fox in the sox

Since relegation we have signed Fatawu and El Kannouss and brought in Buonanotte on loan (all 20) How can you say we are not signing/looking at young players and building for the future? Of course you have to bring in some more experienced pros to go with them. Yes we are standing still at the moment but that doesn’t mean we can’t go forward again.

You’re not taking notice of the argument - the argument is that we are still a Premier League/top of the Championship side so there doesn’t need to be any blame at this stage as we have been much worse than this for many years of our history. Once we lost so much quality after the first relegation it was obvious that the best we could hope for in the short term is a yo-yo team with the hope that we can eventually build up a team that can compete higher up.

It just seems like people are looking for obscure reasons to prove RVN is better than Cooper. RVN should have taken advantage of a weaker Arsenal today if we are going to look at it like that.

You can only watch this team so many times. He’s only human.

He got a draw against Everton so maybe he would have done better than a 4-0 loss in the reverse fixture.

Well he nearly got a point away at Arsenal so maybe at home to Arsenal?

Surely he will go at the end of the season. There’s not much point doing it before then.

It was surely no coincidence that we looked wide open as soon as Winks replaced Ndidi. He’s a nothing player at this level who doesn’t seem to be able to even pass the ball now.

I can’t see that would leave us in an amazing position when you consider wages, transfer fees, new facilities etc

What was the financial gain though? We were paying such high wages to get where we got to.

No but Blackburn did and they were relegated four years later, quicker than us.

Fulham finished in 7th-9th place for 3 years and got to a European final. 3 years later they were relegated. There are just no recent examples of teams outside the ‘big 6 or 7’ keeping success going for a long period because it only takes a couple of things to go wrong. Fulham fans were probably thinking ‘How have we ended up in the Championship and Leicester have overtaken us.’ It goes in cycles for the mid-size clubs, now Fulham are doing well again and we are struggling to compete at the top level.

There is no point just picking out the likes of Brentford and Bournemouth. There are all the other clubs who are way behind us, many of them such as Stoke and West Brom also had long stays in the Premier League. The problem is when you try to move on from being a team just surviving in the Premier League to try to compete higher up because you need big wages to do that - and when it starts to go wrong for whatever reason (change of manager, injuries etc) it is difficult to turn it around.

But the others are getting a pass because everybody is jumping on the bandwagon to attack Rudkin.

Yes he is one of the reasons but the scouts, financial people and many others may be just as culpable.

Yes Rudkin must take the blame for that along with many others at the club.

But I’m on about this window with people blaming Rudkin for the inactivity. Of course there have been major errors in the past - again though Rudkin is one of many who have made mistakes. He has become an easy target.

But what if Rudkin hasn’t been given funds to get transfers in? Why would it be his fault? That is surely an issue higher up or a PSR issue?

I said this at the start of the season. It seems that 17 clubs will stay up again making them stronger and stronger. If Burnley and Sheff Utd come up again there is no reason to think they will do any better. I can only see Leeds shaking things up.

I don’t think it is rewriting history. In the period up to 2010 we were nowhere near to winning the top flight as we hadn’t been for most of our history. We also only got close to winning the FA Cup in the 60’s. I agree that Vichai made mistakes early on but it was sorted out. This actually gives me more hope that Top can do the same.

Of course you are entitled to your view and to protest. I was just pointing out that you are wrong when you call me a ‘happy clapper’ who thinks everything is rosy.

Everything is not as black and white as you make it. I’m not in favour of a ‘sack the board’ protest but it doesn’t mean I’m a happy clapper who doesn’t think there have been mistakes.

But there was quite a leap from losing in the play offs and 6 years of Championship struggles to eventually winning big titles. We were stuck in the Championship with the likes of Derby and Coventry, I can’t see why our profile would have been higher than them at that stage.

Yes we are now but for the 6 years before the owners arrived we were mainly a very poor Championship side and at that stage we wouldn’t have been ahead of those other teams in terms of media coverage, profile etc.

Of course it’s because of the owners - we were nowhere near to a Premier League title and FA Cup before they arrived. I take your point that it is a different figurehead but a lot of people who brought us the success remain.