shurlock

Dean Richards was another with ledge status (again played quite a few games for us)

Of course, you have to take into account/control for the time spent at the club - as a rule of thumb, the longer a player stays, the more likely he'll get cult status. Cant think of many black players who stayed a while with us (of course, we might have driven them all out ). The only player I can really think of is Ken Monkou and he was a bit of a ledge.

Wright got a lot of unfair stick. He was often dire, though was largely played out of position and the idea that he didn't try -as some people alleged- was just moronic. Yes he was a scapegoat but that was largely because he was seen as one of Burley's favs - and Burley ultimately was the real object of fan ire.

Quite apart from race -and its wholly naive to think racism -casual or deep-seated- has disappeared from football, flair players like Punch will always attract a love-hate ambivalence. Because they are naturally talented, more will be expected more from them than say your Wottonesque or indeed your Carlton Palmeresque workhorse.

Fair enough - and perhaps i shouldn't have said nobody, though at the moment the OP is very much a lone voice (or lone voices) in the wilderness, not an emerging consensus or indicative of a genuine minority that anyone should pay much attention to. Saying that it would be nice or its possible to do a Norwich is different from demanding or expecting it. Of course, should that change, I agree that some pretty serious expectation-management will be necessary. But just maybe next season will be relatively uncontroversial as the usual faultlines between wrist-slashers and happy-clappers fade with most people settling for some form of stabilisation and perhaps a playoff push. Needless to say, a forum without major controversy could be a pretty dull place for some

Some confused and confusing posts - for all the talk of unrealistic expectations, who exactly has said that they expect us to do a Norwich? Nobody... As far as I see it, discussion has centred around how good our current squad is and the amount of strengthening necessary to compete with 9 or 10 other decent teams. What happens after that is anybody's call; but winning the league or auto is a galaxy away from peoples initial radars. If anything the view is that bookies odds etc are flattering, suggesting lower rather than higher expectations on our part. Seems a case of few posters getting the wrong end of stick and prematurely mounting their high horses.

Spot on - apart from his involvement in the goal, thought he had a poor game yesterday. Shame because while I think the guy has a sh*t attitude, I wanted him to do well so we can make some decent money. Yesterday, didnt seem to have same amount of time on the ball that others had -a mark of quality- and looked scared to use it when he was in possession. Did track back, though.

Probably more than half current champ clubs have been in the prem

Agree but only to a certain extent. Yes automatic promotion is the exception rather than the rule -and it would be madness to set our expectations without regard to history; still there is no reason to think we can't challenge. If you compare how newly promoted L1 teams have done in the championship, history shows that we should be aiming higher rather than lower. For instance, the distribution of newly promoted LI teams finishing in the top half relative to the bottom half of the championship the following season is evenly spread; and each season has seen one L1 team do very well, challenging for and often securing a playoff place. L1 2009/10 -championship position following year Norwich -2 Leeds -7 Millwall -9 L1 2008/09 Leicester -6 went out on pens to Cardiff in playoff semi final P'boro -24 Sc*nthorpe -20 L1 2007/08 Swansea -8 and finished 7th and 3rd the next two seasons N'Forest -19 but finished 3rd and 6th the next two seasons Doncaster- 14 L1 2006/07 Sc*nthope -23 Bristol City -4 lost in the playoff final Blackpool- 19 L1 2005/06 Southend -22 Colchester -10 Barnsley -20

Went to sampdoria who've just been relegated. Has had a frustrating time.

Disagree. Safri was class - rarely lost the ball and could always pick a pass out in a team made up of dross; viafara had an excellent first season before getting homesick and realising he was on a sinking ship; and idiakez was certainly past it- but wasn't rubbish; licka - i'll give you.

Agree - had a decent start but tailed off. Tidy but rarely a threat for us.

Fonte, Jaidi, Schneiderlin, Guly? Apart from being 'foreign', spot on the common thread yet....:facepalm:

Look I know the charges against him and defending him is a pretty thankless task And yes he has a massive f**king ego not helped by a laconic, lard ar$e running style that makes it seem that he does everything at half-pace (and the frustrating tendency to scuff sitters/pens yet hit screamers from distance). But he had a decent touch and good vision and, IMO, took alot of unjustified flak. Yes never going to set the world alight but not a massive surprise etither that he was one of the few players for which we got decent money. Looks like this season has been slightly better for him.

Doesnt look like SMS

TBF, McG was probably our most creative player in the 2008/9 team. Easy scapegoat. Undeserved.

Donny was a bloodbath - fights kicking off all over SMS, even in the Chapel, people baying for RL prompting a cordon. The lowest of the low matched only by the snow-ravaged Sheff U game. I thought Wolves was OK - we showed real heart to come back and were unlucky not to get something in the end. Still thought we might survive at that point.

Ask the ladies - the first time is always the most painful.

2005. We bottled so many games -M'Boro, Everton, WBA, Villa, Arsenal etc Writing was on the wall very early on in 2009 and the existence of the club was at stake. Burnley was almost funny, though the week before at Hillsborough was a sickener, rivaling the Man U game in terms of spinelessness. The survival the season before against Sheff U was arguably sweeter than many of our prem near-death experiences.

And interestingly players with prem experience -Davis, Jaidi, Richardson, Chaplow, Butterfield, Connolly, even Puncheon- are not considered our matchwinners.

This thread was started after the Brighton game- thought he had a very poor subsequent game against Brentford when he was brought on and played RM.

Gotcha - potentially great news then.

So the club is going to make offers to Connolly and Gobern which they may or may not accept? In other words, the ball will be in their court?

So Harding's contract was automatically renewed and not up for discussion- would have used this opportunity to tie him down to a longer deal.

Hoskins is a decent player - 20 goals for a team that got relegated and NPC experience.