Many thanks to Third Generation Villan for submitting the following opinion.
Don’t forget people, we’re always very glad to post people’s opinions, so if you have one you’d like to write an article about, just send it in and it will be published.
We all have our opinions on the club from team selections, Lerner and who should be the new manager etc and it’s unlikely we will ever all agree, but I had this thought about our future and I would like to hear if anyone agrees with me or thinks I am talking rubbish.
Whoever the club chooses this time, they have to get it right as if we get relegated this season I don’t see us ever coming back from it and we will be a championship club at best in the future, similar to Leeds and Forest etc.
My reason for thinking this is simple; its money.
Over the last few years the top four have cemented their annual place in that top four with the money they have made from the Premier league and Champions league with only Liverpool who are hanging on by their finger nails, the only real challenge to the top four.
So I can see from next season the top 15-16 in the premier league will amass enough money to the point that they will not be involved in the annual relegation fight and the bottom 3 will yoyo with the three promoted teams each year, where except for the odd exception no one else will be able to compete for promotion each year.
So if we go down this season, there is no guarantee we will come straight back up as I think it would take 2 or 3 seasons for us to turn the club around and that includes a new owner and staff down through the club to get us back to being a stable club with ambition.
And by then it may well be too late to ever come back to being a premiership club.
I am interested to see if anyone agrees with me, that the club must appoint the right manager this time and we must not go down this season.
Good article TGV and thanks.
It’s an interesting question, especially at the moment, where it seems at least some fans actually think us getting relegated will be good for the club, if it means Lerner goes.
I just can’t subscribe to that pov, and the same as yourself, I think it’ll prove disastrous if it happens.
it is virtually impossible to appoint the right manager unless you have a crystal ball.
we are not attractive enough at the moment to appoint the perceived best.
any manager that comes in now will probably split the fans.
I haven’t got a clue.
Garde I hadn’t heard of until last weekend.
are we trying to get him purely because we signed some French players. if so that is wrong.
we need a strong personality to run all the football side of things and with the current set up we have that isn’t going to happen.
we will end up with an unproven yes man. I fear.
personally because of the situation we are in I think Pearson is the best one to get us out of it.
but is a guess and a hope nothing more.
if the club take a long term view and are prepared to go down then Garde maybe better.
I haven’t got a crystal ball.
Would I like AVFC to go down? Tough question. Lerner and the idiotic board deserve it. Do the fans and club deserve it?
Despite the money we’d lose we’d still eventually come back up. We’ll never catch up with the Sky 6 anyway. Hell, it might even be fun playing in the Chumpionship bext season because we’ve had few laughs in the Prem these last five years.
I really think we’ve had it thisbyear finally. There is no way Pearson will come in and perform the same miracle twice.
When we last got relegated we ended up slipping two divisions and it took us 6 (?) years to get back and it was easier then than now because as TGV rightly points out the money.
I really fear for our club if we go down – which looks very likely.
Hitchy mate – relegated 87? Promoted 88?
Your right BWS – I had forgotten that and was thinking back further – apologies for an old man’s memory. Still concerned that if the club is as disfunctional as some think then we could be in real trouble following relegation
This season reminds me of 87, not a bad squad but devoid of any confidence and the club being in total disarray, lacking any plan or direction.
If it hadn’t had been for Graham Taylor I don’t think we’d bounced back at the first attempt then.
Very true and then 2nd in the Prem!