuk how much players earn, he just wants the right player for each position. To me someone very senior at Sheff Utd made a very bad call, it may have been through inexperience but definitely and in attempt to take a low risk approach to transfers and salaries they actually took a huge risk to the footballing side of the club. I see a lot of fans defending CW, which btw I think is the right thing to do as the current situation is not his fault. He can only play with the cards he is dealt. However, I do think he really felt the pressure and this pushed him into some poor decision making with regard to tactics and player selection. I am sure he will learn from this and will no doubt bounce back stronger and better but the problems at senior management level in SU must be addressed imo or CW will eventually become the fall-guy.

Again you're making assumptions based on less than all the facts. We don't have a rich owner to make up any difference between money coming in and spend on transfer fees and wages. Comparisons to Man Utd and Chelsea are meaningless. We began our PL adventure with our two owners fighting in court over who owned what. The uphot was a ruling which meant the current owner had to buy his partner out, despite not having the money to do so. He's bought it using PL money - or a loan secured against it. Which is ok because it reunites the ground with the club, but does mean that the big picture is a club that has an owner who has used up PL money, not one who is adding his own on top.
So the purse strings are relatively tight, with an eye on the drop and a determination not to land the club in a pile of debt if that happens. Considering that, the amount made available to Wilder surprised us all. Nevertheless the money available from two seasons in the PL, after all current costs have been met, is not substantial enough to compete with clubs that have backers without throwing caution to the wind. Even if the decision had been made to do just that, signing players on high wages guaranteed against relegation, or with generous release clauses, the best the money available could have given us would have been a couple of expensive players.
In hindsight, that could've been exactly what we needed, but everything is right in hindsight when what actually happened went wrong. The players we brought in could easily have worked out and everyone would have been saying how wiley our Chris is - alternatively we could have brought a couple of highly paid players in, almost bankrupted the club and they could have been just as bad - and then left at the end of the season at a loss.
If the likes of Man Utd spend a fortune on a duff player, they shrug and buy another one. We can't be so cavalier.
It's alright saying you have to pay PL wages to survive in the PL, but you can't go from a non-PL squad to a PL squad in a couple of transfer windows. We went from a League 1/Championship team to playing in the PL way before we expected to and you can't just buy your way out of it instantaneously. Our options were limited and were made more limited by a decision (which I believe was by Wilder) to work within the existing wage structure. It may not have worked, or it may have had very little to do with the drop off in form of some of our key players or the problems we've had with injuries and squad depth, which isn't resolved by two or three expensive additions.
Wilder will not become the fall guy for a situation where lack of funds creates problems, because the owner already knows he has a manager who understands the constraints of the club. Nor is this "problems at senior management", it is simply that there isn't enough money to do what a lot of people would like to see. We can't even afford take out a couple of pillars on our kop despite plans for doing it being around for over a decade. That's the way it is.

 

[MalmoBlade]

Summed up perfectly.

But Fulham? £100m and were relegated, back up and might be relegated again (although I think they could catch Geordies and we'll play the barcodes next season)

 

[United Aren't Back.]

We have been incredibly unlucky with injuries this season. A fully fit team with the fans back next season could make a big difference.

I disagree. That chance obviously was a key moment. The margin is minimal. Clean through, I remember thinking “don’t blast it.”

Considering the huge occasion and pressure, it was a very considered, courageous and classy finish. He dinked it over the guy, but then it skidded and spun on a very wet pitch. Both the initial trajectory to goal and the bounce off the post ran oddly due to the skidding surface.

Overall, he chose a decent option and performed it well. If it goes in or not involves fortune. Not all about luck, but luck plays a part. There is not always a black and white dichotomy between skill and failure. Luck greases the edges between the two.

Other example: many years back we won 4-0 at Stoke. It was 3-0 after nine minutes, three goals from corners. Now you might call that well done and no luck. I would feel to have it bunch up that way up and in excess of any statistical likelihood meant we could feel fortunate that day. Still deserved and never mono-causal, but also not correct to discount luck or rate every close miss as not good enough rather than factor in a margin of circumstance, likelihood and fortune.

Different question on a similar philosophy level: is it possible to score too early in a match?

Micky Vonk 2
Super Gareth 2.
I think 1996.

 

[JJBlade]

I don't agree JJ. I get what you're saying in the wider sense but the "greasy chip butty and woodbines mentality" is what makes us what we are, it's part of our identity, it's part of our anthem and therefore part of our tradition.

To chuck all that aside just to try to win a trophy or two where do you stop along a direct path that suggests merging with the Pigs to form a new powerhouse city club in a shiny new soulless hovel out at Orgreave?

Yes, that's a big stretch and a massive overreaction and I know you weren't going there, but if you lose the traditions, the heart and soul of a club just to chase the money to chase the success and the next thing you know the clear and obvious commercial decisions will eventually start to make sense, regardless. The next Newcastle? The next Leeds? Nah bollocks to that, hand me a chip butty and let me sing my song. It's not about achievement, it's about dreams of achievement.

Final point, in the grand scheme of things, even though I loved the guy and was in the ground for the WHU game back in '73, we still achieved fuck all even with Currie. We haven't "achieved" anything in almost 100 years if by achievement we're talking about Top flight League titles and Cup wins.

Real "achievement" is retained for the super rich in this game. The rest of us are in the final round of Takeshi's Castle. We know we're on a hiding to nothing but we still hope right until the death.

Now, pass the salt and vinegar . "You Fill Up My...............................

It doesn't mean you have to sell your soul by changing your image and moving with the times.

Everything either evolves or dies.

We were at deaths door, but miraculously got revived, but the same lifestyle has got us back on the critical list again.

 

[Silent Blade]

You're a bit of a mardy arse these days, aren't you Silent? Years gone by you were a reliable, knowledgeable, amicable mainstay on these here sites. Yet now you're as disagreeable and downbeat as you can get.

And as for 'defacing' OPs, I give you that pointless Rees-Mogg missive you stuck in the middle of my last 'My take ...' which clearly nobody got. What the fuck do you want out of a write up? Morris dancing and fireworks? We're fucking relegated, and we got beat, and our team is in the shithouse.

What the fuck happened to you?

We're all feeling it. We're all petty wrung out what with COVID19 and now our footy club collapsing. But fuck me, don't lose it completely, huh?

Lighten up, you miserable shit. We're all Blades, aren't we?

pommpey

 

[pommpey]

View attachment 105813

Took your time. Like the Rees Mogg stupidity, it would help if you contextualised your comebacks.

As said before, don't know what's happened to you from years gone by. Lockdown? SUFC failure?

Shame. For you, that is.

pommpey

 

[Silent Blade]

Took your time. Like the Rees Mogg stupidity, it would help if you contextualised your comebacks.

As said before, don't know what's happened to you from years gone by. Lockdown? SUFC failure?

Shame. For you, that is.

pommpey

 

[pommpey]

View attachment 105814

Great one.

pommpey

 

[YES Blade]

For what it's worth, what I've learnt this season is the PL, especially the top 10/12 is a hard nut to crack, it can only be achieved with a billionaire, not a peashooter. Where do we go from here? I wish I knew !!

That’s one of the reasons I’m struggling to enjoy football these days, it’s basically come down to who has the richest owner.

Other than the odd blip it’s the same clubs winning the trophies every season, which is just getting boring. Fans can’t even dream of success unless they get bought out by a billionaire.

I know it’s always been that way to a certain extent but the competitiveness of English football is getting more and more like Scottish football unfortunately.

 

[MalmoBlade]

It doesn't mean you have to sell your soul by changing your image and moving with the times.

Everything either evolves or dies.

We were at deaths door, but miraculously got revived, but the same lifestyle has got us back on the critical list again.

OK got it, so we can still have a greasy chip butty, but maybe on a seeded wholewheat Ciabatta

 

[JJBlade]

OK got it, so we can still have a greasy chip butty, but maybe on a seeded wholewheat Ciabatta

I think the seeded wholewheat ciabatta might be a bit too creative, stylish and have to much foreign flair for our fans.

Nothing like the plain, ordinary giant white breadcake that is functional, versatile and a lot of chips can be hoofed into

 

[Stretch]

2011/12 still takes the biscuit for me. Losing our top scorer in such freakish circumstances, when so close to getting over the line, thereby letting those scrubbers pip us to the post. Then losing the play off final on penalties, despite getting all the way to the fucking keepers taking them..... it still blows my mind in terms of the level of misfortune.

It was like spending all night smooching an absolute stunner on the dance floor, and succeeding in winning her charms, much to the annoyance of that cocky nobhead from school who had tried and failed earlier in the evening.
You are then on your way out of the club with her, convinced you will end the evening in orgasmic triumph, before you inexplicably and unexpectedly throw up in front of her. You apologise profusely and it's now 50/50 on whether you can seal the deal, so you quickly rush back in to clean yourself up in the bogs, before racing back out only to see her getting into a taxi with the same cocky nobhead.

Deflated, you slouch off for a dodgy kebab, and settle for a disappointing knuckle shuffle back at the house, watching replays of the Warnock promotion season.
You spend the next day with the mother of all hangovers and years later, the two of them are still together, and enjoy nothing more than driving past your gaff to rub it in.

 

[Bladesman]

It isn't bad luck us making silly mistakes, it isn't bad luck stopping us defending corners and it isn't bad luck us not finishing good chances.

 

[Begley]

Again you're making assumptions based on less than all the facts. We don't have a rich owner to make up any difference between money coming in and spend on transfer fees and wages. Comparisons to Man Utd and Chelsea are meaningless. We began our PL adventure with our two owners fighting in court over who owned what. The uphot was a ruling which meant the current owner had to buy his partner out, despite not having the money to do so. He's bought it using PL money - or a loan secured against it. Which is ok because it reunites the ground with the club, but does mean that the big picture is a club that has an owner who has used up PL money, not one who is adding his own on top.
So the purse strings are relatively tight, with an eye on the drop and a determination not to land the club in a pile of debt if that happens. Considering that, the amount made available to Wilder surprised us all. Nevertheless the money available from two seasons in the PL, after all current costs have been met, is not substantial enough to compete with clubs that have backers without throwing caution to the wind. Even if the decision had been made to do just that, signing players on high wages guaranteed against relegation, or with generous release clauses, the best the money available could have given us would have been a couple of expensive players.
In hindsight, that could've been exactly what we needed, but everything is right in hindsight when what actually happened went wrong. The players we brought in could easily have worked out and everyone would have been saying how wiley our Chris is - alternatively we could have brought a couple of highly paid players in, almost bankrupted the club and they could have been just as bad - and then left at the end of the season at a loss.
If the likes of Man Utd spend a fortune on a duff player, they shrug and buy another one. We can't be so cavalier.
It's alright saying you have to pay PL wages to survive in the PL, but you can't go from a non-PL squad to a PL squad in a couple of transfer windows. We went from a League 1/Championship team to playing in the PL way before we expected to and you can't just buy your way out of it instantaneously. Our options were limited and were made more limited by a decision (which I believe was by Wilder) to work within the existing wage structure. It may not have worked, or it may have had very little to do with the drop off in form of some of our key players or the problems we've had with injuries and squad depth, which isn't resolved by two or three expensive additions.
Wilder will not become the fall guy for a situation where lack of funds creates problems, because the owner already knows he has a manager who understands the constraints of the club. Nor is this "problems at senior management", it is simply that there isn't enough money to do what a lot of people would like to see. We can't even afford take out a couple of pillars on our kop despite plans for doing it being around for over a decade. That's the way it is.

I think you are making a few too many assumptions. Regardless of the ownership wrangles, the fact is that SU spent in excess of 100m on players since promotion. On top of this spend is wages. SU made a decision on how to spend the money that was made available. Purchasing players with little or no PL experience and or young players with potential was due to the SU decision making on how the money was spent and was not anything to do with affordability. The money was there to buy experienced players and pay PL wages but SU did not want to take this route. Yes, there are lots of sensible reasons for electing to follow this strategy but they tend to be for the mid to longer term. They do not address the immediate needs. Not addressing the immediate needs is a very significant factor contributing to why SU is in 20th position.

 

[bladesince64]

2011/12 still takes the biscuit for me. Losing our top scorer in such freakish circumstances, when so close to getting over the line, thereby letting those scrubbers pip us to the post. Then losing the play off final on penalties, despite getting all the way to the fucking keepers taking them..... it still blows my mind in terms of the level of misfortune.

It was like spending all night smooching an absolute stunner on the dance floor, and succeeding in winning her charms, much to the annoyance of that cocky nobhead from school who had tried and failed earlier in the evening.
You are then on your way out of the club with her, convinced you will end the evening in orgasmic triumph, before you inexplicably and unexpectedly throw up in front of her. You apologise profusely and it's now 50/50 on whether you can seal the deal, so you quickly rush back in to clean yourself up in the bogs, before racing back out only to see her getting into a taxi with the same cocky nobhead.

Deflated, you slouch off for a dodgy kebab, and settle for a disappointing knuckle shuffle back at the house, watching replays of the Warnock promotion season.
You spend the next day with the mother of all hangovers and years later, the two of them are still together, and enjoy nothing more than driving past your gaff to rub it in.

Look you need to move from this, we did have a great time but she always talked about you so we're getting divorced.
Okay, happy now!

 

[Davalon]

If we're to stand a chance next season of bouncing back, then there needs to be honest appraisals of the players' performances, the coaching, the team selections and tactics, the recruitment, and the fitness/physiotherapist side.

Hiding behind the JOC injury and a few other short term absences won't be a big excuse when the management and board meet at the end of the season imho. So not sure why fans would do this either.

It's obvious a club in our position will hugely miss one or two key players but there's much more to it than that.

The avoidable errors that have cost us hugely this season have been down to far more than injuries.

We've given away soft goals in almost every game and missed at least one very good chance in many. Just three or four of those not happening would see us looking a good bet to avoid relegation.

Failing to address the pitiful defending from corners and crosses is down to far more than JOC missing. He cost us in the first game stopping Enda jumping.

Constantly getting caught in possession or giving the ball away in dangerous areas has been done regularly by our first choice players.

17th would have been success this season to most of us even before the season started. Although we can only finish 3 places worse than that, the amount of points away from that we are is down to far more than injuries.

There has been much unfair criticism on here over the season but I also hope that the club don't have the same opinion as a few of those at the other end of the spectrum otherwise the real issues won't be addressed.

We've got to make the most of the opportunity next season.

 

[SteveBlade]

Just found this from a Google search that took a few seconds. It's from December and It shows we were 9th at the time in clubs with the players who have missed the most games due to injury.

Ranking PL clubs by the no. of games missed by injured players in 20-21 - Planet Football

The extra-condensed nature of this Premier League season means injuries are a hot topic in the media, especially when it comes to Liverpool and Manchester United. But do the stats fit with the narrative - is it the biggest clubs that play in Europe that have been the worst affected?

www.planetfootball.com

We can't blame injuries and haven't been particularly unlucky. We've got what we fucking deserve.

 

[cc1]

Great one.

pommpey

How many people have had issues with silent blade since hes been on the forum? How many have had petty arguments and felt the need to call him a miserable shit?

I'm not an s24 pro like you but you have to ask yourself what it is about your online persona, presuming it's just that, only an online thing, people find consistently provocative. It's too ott, reign it in ffs!!

Only my two penneth obviously, will leave you to battle it out with all and sundry as you deem necessary