Bigger achievement:Wilder getting us promotion or Wilder keeping us up?

[Johnnyblade]

Just listened to Bladespod podcast ,excellent by the way,really enjoyed it.
Towards the beginning they mentioned what would be the bigger achievement Wilder getting us promoted to the premiership or Wilder keeping us up in the Premiership?
For me it would be getting us promotion,it was never expected at all after finishing 11th the year before .
Having a small budget compared to the ex premiership teams with parachute money still coming in
I was hoping to make the playoffs in 5th or 6th at very best,never in a million years did I think we d get automatic promotion,a massive over achievement,amazing!!
The mostly clueless media have us nailed on for relegation ,out of 20 various predictions and super computers I think only the BBC have us avoiding relegation even after spending more than £40 million on the championships best talent.
I think the bottom half of the prem are all very beatable home and away and will be able to get points off teams from the top half especially at home.
My prediction is the Blades finishing 15th.
Would this be a bigger achievement than promotion?

 

[Sheffsteel]

I would also say in our circumstances gaining promotion is a bigger achievement than staying up.

The Championship has loads of big spending ambitious clubs that we had no right to compete with them.
Also we’re still fresh out of league 1, so it seemed at the time unrealistic to even dream about top 2.

 

[jono_t2000]

Agreed, getting promoted on a shoestring budget would be a better accomplishment than staying up in my personal opinion

 

[trevorhockey]

Staying up got to be to stay in biggest richest league in world massive achievement

 

[Whiston Blade]

To date his biggest achievement is taking us from L1 champions to the PL in three seasons. His next milestone would be if we survived for a second season in the PL.

 

[blade67]

Staying up will be a bigger achievement if he manages it.

 

[You Fill Up My Senses]

While keeping us up would be a great achievement from a financial perspective and in terms of beginning to establish our unfashionable little club in the big league, finishing 16th out of twenty with forty odd million spent on recruitment does not quite compare with getting from League One to the Premier League on the budget available up until now. After six years in the 'pub league' Wilders achievement in getting us where we are today is incredible.
If we are still there in another six years We can start comparing him to god.
I would be interested to see what people think if we narrowly survive relegation for three years on the trot, how soon will the complacency set in and fans start to get dissatisfied with struggling at the bottom of the league we were so delighted to get into in the first place, like the Geordies.

 

[Woodwardfan]

Getting 89 points in the Championship is harder than 40 points in the P.L surely.

 

[Sheffsteel]

Staying up will be a bigger achievement if he manages it.

It will be a bigger achievement taking into account what it means however

Hardly any Blades thought we’d gain promotion last season, although most did expect us to compete and get close to the play-offs.
However almost every Blade I’ve spoke to expects us to stay up, even pessimists would say we’re 50/50 to stay up.

 

[Proud Blade]

Bookies had us around 10/1 for promotion last year. This year we're about evens to stay up.
So promotion was obviously the far bigger achievement.

 

[hidesbehindapseudonym]

After those Nigel twats, promotion was sheer heaven.

 

[PokerBlade]

Part of what made last season such a huge accomplishment was how thoroughly unexpected it was even in our own camp. Added to that was the competition from Leeds and WBA that both at times looked set to finish above us and yet we went to both their grounds and not only held onto something but beat them. And this was achieved in spite of few signings for not much money.

A little over half of teams promoted to the Prem stay up for a season or more. So ignoring all other factors you'd say we're a coin flip to survive. Nobody would've have said we were close to a coin flip for promotion this time last year.

You can make a case to say that staying up would mean far more to the club's long term prospects than just getting up for a season would, but in terms of achievement last season beat much longer odds for me.