Defeatism...

[Jules88]

I will never accept league one as our new order of things , I can live with it just as West Ham and Sunderland fans have to accept championship football from time to time .

Relegation to league two would be viewed as shameful , as shameful as Leeds , Norwich or Wolves in league one .

From time to time we are going to go down to league one but we must always view it as temporary and make championship football our ultimate aim and never accept anything less .

But we will be relegated from this league far more times than we have normally come to expect historically .

Got to agree with than Animal. The up side of that is we hopefully will experience a promotion now and again too

[Ponte_Steve24]

Jules I agreed with it too. Don't like it mind I suppose under our new recruitment model it is easier to build new squads when needed regardless of the division.

[animallittle3]

So you would want to be in the top six in league 1 if we went down and would see anything lower than that as a failure. We have proven last time we were in league 1 that we are capable of building a top end Championship side whilst down there. Would you chance your arm handing out longer contracts even in league 1 Animal?

If we went down to league one in the manner Rotherham did last season then I'd have to accept that it may take a couple of season's to rebuild and mount a challenge .

Yes we are capable of building an high end championship team on limited resources , this has happened 3 times in my lifetime stretching over several decades .

Are longer contracts a fire wall against having our players stripped off us ?

A player who wants away will get his way no matter what mate , tha can't win today .

Steve in all honesty mate I haven't got all the answers to where we stand today as a club , we are successful and we get fecked over by other clubs , we struggle and we can't get shut of the dead wood other than giving them away .

Fuqued if I know mate .

[animallittle3]

I'll tell you what I would like to see and what I would consider to be growth if we are never going to be able to compete with other clubs on wages .

The trouble with this current model of ours is that the inevitable sale of players will one day come back to bite you hard , there isn't a never ending supply of young talent who we can attract , it's a small pond and it will have peaks and troughs .

We need to find ourselves a softer landing when players inevitably move on .

The profits from sales need to be reinvested into our academy , but what about looking at building an academy in africa ?

Pie in the sky ? , possibly but wait .

Kinnel how much chuffin land is available on that continent ? Wouldn't have thought it would be mega expensive either .

Buy some land and start with a soccer camp type facility , see how it goes and dip our toes in the water , if it proves it's worth look to extend the thing into an academy we have here .

Build an education facility complete with dormitory , restaurant providing a ***** sports diet , medical care etc etc , hire locals to coach them but managed by the club .

We start churning out talented young african kids then at 16 they can then come to our academy here .

We could have in time a conveyor belt of young talent on tap , sell Abdue Akibendie to Leicester for 5 million and we have Solomon Ranfeqie chomping at the bit to take his place .

The money we are accumulating has to have a point and a purpose .

It's something we could at least look at exploring .

[Ponte_Steve24]

Evolutionary there is something in African DNA that is stronger to physical activity and endurance too Animal. Saw it on a documentary probably not relevant. However, I think that you make a valid point. In this country the top academies get the pick of the first crop of youth and we fill our academy with what's left over. It's counter productive. If they aren't good enough for Man Utd, Chelsea's academy I think we sell ourselves short thinking they will be good enough here.

There are definitely better gambles to be had.

[yorkshireborn]

If we went down to league one in the manner Rotherham did last season then I'd have to accept that it may take a couple of season's to rebuild and mount a challenge .

Yes we are capable of building an high end championship team on limited resources , this has happened 3 times in my lifetime stretching over several decades .

Are longer contracts a fire wall against having our players stripped off us ?

A player who wants away will get his way no matter what mate , tha can't win today .

Steve in all honesty mate I haven't got all the answers to where we stand today as a club , we are successful and we get fecked over by other clubs , we struggle and we can't get shut of the dead wood other than giving them away .

Fuqued if I know mate .

bigger contracts mean a bigger payday when they do go, instead of only worth a quarter of wot they would be worth cos theres only a year or 6 months left,

[EastStandRed]

Unless they turn out to be shi t and you're stuck with them for 3 yrs

[pass_and_move]

Start an african academy we'll end up wi ebola ;-)

[pass_and_move]

In all seriousness it's a good idea Animal, finacially viable if we produce the finnished article. The question i raise is- What makes you think we can run an african academy successfully when we've had minimal success with our own over the last 20years?

[Ponte_Steve24]

I think it's a viable option simply because it is so left field no one else has thought of it and we could be the first club in a lucrative new niche.

Glen Hoddle was half way there with his own academy with everyone else's failures. However, alot of those lads were no hopers. With this african academy your actually getting the wheat instead of the chow.