I would say Covid was also something we messed up, Covid was the same for every club, so no reason it should’ve affected us any worse than any other club. As it was, we clearly decided that getting the season curtailed was our best bet to stay up, players were also allowed to coast and do what they wanted due to Pearson being ill and distracted, but physiologically we were done for as all the players had it in their head we wouldn’t be re-starting the season, with our captain digging his heels in and being the last player in the league, let alone club to accept what was happening and return to training. Without Covid, would we have gone down? Probably not with the way our results were going and the momentum we had with Pearson, but equally it was an active choice to go all in on the curtailment scenario. Plan for the worst and hope for the best and all that.
Every relegated club will say the same, wrong players signed, too much spent on one player, not bought a defender or a midfielder or a striker. Of course it's avoidable but when you're a club our size you really have to get an awful lot right which we did for 4 years and then we didn't and got relegated. It was always going to happen at some point and now we're back in The Championship mid table pack which is probably our rightful position
Our last game before Covid halted the league was a 1-0 defeat away at Palace where we were awful. I'm not sure we would have stayed up anyway
Well it’s impossible to say, but a club down the bottom will always lose games here and there, so a one off narrow away defeat in isolation doesn’t tell us much in the same way the very game before that one did, when we beat title winners Liverpool 3-0, which ended their unbeaten run. Although such a good result being only one week before, surely has to hold almost as much relevance as the poor performance at palace you place so much stock in, as far as our prospects for survival if Covid never happened are concerned? I mean, win one lose one for the rest of the season would’ve kept us up comfortably wouldn’t it? The simple point is we tried our best to get the season called off and I think a lot of people at the club, many players included, believe that is what would happen, and when it didn’t, they were not mentally prepared for the fight. The Covid break was ultimately whatever teams wanted to make of it, an opportunity or a curse.
If I remember though our attitude post Covid was poor - strong objectors to operation restart because we were one place above dotted line lol.
Yes we definitely didn’t want to play on as it “wasn’t safe” etc . Trouble is we then had 3 of our own players deciding it was obviously safe enough to have a party or two . And they pretty much got away with it as well . Bet we looked like right old mugs to everyone else ! Particularly Troy on the captains chat .
Well, we were without Deulofeu for the remainder of the season post-Liverpool, but it's true with a bit more effort and application we could have got the two points or one point and better goal difference needed to survive. Even leaving aside Palace, games against Leicester, Burnley, Southampton, West Ham and Arsenal (who only had the FA Cup to play for and had a pretty poor team by their standards) were there for the taking but we only got one point from that lot. Leicester may have been chasing a Champions League place but their form was poor most of the second half of the season (even Norwich beat them), Burnley needs no explanation, Southampton did have a superb away record but they were hardly unstoppable and had lost just before the break 3-1 to West Ham who were otherwise losing to almost everyone at the time and lost at Newcastle and drawn at Everton either side of that. We were the better side at West Ham for a period in the second half but the damage had been completely done, and we gifted Arsenal a three-goal start. One major problem which characterised our performances after the restart was starting games slowly and lethargically, which can suggest problems with fitness as much as tiring in the later stages of games. One point and more fight against Man City to keep the losing margin to no more than two goals (or a one goal defeat to Southampton or West Ham and a 3-0 loss to City, not a particularly tall order) was all it would have taken to stay up. Basically we were sleepwalking our way to relegation, thinking a couple of scrappy home wins against Norwich and Newcastle was enough, before unexpected results from Villa and Bournemouth who'd hardly picked up a point between them since the restart were enough to make us **** our pants in the final three games.
I very much suspect they knew we were going to struggle so cancelling the league was the best way forward
Agree with all of that really, as an aside, I think I got something like 14-1 for us to go down after we beat Newcastle, so ended up making £500 from our relegation as an emotional hedge, because despite the fairly wide odds our direction of travel seemed fairly obvious at that point.
I did the same bet. Even then though if you look at the table after that result it's pretty bonkers that we went down. That weekend both Bournemouth and Villa won . But Bournemouth were 1-0 down to Leicester with 24 mins left and won 4-1 after Soyunchu was sent off. And Villa absolutely jammed their way past 10 man Palace, a game I remember watching with my Villa-supporting brother in law. If either of them had even drawn I think we'd have survived. Ultimately we only went down by 1 point.
Pretty sure it was before, from memory it was just after our game with Newcastle that evening, I couldn’t believe the odds were so wide at that point, maybe @UEA_Hornet can confirm?
Can't remember the exact odds but I lumped on as soon as the final whistle went in the Newcastle match. Pretty sure that was a Saturday lunchtime tv game and then Villa and Bournemouth both played the following day.
Wasn't it Karen Brady who fronted that publicly? I remember her getting all edgy as Spam were close to relegation but in the end stayed up regardless. Yes we had our (numerous) chances to get the points we needed. Losing at West Ham, and at home to Southampton didn't help. But I think the last minute loss at Villa may of started our road to relegation. That was a big three points lost in the dying moments but then again we had to be safe before our final two games which were City and Arsenal, and predictable we got zero from them both. Looking back at the side we had then, although not filled with superstars, and the injury to Delafoo really hampered us during the run in, I think the fact we took it to the final day shows we had enough to maybe pull of the impossible.
Yes frustrating, but again that would be the same for pretty much every club on the list. I reckon we had probably four or five bad summers in a row in regards to transfer windows, and it'll take the same to sort it out. January is always a stop gap despite people getting irate about it. Last summer was the first good window for years because it needed a major clearout, but it'll take a few more good summers to reverse all the damage and by that stage the Premier League will be further away than ever before. That isn't a Pozzo thing or a Watford thing, the Premier League to Championship gap is widening each year. Everyone will have their own view but our biggest error was not keeping and building around Will Hughes. I have very close knowledge of the goings on there and it was a bad error - he should be our skipper right now.
I think it is, yes. Some exceptions to the rule but I think so. It isn't inconceivable that this year the three relegated teams will go straight back up and the three promoted teams will be straight back down.
