The 2003/4 Championship team...

was actually an above-average team which had a freak year where everything which could go right did go right. And a lot of those players were on the old side (Flem, Malky, Eddy, Iwan, Svenny, Holt) or on loan (Crouch, Harper, that bloke from Wolves). We spent our Prem money trying to compete but the gap is a large one and the players we had weren't up to it. And the ones we brought in were left on the bench or injured (or also not up to it).
So when we didn't stay up we were left with neither the Championship team (got too old, moved on to better things etc) or their Prem replacements.

So we had to build a new team almost from scratch, which used up the rest of the money and didn't really cut the mustard (and had a lot of bad luck with injuries).

And here we are. Back where we started, at a more realistic level, except with a better ground and more fans.

Posted By: mr carra, Jul 17, 14:57:58