As long as they continue to be able to take a points deduction and simply not pay their bills when the tide goes out it will keep happening.
I wouldn't say we can't compete, more that we're much more reliant on shrewd recruitment than other clubs. In that 11 year time frame, we only spent 3 seasons out of the championship. On one occasion we had a team pushing for the play offs, and in the final year on that chart, when operating losses were at their worst, we actually made the play-offs. It's doable, but it needs the right backing from the ownership, the right people at board level, the right people running the club day to day, the right coaches, the right recruitment model, the right players, and support from the fans. We're missing a few of those things at the minute.
I get you but essentially you’re describing the perfect storm that is required for us to compete. Whilst not impossible, of course it is difficult. I think it’s important that people are aware of figures like this when making judgements on the club and where it stands financially though compared to other similar sized clubs like Preston/Milwall.
It's incredibly difficult, but we did come close to getting promoted the season before last. We were very competitive at this level. We didn't sustain it because of a series of poor decisions. In my opinion, we didn't need to spend a fortune last season to remain competitive, we needed a bit of stability in terms of backroom staff, and slightly less naive player recruitment. The money we wasted on Oulare and Iseka could have been used to correctly replace Mowatt and Dike. So whilst it might seem like a perfect storm, we weren't actually a million miles away. I take your point regarding Millwall and Preston (although I'm not sure Preston's financial situation is particularly healthy), they've obviously been much more calculated in their recruitment over the last few years.
Out of top 10 in that table only Bristol have never made it to PL, also find it amusing that Gibson at Boro been making noises about FFP over last couple of years and they are consistently one of worst.
