Win 1-0 or Lose 4-3

[Dave]

Jon biting.

[Cajun]

Well he's obviously had his first shandy

[Guest malandro]

We can demand attractive football when we assure our premier league status for the next 2-3 years, and we have an owner that is willing to pay for footballers that actually play decent football that cost more than our current transfer targets for this season. Unfortunately we are no longer at that stage and need to rebuild to get back to that stage.

 

When does this rebuilding start? How do we assure our premier league status for the next 2-3 years without starting that rebuilding now? Why does it have to be next season or the one after that? What gives you any confidence that if we don't spend anything significant this year to help keep a newly promoted team up that we will next season to improve? Say we do finish 17th this season, how will we be any better off than we are now? I think we'll actually be less attractive to players, to TV schedulers, and to supporters. We certainly wont be on TV as much at the start of next season as we're going to be on this if we scrape to safety playing poor football, so there'll be less coming in year on year and we'll eventually lose the financial advantage over a lot of other clubs that for the moment we still have. Maybe people are still hanging on to this pipe dream of a bunch of the youth team becoming good premiership players (and us subsequently being able to hang on to them) and we'll rise up the table on the back of that? It's not going to happen, it really isn't.

 

This season we will have a significantly larger turnover than most other teams in this division, the wages are down to a manageable level, and if we don't spend much on transfers the club should make a handsome profit this year. Why should we not expect the club to spend money on a few good players now which might make this season a bit more comfortable?

Good post. Momentum is everything in football. There’s no such thing as standing still.

 

This is the first year of the (latest) five year plan to balance the books (whatever that means) – it seems a reasonable assumption that the current investment strategy will be in place for the next four years.

 

[Guest malandro]

Where's the rather lose 1-0 than win 4-3 option, that Allardyce & Souness employed?

Or drawing 0-0 at home to Blackburn?

[Stifler]

1-0 win every time.

 

Who are the 7 fuckers who voted to lose?

[JH]

If this season we set up and play defensively without much attacking threat (also known on here as "playing s***") and get enough scrappy draws and lucky wins to be 17th at Christmas will everyone who is now saying that all that matters is just getting the results to keep us up be praising Hughton and the players for being on course for their stated aim? I wonder...

 

Yes I will be praising him. The team will most likely include Kevin Nolan and Alan Smith, we're hardly going to be expecting a title race are we?

[Mick]

 

Yes I will be praising him. The team will most likely include Kevin Nolan and Alan Smith, we're hardly going to be expecting a title race are we?

 

I think the earliest we'll be in a title race will be the season after next.

[merlin]

 

Yes I will be praising him. The team will most likely include Kevin Nolan and Alan Smith, we're hardly going to be expecting a title race are we?

 

I think the earliest we'll be in a title race will be the season after next.

 

Sorry Mick - can't agree, I reckon it will be at least 3 seasons before the club is anything like a title contender..unless you using irony of course...!!

 

As for the topic - I would rather win titles, stay up, win cups etc by playing 'ugly' every time. Losers win nowt, and you just have to look at how the club's image as 'The Entertainers' has left it no affection among neutral fans around the country to see that.

 

We are not there to create entertainment for other teams' fans - our own, perhaps, and only then if it leads to winning results.

The object of the game is to win - full stop.

[Kaizero]

We can demand attractive football when we assure our premier league status for the next 2-3 years, and we have an owner that is willing to pay for footballers that actually play decent football that cost more than our current transfer targets for this season. Unfortunately we are no longer at that stage and need to rebuild to get back to that stage.

 

When does this rebuilding start? How do we assure our premier league status for the next 2-3 years without starting that rebuilding now? Why does it have to be next season or the one after that? What gives you any confidence that if we don't spend anything significant this year to help keep a newly promoted team up that we will next season to improve? Say we do finish 17th this season, how will we be any better off than we are now? I think we'll actually be less attractive to players, to TV schedulers, and to supporters. We certainly wont be on TV as much at the start of next season as we're going to be on this if we scrape to safety playing poor football, so there'll be less coming in year on year and we'll eventually lose the financial advantage over a lot of other clubs that for the moment we still have. Maybe people are still hanging on to this pipe dream of a bunch of the youth team becoming good premiership players (and us subsequently being able to hang on to them) and we'll rise up the table on the back of that? It's not going to happen, it really isn't.

 

This season we will have a significantly larger turnover than most other teams in this division, the wages are down to a manageable level, and if we don't spend much on transfers the club should make a handsome profit this year. Why should we not expect the club to spend money on a few good players now which might make this season a bit more comfortable?

 

Because we don't have that money now. Next year, we'll have that money, and then we can be expected to invest a bit more than we are now. There's a much talked about five year plan put in place by Ashley which states just that. And as much as I hate Ashley, given the current financial climate in football, it's not the worst plan in the world compared to spunking millions we don't have on players and potentially still going down and then being in severe financial issues. (Hull is one example.)

[Guest n4e]

Lose 4-3. Geordie nation.

[chicago_shearer]

I think the 8 people who would rather lose than win are a little unclear on the concept of sport in general.

 

The whole idea of 'going down fighting' is a stupid myth.  It doesn't happen.  Teams that go down do so because they are crap.  If you can't get to 40 points, then you almost certainly aren't playing well. 

 

The honest, plucky, 'at least we play attractive football' argument is just an irritating excuse for failure.  Yes, you occasionally get a clown like Big Sam, but playing well usually has a strong correlation with winning. 

[Guest n4e]

I think the 8 people who would rather lose than win are a little unclear on the concept of sport in general.

 

The whole idea of 'going down fighting' is a stupid myth.  It doesn't happen.  Teams that go down do so because they are crap.  If you can't get to 40 points, then you almost certainly aren't playing well. 

 

The honest, plucky, 'at least we play attractive football' argument is just an irritating excuse for failure.  Yes, you occasionally get a clown like Big Sam, but playing well usually has a strong correlation with winning. 

 

A lot of Boro fans seems to think they played the best football they have seen when they went down with Ravanelli etc. Teams like Wigan and West Ham played quite good football at times last seasona nd oth could have gone down.

[Guest MrBrown]

 

Yes I will be praising him. The team will most likely include Kevin Nolan and Alan Smith, we're hardly going to be expecting a title race are we?

 

I think the earliest we'll be in a title race will be the season after next.

 

Sorry Mick - can't agree, I reckon it will be at least 3 seasons before the club is anything like a title contender..unless you using irony of course...!!

 

As for the topic - I would rather win titles, stay up, win cups etc by playing 'ugly' every time. Losers win nowt, and you just have to look at how the club's image as 'The Entertainers' has left it no affection among neutral fans around the country to see that.

 

We are not there to create entertainment for other teams' fans - our own, perhaps, and only then if it leads to winning results.

The object of the game is to win - full stop.

 

He's referring to the Championship title.

[garth]

No brainer, 1-0 win.

 

 

This with out a doubt.

[UV]

If this season we set up and play defensively without much attacking threat (also known on here as "playing s***") and get enough scrappy draws and lucky wins to be 17th at Christmas will everyone who is now saying that all that matters is just getting the results to keep us up be praising Hughton and the players for being on course for their stated aim? I wonder...

 

Yes I will be praising him. The team will most likely include Kevin Nolan and Alan Smith, we're hardly going to be expecting a title race are we?

 

Good. I hope you and other's voting for "stay up ugly" hold your nerves.

 

Personally I'm under no illusions as to what "stay up ugly" means, and I know I will hate it, but I will accept it from Hughton and the players if we go into the season with basically the squad we have now. I don't believe the vast majority of people voting for that option now actually have the bottle to accept it, and will be slagging off the players and calling for Hughton's head if that's how the season pans out.

 

We sailed the Championship last season, and people whinged like fuck that we didn't play as pretty as West Brom even though in the end we finished 11 points better off and scored more goals than them. When we were winning and drawing ugly then people were slagging Hughton off and saying he should be more adventurous, and drop our leading scorer for someone who would theoretically make us play better. I just don't see that attitude changing if we go through this season where the highlights are picking up scrappy draws and "lucky" home wins against the likes of Blackpool, WB, Wolves, Wigan, Bolton, Blackburn, Birmingham, etc.

[Guest Antigalican]

Did we honestly play great attacking football in the first few matches in the Prem under KK? I seem to remember an opening 6 games when we failed to score more than 1 goal in any of them, scratching our rst point with a 1-0 versus Everton, and a couple of 1-1 draws against Blackburn and Ipswich.  Following the Ipswich game KK declared "this is the game where I feel like we've arived in the Premiership", meaning I assume that we had learned to compete and gained some confidence, and had stopped the kind of naieve defeats that characterised the opening two games that season. I expect much of the same this time around.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

I don't think Hughton's a fundamentally negative manager, he just recognised that we needed to be a well-drilled team to get promoted and that he didn't have a lot of flair players at his disposal.

 

Our needs this season are similar, to stay up and consolidate our position so we can add a couple of better players next summer and push on. So I expect our approach to be fairly similar, and I won't complain about that.

 

Just because we're scrapping now, it doesn't mean we always will be. We just have to be patient and recognise our current position. Look how Villa, Fulham, Brimingham etc have improved their standing over a few years.

[Guest firetotheworks]

My memory's a little vague, but for me it was the Man United 1-1 draw where we started to play a lot better. Before that I thought we seemed scared. I was only a kid like, so I don't remember too much of it though.

[Guest Antigalican]

Yeah we got the draw at Old Trafford and I think Cole showed what he was capable of, had we lost that game it would have been three straight defeats at the start of the season, but there was no gnashing of teeth because people had a more sympatheic and patient approach back then. We were just happy to be in the Premiership and knew it would take time to get established. I get the impression this time arou that if we lose the first two games, or even win one of them against the run of play, there will be criticism and hand-wringing. We have a manager and some players who need to be allowed to find their feet at the higher level.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Yeah we got the draw at Old Trafford and I think Cole showed what he was capable of, had we lost that game it would have been three straight defeats at the start of the season, but there was no gnashing of teeth because people had a more sympatheic and patient approach back then. We were just happy to be in the Premiership and knew it would take time to get established. I get the impression this time arou that if we lose the first two games, or even win one of them against the run of play, there will be criticism and hand-wringing. We have a manager and some players who need to be allowed to find their feet at the higher level.

 

Just out of interest, what makes you think that? I would have though we would be very patient, especially knowing a lot of our players are useless at Premiership level.

[UV]

We can demand attractive football when we assure our premier league status for the next 2-3 years, and we have an owner that is willing to pay for footballers that actually play decent football that cost more than our current transfer targets for this season. Unfortunately we are no longer at that stage and need to rebuild to get back to that stage.

 

When does this rebuilding start? How do we assure our premier league status for the next 2-3 years without starting that rebuilding now? Why does it have to be next season or the one after that? What gives you any confidence that if we don't spend anything significant this year to help keep a newly promoted team up that we will next season to improve? Say we do finish 17th this season, how will we be any better off than we are now? I think we'll actually be less attractive to players, to TV schedulers, and to supporters. We certainly wont be on TV as much at the start of next season as we're going to be on this if we scrape to safety playing poor football, so there'll be less coming in year on year and we'll eventually lose the financial advantage over a lot of other clubs that for the moment we still have. Maybe people are still hanging on to this pipe dream of a bunch of the youth team becoming good premiership players (and us subsequently being able to hang on to them) and we'll rise up the table on the back of that? It's not going to happen, it really isn't.

 

This season we will have a significantly larger turnover than most other teams in this division, the wages are down to a manageable level, and if we don't spend much on transfers the club should make a handsome profit this year. Why should we not expect the club to spend money on a few good players now which might make this season a bit more comfortable?

 

Because we don't have that money now. Next year, we'll have that money, and then we can be expected to invest a bit more than we are now. There's a much talked about five year plan put in place by Ashley which states just that. And as much as I hate Ashley, given the current financial climate in football, it's not the worst plan in the world compared to spunking millions we don't have on players and potentially still going down and then being in severe financial issues. (Hull is one example.)

 

The majority (or at least the largest chunk) of the income comes in at the start of the season does it not? Why do we not have the money now? If you just don't think that we'll be making a cash flow profit this year, what makes you think that we'll make one next year?

 

I wont ask if you will be happy if we get relegated while making a profit as that would be as idiotically leading and presumptuous of an inevitable result as the question in the title of this thread, but will you accept it and still say it was the right course of action to take if that is what happens?

 

PS The statement is "The Board have therefore structured a five year plan in which the ultimate goal will be to ensure that the club is run at a "break even" manner by the year 2015/2016." It says nothing about spending more next year or at any point in the future.

[Guest guinness_fiend]

Football is a competitive sport.  The aim is to win, not to entertain.  Any entertainment is a bonus.  One-nil all the way for me.

[Colocho]

Who would choose a loss over a win?

[Guest Roger Kint]

Who would choose a loss over a win?

 

Brummiemag i would guess

[UV]

Football is a competitive sport.  The aim is to win, not to entertain.  Any entertainment is a bonus.  One-nil all the way for me.

 

A large number of the people who currently pay hundreds of pounds a season to watch the competitive sport wont carry on doing so year after year if they are not entertained while doing so.

 

The less people who pay hundreds of pounds a season to watch the competitive sport, the less chance there will be of winning (in the top league).

 

Just doing enough to survive is a very short term view of success and will get harder and harder every year.