This potentially getting promoted 'too soon' debate...


I'm not going to lie. When we came up, I didn't think back to back promotion was a good thing.

When at various points, we looked like we might get playoffs, even when it was confirmed. I had my concerns and doubts

The minute we walked onto that pitch against Luton... I've never been more convinced that we should go up.

We've had a great season. We might not next season. "Stay down and consolidate" only works if you go up next season. Which is nit guaranteed. Players move, management changes. Anyone saying "stay down is good" will be in bits if next season is mediocre.

Go up, and take next season as it comes. If it means relegation, so be it. But this team has fought for a right to play among the best. They don't want to consolidate, Mowbray doesn't want to consolidate, so why should the fans?
 
I'm talking about relegation. Ain't so bad when you've got good, smart people at the helm. Burnley have went from Brexit FC to a modern side, they have a good chance of staying up next year with the right recruitment. Fulham went up and spent 200 million, realised it was f***ing stupid and changed their approach. Learning curves.

Imagine O9 sliding into Haaland and it not even effecting him.

A couple of piggy backs and kisses on the cheek and he will have him in his back pocket.
Que Keane... ‘I don’t like footballers who kiss and take piggy backs’
 
Not sure what people are afraid of. We’ve already experienced two god awful record breaking relegations. Nowt to be afraid of. At least we’ll have a team of young lads hungry to do well instead of old fudders picking up their pension
I’m not sure fear is the right word but worst case scenario, it stunts the progression of some of our young players, we get battered every week, Mowbray gets sacked, fans criticise the board for under spending and then we start over again next season, but with momentum we’ll and truly halted and those players that did make the step up taken from us.

Whereas we might be a lot more prepared both on and off the pitch in 12 months time, having won the league with 90+ points.

All hypothetical and there’s an argument to support both cases.
 
I cast my mind back to losing to Charlton at Wembley in 1998. Utterly devastating at the time, after a great season. But hindsight suggests staying down a further season then storming to the title stood us in better stead going into the Premier League.

I wonder if potentially going up this year, despite the blatantly obvious financially lucrative benefits, might be similar? We now already have more than a nucleus of a very good side. Another season in the Championship with most of these players (with Ekwah, Hume, Cirkin, Hume, Neil, Ba, Michael potentially and others) gaining another full season of experience, along with bedding in hopefully two or more new strikers, might mean we go up stronger.

The 'danger' is that going up now and potentially coming straight down again might result in this exciting young team (that could spend several years developing and improving) being dismantled sooner. Yes we would be in the Championship with loads of money, in a 'better' state to have another go, but who knows?

All hypothetical anyway since we might get knocked out tonight or lose at Wembley, or we might go up and stay up!

Part of me just feels that should we not go up this month, next season could see us having a storming season with this current crop (with reinforcements) being much stronger and being better equipped for the top flight when we get there.

Of course, we could miss out now and be floundering mid-table in the Championship next year and be thinking we could have had £100+ million when we had a great chance. Who is to say how tough the Championship will be next season and we could rue a rare opportunity to 'sneak' promotion this year and regret it for years?

Or a meringue?

In the end, I can't help willing the Lads to get promoted and face what comes, but I have a niggling feeling we could miss out on seeing this team storming it next year with these current players ramping up another few notches. I suppose we should/can trust the recruitment team to utilise any Premier League income and potential parachute payments (should the worst happen) and we could do a Burnley in two years from now...

All ifs and buts but curious to know the thoughts of the wise SMB. I would wager the majority thinking 'F**k it, let's get up and worry about it later and have a good f**king go!'
Anytime is good to go up. I think it depends on whether the club recruit the right players and investing atleast 70% of the Premier league money
 
I cast my mind back to losing to Charlton at Wembley in 1998. Utterly devastating at the time, after a great season. But hindsight suggests staying down a further season then storming to the title stood us in better stead going into the Premier League.

I wonder if potentially going up this year, despite the blatantly obvious financially lucrative benefits, might be similar? We now already have more than a nucleus of a very good side. Another season in the Championship with most of these players (with Ekwah, Hume, Cirkin, Hume, Neil, Ba, Michael potentially and others) gaining another full season of experience, along with bedding in hopefully two or more new strikers, might mean we go up stronger.

The 'danger' is that going up now and potentially coming straight down again might result in this exciting young team (that could spend several years developing and improving) being dismantled sooner. Yes we would be in the Championship with loads of money, in a 'better' state to have another go, but who knows?

All hypothetical anyway since we might get knocked out tonight or lose at Wembley, or we might go up and stay up!

Part of me just feels that should we not go up this month, next season could see us having a storming season with this current crop (with reinforcements) being much stronger and being better equipped for the top flight when we get there.

Of course, we could miss out now and be floundering mid-table in the Championship next year and be thinking we could have had £100+ million when we had a great chance. Who is to say how tough the Championship will be next season and we could rue a rare opportunity to 'sneak' promotion this year and regret it for years?

Or a meringue?

In the end, I can't help willing the Lads to get promoted and face what comes, but I have a niggling feeling we could miss out on seeing this team storming it next year with these current players ramping up another few notches. I suppose we should/can trust the recruitment team to utilise any Premier League income and potential parachute payments (should the worst happen) and we could do a Burnley in two years from now...

All ifs and buts but curious to know the thoughts of the wise SMB. I would wager the majority thinking 'F**k it, let's get up and worry about it later and have a good f**king go!'

A more relevant example was whether us getting promoted in 1996 was "too soon" but getting that Sky money and giving it a go helped us build everything else Reidy did
 
I'm not going to lie. When we came up, I didn't think back to back promotion was a good thing.

When at various points, we looked like we might get playoffs, even when it was confirmed. I had my concerns and doubts

The minute we walked onto that pitch against Luton... I've never been more convinced that we should go up.

We've had a great season. We might not next season. "Stay down and consolidate" only works if you go up next season. Which is nit guaranteed. Players move, management changes. Anyone saying "stay down is good" will be in bits if next season is mediocre.

Go up, and take next season as it comes. If it means relegation, so be it. But this team has fought for a right to play among the best. They don't want to consolidate, Mowbray doesn't want to consolidate, so why should the fans?

What’s more it’s self evident the quality in the squad. Likewise the mentality. Look they will have to bring in at least 3 senior proven premiership players who are leaders at Centre Half, Central Midfield and Striker. Maybe players around 30 whilst the model catches up. In the Reid days it was likes of Bould, Shwarz and Quinn.
Is Henderson outside our reach ? Jonny Evans is probably to old now and I don’t like the idea of players from relegated teams. But you get the idea
 
I’m not sure fear is the right word but worst case scenario, it stunts the progression of some of our young players, we get battered every week, Mowbray gets sacked, fans criticise the board for under spending and then we start over again next season, but with momentum we’ll and truly halted and those players that did make the step up taken from us.

Whereas we might be a lot more prepared both on and off the pitch in 12 months time, having won the league with 90+ points.

All hypothetical and there’s an argument to support both cases.

Or we don’t go up, sell half the team in the summer, struggle next season and moggie gets sacked regardless.
No one knows what will happen next season but the best place for the club is in the top flight.
 
Or we don’t go up, sell half the team in the summer, struggle next season and moggie gets sacked regardless.
No one knows what will happen next season but the best place for the club is in the top flight.
We get money from players to replace them simples
 
I cast my mind back to losing to Charlton at Wembley in 1998. Utterly devastating at the time, after a great season. But hindsight suggests staying down a further season then storming to the title stood us in better stead going into the Premier League.

Can you guarantee that if we hadn't gone up by beating Charlton in the playoffs we wouldn't have had an even better, longer stay in the premiership?

No, thought not.
 
Ifs buts and maybes…. life is full of them.

What l am sure of is that TM will have the player’s heads in the right place for the game tonight. We know the plan….it’s really simple - try to make it a game of football as opposed to a physical battle gives us the best chance of success as we are a better footballing side.

Win or draw and then and only then does Wembley become relevant.

Rinse and repeat and the PL then becomes relevant.

Whatever happens in the next two weeks l have every confidence the upward trajectory will be maintained.

KTF
 
I think one difference from 1998 is that promotion was always the aim of that team. A bit like Sheffield United - came short last year and threw everything into getting top two this year. Anything less than going up is failure.

For us, it's a free hit - no one realistically expected us to be in this position so fuck it, let's give it a go. What's the worst that can happen? We come back down.
 
I cast my mind back to losing to Charlton at Wembley in 1998. Utterly devastating at the time, after a great season. But hindsight suggests staying down a further season then storming to the title stood us in better stead going into the Premier League.

I wonder if potentially going up this year, despite the blatantly obvious financially lucrative benefits, might be similar? We now already have more than a nucleus of a very good side. Another season in the Championship with most of these players (with Ekwah, Hume, Cirkin, Hume, Neil, Ba, Michael potentially and others) gaining another full season of experience, along with bedding in hopefully two or more new strikers, might mean we go up stronger.

The 'danger' is that going up now and potentially coming straight down again might result in this exciting young team (that could spend several years developing and improving) being dismantled sooner. Yes we would be in the Championship with loads of money, in a 'better' state to have another go, but who knows?

All hypothetical anyway since we might get knocked out tonight or lose at Wembley, or we might go up and stay up!

Part of me just feels that should we not go up this month, next season could see us having a storming season with this current crop (with reinforcements) being much stronger and being better equipped for the top flight when we get there.

Of course, we could miss out now and be floundering mid-table in the Championship next year and be thinking we could have had £100+ million when we had a great chance. Who is to say how tough the Championship will be next season and we could rue a rare opportunity to 'sneak' promotion this year and regret it for years?

Or a meringue?

In the end, I can't help willing the Lads to get promoted and face what comes, but I have a niggling feeling we could miss out on seeing this team storming it next year with these current players ramping up another few notches. I suppose we should/can trust the recruitment team to utilise any Premier League income and potential parachute payments (should the worst happen) and we could do a Burnley in two years from now...

All ifs and buts but curious to know the thoughts of the wise SMB. I would wager the majority thinking 'F**k it, let's get up and worry about it later and have a good f**king go!'
The rationale is rubbish. Like it or not, we played better football in the play off season than the one afterwards. We’d have hit the PL with Clark, Johnston and Bridges all in the squad (plus any signings). Personally I think that if we’d gone up that season then we would have got over the line for Europe the following season and never looked back.
 
This is the thing. There's no way to know that the group will still be together if we stay in the Championship. Footballers' contracts don't have much longevity these days. In fact all sorts of things can happen to dent the momentum. It's always the best time to get promoted now.
If they are to leave I hope we don’t get our pants pulled down. Most clubs seem to demand monster fees for their youths.
 
I hope we go up ,I hope Bournemouth and Forest stay up because added to Sheff Utd and Burnley it could be 3 from 5 with maybe an odd extra
 

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