Scotty Parker has assembled a team of loanees to beat anyone!!!

Eaglecoops, let me try in the shortest possible way try to elaborate as you have requested. Firstly let's start with the team inherited by Roy, this team did try and play the expansive football that many are requesting, both under Pardew in the second half of his last full season with us and again under FdB and the results speak for themselves. To be fair expansive football did get to the cup finale with Pardew but it was at the expense of league form (we hardly earned any PL points from the start January until May that year) and would have almost certainly been relegated had it not been for the points that we earned in the first half of that season. Roy came in when we failed to get any points from any of the seven(from memory) expansive games under Fdv. Roy quickly assessed that the players we had were not capable of that type of football because of skill their set or whatever and from then on organised the team that best suited their ability and to get a balance right to gain points rather than play football that was good on the eye. In doing so he has kept us up year on year even though he made no secret of his desire for new players, he was not supported in that respect, including putting up with one of our best defenders in years (AWB) being sold off, with the money not being re-invested in the squad, he stuck to his task, when others may have walked away. Most good experience managers would want a spend budget when taking on a top job in PL or they will not come as it is their reputation that is on the line. Secondly, player with limited PL experience, we cannot afford to splash the cash at the top end of the market and our antecedence says we tend to obtain players who are either coming to the end of the careers or they are fringe players in their existing PL team,often because they are either not quite good enough for regular first team football or are prone to injury or are just injured. Therefore we will need to find good quality players probably either from overseas or from the lower UK leagues, who are unproven in the PL and the just hope the cost benefit ratio works out under a skillful manager.

As for learning their trade quickly, if they have limited or no PL experience then it a big adjustment to be able play in the PL at the pace and physicality that is required, otherwise we will end up in a relegation battle. The large number of changes required this summer with 12 players out of contract will require a major re-organisation of the squad with some players having to be replaced. This will leave us with a largely unproven first team in this league so the effect will not be disimular to a team coming up for the first time from the championship thus leaving us exposed to the risks that come with that. I do not think I said we were guaranteed to relegated I was just stating that there is a greater risk with any major change in players and maybe also a manager.

Finally, there are many examples of teams that have been starved of investment in the playing squad whilst in the PL or the old 1st division and who fans wanted more attractive football (Charlton, Bolton, Portsmouth,stoke and sunderland), to name just a few.

Concluding, I'm more than happy to be mid table in PL than being in the lower leagues. Being in and retaining PL status is good for the club financially, with the
great revenue that brings. That not to say I do not like expansive and entertaining football, I do, but when it come to my team I have to be realistic and accept that survival in PL comes with sacrifice!

They came pretty close though to beating us.

And we've won 3 of our last 10 and scored 8 goals. Does that mean we're roughly the same ability wise?

If so we're lucky we have points in hand.

Edited by redshift (09 Mar 2021 6.31pm)