Come on folks If, or when, we are relegated, we are in a hugely stronger position than the last time this occurred. We have no massive debt, no high earning players to shackle things, and are, in my opinion, sensibly selling one or two assets to add to the coffers whilst we can. I can't disagree with the sale of Davies or wiseman. We are therefore equipped to deal with relegation and will not end up in a financial mess as per the last occasion. We are not in the same danger of losing the club altogether. I think some on here have short memories or are too young to remember the last ten years. You can bleat as much as you like about mismanagement at director level, but they do the best they can with what they've got, yes they've made errors but I don't doubt that they have the interests of the club at heart. Maybe you'd prefer the approach of John Dennis, who liked to spend a lot. Particularly on compensation for sacked managers. Yes ITV digital didn't help much but his approach got us to the brink of extinction, in a royal mess. Had the administration rules regarding points deduction been in place we'd have been relegated to what's now league two. As such we will be in a much stronger position to tackle league one - stronger than for example donny were this year, and they've done ok I note - and if we can keep our young players, probably except stones, keep the likes of Dawson, bobby, foster, dagnall (his work rate must bring more reward at a lower level) I can see us doing ok. Particularly with younger players, the dee dahs are having a decent season with a fair few kids. So if, as it seems likely, we do go down, I can see us doing ok. Not necessarily promotion favourites or anything, but not scraping survival with last minute winners against brentford either. (Isaiah Rankin, remember him!). And we aren't necessarily nailed on to go down anyway. We're just prepared if we do. Very sensible. And as for the managerial position - if SO'D doesn't want it then great. There'll be somebody else. Worth remembering that Keith didn't want it either. I'm not convinced he was the right man anyway - i did want o'driscoll to get it but in fairness if they wanted somebody with principles about playing tippy tappy football they could have kept Keith. Whoever gets it, redders, flicker, megson, even Carlton flaming palmer, gets to manage a club with a small budget, yes, but without the shackles and constraints that Parkin and hodges had ten years ago and that are being suffered at Portsmouth now. Our club will survive. We couldn't say that with any conviction a decade ago. Relegation will be a big blow and a tremendous shame but won't kill the club, or my support.
I think that they are preparing fo a real battle to stay up. I also think that this may have put SOD off. Short term and long term plans from his statement.
Cryne has sacked nearly as many managers as Dennis did. Don't kid yourself it will be easier on L1. Crowds will be as bad as Sat for a start.
Whilst the odds are against us staying up we could still do it. I've not given up hope yet, we have a chance with the right appointment .
Quite liked the Dennis years myself. Promotion to the Prem, a stadium built out of the rubble, play-offs at Wembley. Wouldn't swap his tenure for the world, even if it went all shitty at the end. Some of the best teams in the world containing some of the best players came to Oakwell and we stuffed 'em. 'kin brilliant.
Don't get me wrong, I was in the ora stand when clint put us two nil up against Bradford. (I was but a wee boy....) The premier league season was great after the shaky start. I don't remember stuffing all that many world class sides though! The cup run was brilliant yeah but we out shone that with a worse team and a shocking manager the other year under Davey. I was directly behind the goal when Richard wright made that save from hristov's header, a week or two after dancing a conga in front of the east stand during the procession against Birmingham at home. I actually think I laughed at them scoring. I enjoyed the good as much as anyone else. I'm sure there's plenty of Pompey fans enjoyed winning the cup and having the likes of Defoe crouch and Kanu in their team. But Dennis carried on the pipe dream, brought in spackman, allowed him to sign a procession of dross without clearing anyone out, the wages were astronomical for no net gain, by the time we got rid and paid him off - and I'll concede a point here - Dennis must have realised we were financially shot because he brought in Steve 'who?' Parkin. Who signed the likes of Gary jones. We clearly want to be a successful club in the championship, but the decision has been made to not spend unrealistic amounts chasing that goal. And we are better off for it, as no matter how much is spent, relegation is still a possibility either way. I prefer to know I'll still have a club to support and take my kids to see.
You don't remember us stuffing Man Utd or Tottenham with Klinsmann, Ginola and Sol Campbell in their team?
Was it? The team that relegation was confirmed after (home to Norwich) had Dave mulligan, mike Flynn, paul gibbs, gary jones, chris lumsdon and Kevin betsy in it. Not sure our current squad would have trouble seeing them off for a place in the team. I'd say Steele is a lot better than Andy Marriott (who was playing over miller), Richard naylor wasn't ours, gorre went on to have six decent months for us, then theres Christopher Morgan. Well yes I rated him back then. Bruce dyer was a quality centre forward, better than owt we have now. But whatever the argument, I'm not sure I see your point. If that team was better, it's not relevant, the point is we will be in much better a financial position to rebuild a team this time around. Look at the team that got us promoted under Ritchie. Assembled relatively cheaply after the off field issues were sorted and the finances were ok again. We don't need to wait four or five years to do that this time.
Yes I did mention the cup run! No need to exaggerate though. Although that said, we came up against some big hitters... Don't forget, palace had Lombardo and brolin in their team!
I don't think it's exaggerating to call Man Utd one of the best teams in the world. Nor would I say it is exaggerating to call Klinsmann, Ginola and Campbell some of the best players. And as we scored three goals against each team I think it's safe to say we stuffed them.
We stuffed spurs. Manure we won 3-2 with a goal that was three yards offside. We lost the league games to man utd 7-0 and 2-0 I think. But I'm hardly arguing against you, we beat some bloody good sides that season and what's more, from Christmas onwards we were a bloody good side in our own right. The way Wilson turned it round was magnificent. We won ten league games which is about as many as any relegated side has ever I would think. If we could have turned half a dozen of those 23 defeats into draws it could have been so different. And if the debacle at home to Liverpool hadn't happened, when we were on a run of wins too. Ah, memories. Sweet. Sour. Lovely but painful.
Fair enough - mine is that we are much less likely to do so on this occasion. We are in a sound financial state, much more so than most or all of league one, our wage bill with a minor fire sale is easily manageable. There's no reason to expect a struggle - but I accept that there is also no reason to expect a cake walk either.
