that our time as a force in football has gone, it has for a few decades to be fair, and it won't come back in our lifetime.
Years of penny pinching and mismanagement has brought us to our knees.
I am lucky enough to have watched the last great Albion team's, mid to late sixties.
The seventies and early eighties squads flattered to deceive, a bit like Spurs of today. Lot's of quality and great football but no trophies though the winter of 78-79 played a big part.
But even so, we had a great young squad, but money came before ambition. We sold Cantello, Cunningham, Robson and Moses, didn't give Ronnie Allen a fair crack of the whip because he showed ambition.
Now clubs like Brighton, Nottingham Forest, Brentford, Bournemouth and Southampton, clubs we would have swatted like flies years ago will go from strength to strength. Our time has been and gone.
Today we find ourselves among the likes of Watford, Middlesbrough, Luton etc.
Maybe in fifty or a hundred years time, if greedy owners haven't driven us to extinction, we will become the new Brighton or Brentford, but we won't see it.