Sorry KP I'm not sure what your argument is with what I've said?
im saying 'at best' between league 1 and championship, that's at best, let's face it even now we could win another 14 or 15 games and get into the play offs, unlikely but not impossible.
i have said here over a number of years we cannot compete at the mem, tarted up or no, we must get a ground like the uwe in terms of size or we wither on the vine stark message from me, but it's what I believe, Wael has neither the money or his family from what we are being told behind him on this gas project, he really should have looked at NH deal with UWE more carefully (if a deal was actually done?)
btw I'm not a betting man but I believe the mem will never be redeveloped, hope I'm proved wrong!!
I think we have ALL been fed the line of we cannot compete at the mem so many times that it is one of those things that embeds itself into the psyche and is believed without question.
The thing is, we don’t even sell out the mem ! Imagine us getting a ground such as UWE and the empty spaces. Whether we like it or not our Ted neighbours have stolen a march on us and are a million miles ahead of us and in every way possible. They are the ones that players go to and they have their own problems with ticketing but the ground is superb, the bars are great and the food outlets too.
I have no idea on what has happened at our club but it would certainly seem that either true due diligence was not done and that the family have lost the appetite to do what needs doing or good old Nick Higgs chose the group that gave him the best chance of getting his money back, instead of the other interested party of whom I do know had footballers involved & by all accounts had the appetite to go ahead with the stadium AND million on the team, that is if what I was told was true and I have no reason to doubt who told me as this person has never given me a bum steer in over 40 years of knowing him.
Personally I don’t buy into the repeated mantra that we cannot sustain the club at a revamped mem. The TV money and money from just being in the championship are so much better than what we have now and, truth be told, the higher up you go, the less reliant clubs are on the actual bums on seats.
This has long been a problem at our club, we think and act small. We accept the excuses, sorry, reasons given and shrug our shoulders and carry on, in the belief that we have reached our zenith due to the ground we are in and what training facilities we use.
I for one firmly believe that we can do better but that we have the wrong mentality to really do well. It shocks me as we did have our periods, all too brief, in the second tier. Sadly we were there when the rewards for being there were nowhere near what they are now, both as a percentage and in real terms.
I am not going into a meltdown just yet but I felt we were going to have a poor season before a ball was kicked and that DC had a disastrous recruiting campaign. None of us really know the answer as to why but unless he speaks up or maybe one of the ITK posters divulge it then the buck stops at his door.
We let our only real winger go and now are farting about with formations that are experimental and this really should have been done with the ample opportunity we had during the pre season games. I don’t believe DC even knows his best 11 players.
Whilst I applaud DC for his work in getting us promoted twice and placing us in the highest position in 20 or more years, I don’t have blind faith in him and it’s evident he is more waspish in interviews and is feeling the pressure. I also am not a firm believer in all this evolution not revolution malarkey. It’s a marketing line that the Saatchi’s would be proud of.
I believe we need some of both. If we are to wait until our own young players develop then we will be waiting longer and then, there will be no guarantee that DC would play them.
Anyway, i’ve gone on enough. It’s time DC played Dom Telford and not have a player of his quality on the bench and it’s time we start to play to our strengths instead of chopping and changing the side each week but having the same very basic game plan. I’m afraid DC has been rumbled at this level and that he needs to address his own stubborn side in my opinion. We have become all too easy to read and counter by the other managers and coaches.
I fear that we could be in or around the bottom come January but again, hope I am very wrong.
I truly don’t think the ground is as big a problem as it is made out to be but keep saying it enough and most will believe it. If the time comes when we are selling out each game then I wouldn’t have such a problem believing it but the fact is that we rarely do sell out.
Sorry to sound so negative but this is how I see it in reality and sans all the spin that goes on.