The Championship

The Championship is a financial car crash with a business model that should not be tolerated. Clubs that are in fact bankrupt do not fold like other businesses they have points deducted instead. If you don't join in with this madness you get relegated.
There is no doubt that our club have been ruined by terrible decision making by just about anybody in the club who can make a decision, but the fact is that the Championship is a crazy place to be. You have to maintain a squad that is on the verge of premiership in order to survive and unless you are run by a benefactor who doesn't care how much it costs because they have money to burn (or launder) as everyone vies for the big prize even if they can only sustain it for a single season. The rest of the league then have to compete with your parachute money while you go again.
This isn't a business model it's insanity and good riddance to it.

 

I dunno I mean Coventry, Blackpool, Millwall, Luton, Huddersfield all seem to be doing just fine. We were last season. This season is almost entirely down to our owners.

 

All the above have had to re-build "from the ground up" with Owners who care about their Clubs, not just their pockets. Blackpool, for example have flourished since the departure of the Oyston's (and we all know what devious ****s they were!). Hopefully, there is someone out their with similar feelings about our Club who can rescue us from the sorry mess we now find ourselves in.

 

The owners took over with 5million cash in the bank and have spuked it all with the scatter gun approach now we have 3.6 million of debt a squad who with imo very few championship quality players in, and we have just been relegated. Were a car crash waiting to happen.

Clubs like luton blackpool etc owners and managers have a plan... ours havent a clue.

 

Clubs like that are just one bad managerial appointment or poor recruitment away from relegation. It's just the way it is for smaller clubs in any division surely?

 

Luton got promoted with us, millwall have been in the division longer than us. Look at accrington fleetwood etc in the league below competing with much bigger teams. And then you have bradford in league 2 pulling 17k a week oldham and scunthorpe set to be non league next season due to been poorly run.

 

Which all backs up wf3reds point. 1 bad appointment away from success or failure.
Difference with us. is we chose an head coach rather than a manager. Who has to pick players in transfer activity. from a select few that the spreadsheet (data driven) recommends.

 

I dont think any data was used in that summer just gone. Which data analysts would suggest signing a player who had played less games than andy carroll on the past 4 seasons and was always injured? Or a player from burnleys u23s do they even play in a competitive league?

And the league two teams i used as examples arent there because they had one bad manager years of been poorly run oldham took over 1k away to port vale other week 2nd bottom of league 2. Teams like wigan, fleetwood, accrington in league one could only dream of support like that.

 

Data was used. They may have altered the criteria of Cole as a panic buy. As they have on other occasions eg solbaur.

 

Strong rumours and common sense point to conway been sold olaure and iseka by agents. We will never know as he is avoinding a interview.
Why was cole a panic buy? He was brought in while val was still here with the majority of the window left.
I dont have a problem with using data over the years its been responsible for some cracking signings pinnock,lindsay,conor,scowen,roberts,winnall....
But those days seem a long time ago now we pay 700k for schmidt to then loan him out or olaure on 7k a week then loan him out.

I wasnt arguing against the smaller clubs in the championship are a few bad managers away from relegation but our relegation goes abit deeper than the 2 terrible head coaches we appointed.

 

So that means last season was almost entirely down to our owners ?

 

We announced the signing of Cole on June 8th so very early and he was a free signing. He wasn't a panic signing.

https://www.barnsleyfc.co.uk/news/2...led,from Scottish Premiership side Motherwell.

 

They employed Val, so I'm happy to give them credit for that.

They then decided to build on that success by totally changing the style and failing to strengthen the areas left by Mowatt and Dike. They had a blueprint that got us to 2 games from the Premier League. They traded that in in the hope of more cash and we find ourselves all but relegated with 4 games to go.

 

I really don't buy into this notion that we can't compete at Championship level. If we'd only made moderately better decisions in the summer, I find it hard to believe we'd struggle to reach 45-50 points. If our players had been fully fit from the start, I'd hope we'd have had a better base fitness and not conceded so many late goals.

Nor will I jump on a bandwagon that we're doomed to the National league, or we're going to bounce right back at the first time of asking. There are way too many variables at the minute at every level of the club. Either could be true, but we just don't know what our CEO and owners are going to do and just what state we'll be in once they've made their decisions this summer and enacted them.

 

Agreed. It's a poor poor league this season and we are bottom. Caught a bit of Blackpool at Preston the other week - their starting 11 had Richard Keogh, Dougall and Gary Madine in it. And they are comfortable in lower mid table. Says a lot about the standard. Last summer was an absolute car crash.....

 

I saw some of the other championship games over the weekend and you can see why we're where we are. Just the difference in intent in the attacking third and the higher level of intensity.

 

They were all thinking the same about us last season. It doesn’t take long for it all to unravel as those clubs have seen in the past.

 

Wouldnt disagree. although I thought we created enough chances but boro threw everything in the way. Our defence are a shower. Very rarely do we concede good goals. Both on saturday were defensive errors. Wide open on the defensive right. For the first goal. Had several warnings prior. And the header was totally unmarked.

 

I'd agree with that.

I still think we've some decent players that are technically pretty decent but who often make poor decisions. And what bites us in the backside are failing to do the basics and I think that can also be seen in aspects of coaching and management of the club too.

Get the basics right before you look to the nice to haves.

 

I've never understood why Brittan Drifts towards the middle. Leaving oceans of space for the wide player to recieve the ball. And invariably get to the inside the area before anyone gets near him.