RS Jonny says...

[Darthblade]

Amen to that. After 6 seasons in the third tier, being back in the championship is great - it's our natural home. Those who worry about where we'll finish next season would be shitting it if we ever got to the PL.

It may sound bizarre but I do not yearn for the Premiership at all ......

It is dominated by the same few clubs, referees give them all the decisions because they're pally with the top players and the football isn't as exciting as the Championship.

They have more highly paid mercenaries from abroad than in the Championship; who's skills in diving, cheating, biting, feigning injury and pretending to have been fouled are world class !!

I would actually be happier at the top end of the championship, playing exciting enjoyable football and hopefully beating the arrogant, deluded pig scum and dirty l**ds scum regularly ...... maybe I'm just getting old

UTB & FTP

 

[I should coco]

2017-2018 Consolidation
2018-2019 Play off push
2019-2020 Autos to the prem

Nah!

2017-18 Surprise runaway winners
2018-19 Even more surprise EPL winners
2019-20 First time Chumpions League winners making history and pissing off Ronaldo in the process.

With dem football gods behind us, anything is possible.....

 

[grafikhaus]

It may sound bizarre but I do not yearn for the Premiership at all ......

It is dominated by the same few clubs, referees give them all the decisions because they're pally with the top players and the football isn't as exciting as the Championship.

They have more highly paid mercenaries from abroad than in the Championship; who's skills in diving, cheating, biting, feigning injury and pretending to have been fouled are world class !!

I would actually be happier at the top end of the championship, playing exciting enjoyable football and hopefully beating the arrogant, deluded pig scum and dirty l**ds scum regularly ...... maybe I'm just getting old

UTB & FTP

Dunno if it's 'getting old' Darth but I totally agree. The PL is totally corrupt and a good third of the teams are just treading water until the inevitable trapdoor opens. Ask any Newcastle fan which he prefers, last season and getting beaten all the time or this season and playing without fear in every game. Same for Sunderland. Would a home game against Watford, West Brom, Palace, Stoke etc. thrill the blood? Me neither.
When I say the Championship is our natural home, it's not showing a lack of ambition. It's like applying for a job that we know is out of our skillset. Will we 'boss' it, or spend all the time worrying about being out of our depth?
I simply can't see us being shown up next season - Wilder & Knill are far too good at their jobs for that.
In the meantime, enjoy a fantastic period in our history, look forward to next years' fixtures showing Wolves instead of Wycombe. Sunderland instead of Stevenage, 26,000 average crowds and enjoy. God knows we've had enough pain over the last 6 seasons.

 

[Pinchy]

If you don't aim for the top in sport, you might as well pack it in.

Of course we want to get to the Premiership, deeply flawed as it is. We have far greater potential than many clubs presently there. The suggestion that the Championship is our "natural home" is an acceptance of second best. It has BIC written all over it.

 

[1danewhitehouse]

If you don't aim for the top in sport, you might as well pack it in.

Of course we want to get to the Premiership, deeply flawed as it is. We have far greater potential than many clubs presently there. The suggestion that the Championship is our "natural home" is an acceptance of second best. It has BIC written all over it.

Could not agree more.


Does anyone think Leicester fans wish they’d stayed in the championship? That it’s their natural home?

I want us to win every time we step on the pitch. I want us to finish as high as we can. That means getting promoted to the top flight and finishing as high as possible in it.


All that said, I’m realistic and know it’s unlikely to happen overnight. I’ll take gradual improvement. This season, I think we’ve probably been better than the bottom few championship teams. If we can finish outside of the bottom 6 or 7 places in our first season back I think Wilder will have done a good job. That said, I hope we can do more than that. But mostly, I just want to see us improve each year. If we finish somewhere like 16th next season then fine, so long as we finish higher than that the season after and so on.

I accept the Premier League is massively flawed but to avoid it is to avoid success and I could never wish for that.

 

[Cerberus Blade]

Big jump or not, I think the kind of team spirit, determination, fitness and never say die attitude that we have seen throughout this season, will see us have a similar impact in the Championship.

They are all undervalued qualities, very rarely seen in modern footballers and managers alike, but their affect on a teams performance is hugely underestimated.

Play offs, at least

Agree 100%. If you look at teams who've gone straight through it's all about that. Having some talented footballers in the squad (not necessarily big names and expensive - and certainly not has beens at the end of their career) and a good man manager.

 

[Cerberus Blade]

We've got to be realistic, mid table would be a great achievement. We concede far too many goals and although we're scoring for fun in this division, that isn't going to be the case in the Championship. I don't think we'll be in a relegation scrap but I don't think we can be looking at finishing at the top end of the table either.

It isn't as big a gap as is being made out though. Pig fans reckon the step up in quality is huge yet they say they've been shit this season but they're still in 6th.

And you know why they are saying this?

Because in their first 3 seasons back in the Championship they finished 18th, 16th and 13th and they are scared to death we'll do better than that - and they're right!

 

[TBW57]

Could not agree more.


Does anyone think Leicester fans wish they’d stayed in the championship? That it’s their natural home?

I want us to win every time we step on the pitch. I want us to finish as high as we can. That means getting promoted to the top flight and finishing as high as possible in it.


All that said, I’m realistic and know it’s unlikely to happen overnight. I’ll take gradual improvement. This season, I think we’ve probably been better than the bottom few championship teams. If we can finish outside of the bottom 6 or 7 places in our first season back I think Wilder will have done a good job. That said, I hope we can do more than that. But mostly, I just want to see us improve each year. If we finish somewhere like 16th next season then fine, so long as we finish higher than that the season after and so on.

I accept the Premier League is massively flawed but to avoid it is to avoid success and I could never wish for that.

That's so true.

I despise the Premier League but that doesn't mean I don't want us to fight to get into it next season. That sounds like hypocrisy, and maybe it is, but then again if the Blades get into it I'll not despise it any more, so it's OK really.

 

[Fulwood Blade]

It may sound bizarre but I do not yearn for the Premiership at all ......

It is dominated by the same few clubs, referees give them all the decisions because they're pally with the top players and the football isn't as exciting as the Championship.

They have more highly paid mercenaries from abroad than in the Championship; who's skills in diving, cheating, biting, feigning injury and pretending to have been fouled are world class !!

I would actually be happier at the top end of the championship, playing exciting enjoyable football and hopefully beating the arrogant, deluded pig scum and dirty l**ds scum regularly ...... maybe I'm just getting old

UTB & FTP

I understand everything you've written, and agree with some of it.

To settle "just" for top of the Championship would mean CW & AK would walk away. Perhaps the S6 way of trying to buy the way out may not be the only way - perhaps our management team have a better way?

Sorry, but in the end, to settle for 2nd best just isn't good enough.

UTB

 

[Smirth]

I agree with some of that but “a very young squad”? Really? I haven’t compared the stats but suspect the average age of our matchday squad compared to the rest of the division will be relatively high.


Basham, Coutts, Wright, Lafferty, Duffy, Sharp, Clarke, Hanson, Done, O’Shea etc. are not young players. Freeman, Moore, Fleck, Carruthers and Lavery could be considered “young-ish” then O’Connell, EEL (both 23 I think) and Chapman are the relative babies of the team with 2 being on loan. I would say if anything, overall, our squad is quite old with Wright, Sharp, Duffy & Clarke the wrong side of 30 going into next season and Hanson turning 30 in November and Basham, Coutts, Done, Brayford etc. not far behind


If the likes of Whiteman, Brooks, Reed etc. get more involved with the first team squad it would bring the average age down but having got rid of the likes of DCL, Adams & Ramsdale, the average age will have gone up this season.

I'd still call it a young squad. Only 3 of our first choice team this season are 30 or over, and going in to the championship it is very probably that at least 2 of them will be replaced.

Then the likes of Freeman, O'Connell, Fleck, Carruthers, Lavery, Moore are at ages where they are still a couple of years away from their peak.

 

[BushBlade]

I understand everything you've written, and agree with some of it.

To settle "just" for top of the Championship would mean CW & AK would walk away. Perhaps the S6 way of trying to buy the way out may not be the only way - perhaps our management team have a better way?

Sorry, but in the end, to settle for 2nd best just isn't good enough.

UTB

Ideally we'd be a bit like Burnley. Go up, take the money, rebuild the kop, go down, use the parachute payments to go up again with the same manager. If it took CW three/four years to get us up and then another three or four going between the championship and PL, he'll have done the best part of ten years with us and we'll have had some promotions. We'll have benefitted from the PL money without spending several seasons being whipping boys for the big clubs. Beyond that, who knows.

 

[Blend-it-like-Harris]

It would be interesting to know if those Blades fans who were still whittling about whether we'd be promoted when we were on 82 points (those who thought Fleetwood would easily reach that target) are the same ones who think we might be struggling in the Championship. We'll be at the right end of the league come this time next season. TC agrees...........

 

[metty]

The last time so called experts were forecasting the Blades to struggle after winning promotion, we ended up tearing the old second division a new arsehole which culminated in the party that was Leicester.

 

[super_pig]

Agree 100%. If you look at teams who've gone straight through it's all about that. Having some talented footballers in the squad (not necessarily big names and expensive - and certainly not has beens at the end of their career) and a good man manager.

thing is unlike many teams we have played our way out of the division .. not hoofed our way out. we don't have to change anything apart from perhaps a couple of personnel.. if we'd hoofed it out i might agree with him but i actually think some of our players will be 'more' at home in the champ. than they are in league one

 

[blade67]

As stated in the op, how we do next year is really dependent on how Wilder does in signing the 6-8 players he'll need to sign this summer.

I reckon 6-8 of our first team will conformably make the transition as 1st team players. Another 5-6 will be decent squad players and he'll need to do well with signings.

 

[1danewhitehouse]

I'd still call it a young squad. Only 3 of our first choice team this season are 30 or over, and going in to the championship it is very probably that at least 2 of them will be replaced.

Then the likes of Freeman, O'Connell, Fleck, Carruthers, Lavery, Moore are at ages where they are still a couple of years away from their peak.

http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/league-one/startseite/wettbewerb/GB3

According to this it's the 6th oldest in league 1 this year.