Time to accept that our level is no longer the Championship?

Throughout our history we've generally been a tier 2 club, no other club has played as many games at this level than us. But, times have changed, we don't have the necessary clout to draw in recognised players and we certainly don't have the finances.

Yes, there are always outliers: us last season, Luton this season for example but in the long term you know Luton will be back down in L1 soon enough.

To be honest, I'm ok with being in L1. We should be able to compete, might get the odd cup run and if we're semi successful we might well be able to mould some decent players and generate some cash.

In fact, spending a few seasons in L1 might work out in our favour as I think the championship is only a couple of years from either going bust or being forced into making some fundamental changes. We might be in a better position to capitalise on that if we can straighten ourselves out...

 

No. If we accept that we might as well all stop going and close the club.

 

No. I am proud of our record of having spent most seasons than any other club in the 2nd tier

 

I'm proud of it too. But it's not necessarily where we should be now. Constantly trying to punch above your weight can be amazing, but more often than not it's hard slog with nothing at the end to show for it apart from depleted bank balances and demoralised players and fans.

 

Why?

 

No. Luton came up with us and haven't struggled, Coventry have come up and show No sign of struggling despite the problems with where they play. We only needed a competent manager and an experienced midfielder and we too could be in the Championship next season.

 

At the end of the day, you end up where you end up.

There's no question that finance (even if creating indebtedness) gives scope to have a go at paying for a perceived better quality of players. But as we've seen at our club and others, paying fees for a player, and paying additional or elevated wages for a player don't always guarantee success.

The irony is that this season is off one of our most successful ones, while the division is arguably one of the weakest.

At some point indebtedness is going to bite a lot of championship clubs. I thought our long term strategy may have been one of rise from the ashes as everyone else fails. But that was on the notion that there was a strategy for the club.

 

We didn't struggle last season either Helen. But I agree with Vesp, if their budget remains like ours this season will be an outlier for them. You simply can't be regularly competitive in this league with a budget like ours, Luton's, Peterborough's.
Even before the football landscape changed in the 90s our average position in tier two was bottom third. Since those days there are half a dozen clubs previously at or below our level who have been pushed above us due to owners ploughing money in. Brentford, Bournemouth, Reading, Wigan, Blackburn, Fulham etc. That makes that average bottom third position even more precarious.
Unless we start to seriously discover talent and sell at a very high profit margin I'm afraid our natural position now is a yo yo club between the third and second tiers with the occasional good season in the second tier when the stars align.
It's a sad truth but the last twenty years have pretty much confirmed it as being the case.

 

It would be easier to accept if this season's debacle didn't feel self inflicted.

I doubt Luton will follow this season up by losing the CEO, Club secretary, Head coach, assistant coach, club captain, sports science team, analysts, head physio, coach driver, groundsman etc...

And even after all that, we decided not to bother with a proper pre-season, which has probably cost us at least the 8 points that we're adrift. Then we appointed a new coach that represented an attempt at completely shifting our playing style, which lost our identity. That cost us more points. Then when he went, we failed to recognise the level of firefighting required and brought Poya in. That has cost us, and continues to cost us points. That's before we even look at the player recruitment in the summer.

League 1 will be our place, and probably for a while. But it's nothing to do with finances, or attendances. Just bad decisions on top of bad decisions.

 

Everything we did last summer was avoidable. There’s no way we would be this bad if we capitalised on last season. But Conways dreadful running of show has set us back years.

 

Agree with all of that. We should never, ever have been relegated this season if it weren't for appalling mismanagement. That doesn't alter the reality of our general long term situation though. If we play by the rules and stick more or less to a sensible budget there will be very few seasons where we can compete.

 

If that's going to be the mindset then i'll look forward to the 'Time to accept that our level is no longer league one?' thread in a couple of years time.

 

I think this will set the club back to the Peter Doyle era. Not quite admin but not far off.

 

It's probably as bad a combination of level of rebuild required and finances available to fund it that we have had since admin.

 

The be thankful brigade will be out in force no doubt.

 

Because we shouldn't ever accept third division Football is where we should be. I didn't expect another promotion push, but hoped that last season would be the start of us at the very least being a boring mid table Championship side every season.

 

There are exceptions but in the main the biggest correlation to points gained is the payroll.

Unless the club can find a strategy that creates value beyond the usual finances available then the long term result will be a team mid table in division one.

The club is important to us but like the town we are an unfashionable provincial team with reasonable support but minimal commercial success.

 

Not sure if that was a reply to me but I'm just stating what is reality. I don't see us slipping to a regular fourth tier level unless circumstances change again.

 

What happens when we aren't fighting for promotion from League 1? From past experience the crowds just aren't there. There's no niche for League 1 football at Barnsley. We've a different mindset to Rotherham fans. I'm ashamed to say we aren't renowned for sticking by our team in huge numbers. It's Championship or couldn't give a monkey's for a lot.