Slater etc ran out of money and only backed Powell with free transfers like Kerkar and Jordan Cook, yet we still finished 9th and could have done better with backing. We had a chance at promotion that year with the benefit of hindsight.
They then they sell to Roland and we've been shite ever since.
Palace finish 5th, Brighton and Watford turn shite in the playoffs, and they've gone onto at least a decade in the Premier League.
The ramifications of the wrongly disallowed BWP goal, if that's given we would have won that game as they were near the bottom and would have lost confidence, those extra points might have sneaked us a playoff place instead of them.
Agree that football is cyclical, we just couldn’t have picked a worse “cycle” in the history of the game to be in the doldrums.
Saw someone mention on here that we got promoted to the prem 10 years too early. Im feeling that now!
I know we never actually achieved anything tangible, but we at least had something to aspire to - virtually every February, before the annual collapse, we were on course for the European places. When we finished 7th after selling Parker, it seemed like a failure in some ways, because we were genuine contenders for the top 4 for a large chunk of the season.
Palace look like a really good team at the moment, but it won't last forever. They're currently on for their best Premier League season ever - they might finish 9th, and will be miles off the sides above them. It's not that exciting. They've not invested in their stadium at all, and eventually they'll get relegated. Their spell in the Premier League will will be summarised as "turned up, hung around for a bit, got relegated".
That's partly their shortcomings, but mostly because the business end of the league is now a complete lock-out. I'm not that desperate to get back there, I just wanna get out of this shitty division.
*obviously the above is only correct on the basis that something disgusting doesn't happen in the FA Cup.
That’s actually where I am too. I would happily do a deal with the devil that meant we would never again get promoted to the Premier League if it meant we were never again relegated to League One. League One is worse than the Premier League is better, if that makes any sense?
So you'd agree to never have another successful promotion season?
If it meant never having to play in L1 again? Yeah, I’d take that deal*
*there would have to be some Men in Black type technology involved so I forgot about the deal immediately after making it, otherwise I would never be able to get excited about us doing well or nervous about us doing badly in the Championship!
A strong season for a team like Palace means the sharks will go after their best players. A Chelsea will probably take Gallagher back. We can but hope anyway!
Gap is so huge between championship and premier league once you become established is so difficult to be relegated, especially because a lot of the promoted side just bank the tv money. It used to be every season you can guarantee one promoted side being relegated, now it’s two.
Without a single doubt one of Fulham or Bournemouth will be relegated next season. Just boring. However, bad Nigels are they just need to find three teams worse than them. Not that difficult for them.
Tell that to all the everton fans with sqeaky bums right now fearing the worst
They’ve got a decent manager on borrowed time until he goes to Arsenal. Gallagher, as we well know, papers over a lot of cracks. He will go back to Chelsea at the end of the season. If all they can do is stay up because there are teams below them that are really shit then next season won’t be such a happy time for them.
I think Monday night was an anomaly tbf. Recently they’ve drawn with Norwich, Brentford and Burnley. They did play well but it doesn’t appear like they’ve turned into some free flowing attacking side. In fact even in the first half they were time wasting at every opportunity. They were 2-0 up and playing better than Arsenal so why timewaste? Small club mentality that’s why. *desperately trying to find their failings to avoid coming to terms with ours.
We know that it only takes one bad season in the prem to undo everything and dump you back into the football league, that could happen for the nigels.
The way the parachute payments work though, they would need all kinds of football managerial and boardroom fuck ups to have a fall from grace as large as ours. I cant see that happening, other clubs have us as a cautionary tale.
What happened to us was we had a great manager and the Chairman was doing great by letting him manage. But the Chairman thought it was about him and rather than trying to find a manager who could fit the same formula, he tried to create a new 'brilliant' formula. And in the spirit of Blackadder, the only problem with this new plan was that it was bollocks.
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If Palarse win, we need to pray that Liverpool win the other tie
Give it time and I am sure we will find out.
The way the parachute payments work though, they would need all kinds of football managerial and boardroom fuck ups to have a fall from grace as large as ours. I cant see that happening, other clubs have us as a cautionary tale.