Viva

We’ll be favourites to win the league next season if we go down and will have a decent chance of coming straight back up.

Skipp would be fine for us if we’re in the Championship. He was in the PFA team of the year when he helped Norwich win the league. Would like to keep Ndidi, but everyone must have a price.

There are plenty of world class defenders in the Premier League. Do you think I’m really suggesting every Premier League player is world class? The level of quality overall is far higher than the Championship. There isn’t a single world class defender in the Championship. The two leagues aren’t comparable, which is why we’d be top of one and nearly bottom of the other.

You’ve given a bad example there. One of the best defences in the league. Most clubs in Europe would like to sign Branthwaite.

The Premier League is just a whole different level to the Championship though. No matter what people currently think, we would probably be top of the Championship now if we was in it. I wouldn’t at all be against trying Alves in the Championship. He’s done nothing to suggest he is ready for a Premier League start though and also can’t be tearing it up in training.

The simple difference is we are up against world class defenders and Cardiff aren’t.

I’d say in 9 cases out of 10 it’s as simple as that for Braybrooke. You don’t perform well enough for Dundee, in most cases that wouldn’t mean you are ready to start in the Premier League. Those players that might not do it in training have probably proven themselves either at that club or at their previous clubs. Alves hasn’t proved anything.

Right, just for an example, let’s assume maybe that Kristiansen and Thomas get the better of Alves in training. Would that make you want to chuck Alves in against much better defenders, or maybe make you think he’s not quite ready for that yet? We are not in the training pitch so can’t give you that answer, but the people that make the decisions are.

Cardiff are playing in a league that is massively inferior to the league we are in. It’s not comparable. Enzo, Cooper, Ruud all saw Alves every day in training and didn’t play him. We are now struggling and in desperate need of points. Do you really think Ruud would send him away if he thought he was ready or had the quality to play in the Premier League? He obviously hasn’t shown the required level yet and therefore needs to gain some experience at a much lower level.

People were wanting Braybrooke to be given a chance too. He went to Dundee and couldn’t even get a kick there. Just because we are struggling, it still doesn’t mean Alves is a better player than McAteer or Ayew.

Maybe he’s just not as good as people hope yet? Classic case of anybody not playing in a losing team seem better than what they are.

Can’t beat the hog roast at the back of the old Kop!

If it hadn’t worked, I think we could have been struggling at the bottom end of the Championship now, playing the kids. We would have had a transfer embargo for potentially a long time, with points deductions. We would have been in a similar mess whether we spent any money in the Championship or not though, if we didn’t get promoted. If we get relegated this season, the financial situation will not be anywhere near as bad.

I’ll be amazed if we get a transfer embargo. They can’t do us for 2023-24 as we have been found to be inside the rules. So it’s only that historical breach. We only got a transfer embargo before because we refused to give them our current finances and predictions for that season. If we are inside the rules next season, that won’t be an issue. We could end up at most I would have thought with a token couple of points deduction for the historical breach. I think we’ll get out of that too though.

I get the feeling people will still be going about the context of why we aren’t a top five team anymore even if we become a mid table Premier League team.

You think if we spent £50m we would stay up? I’d say probably not. We would then be in a right mess with points deductions and a future transfer embargo in the Championship. Now is not the time to be overspending. We’ll have a strong squad if we got relegated, to have a decent chance of promotion next season.

You think a Championship team containing Fatawu, Bilal, Mavididi, Winks, Ndidi, Ricardo, Vestergaard (class player in that league), Justin, Coady/Okoli/Nelson a decent young goalie and probably Vardy is poor? That’s with no other signings too. You can’t compare that squad to Luton’s in the Championship. We would be favourites/ joint fav to win the league.

Yesterday was poor. As was Wolves. If the players got booed at the end of each of those matches, I wouldn’t have an issue. My main point, is the massive overreaction every time we lose any game on here. Most losses are to be expected in our position. Booing players during matches, when players get subbed on or off, singing about being crap and getting relegated, just isn’t going to help anything. Thats the plain fact of it.

Yes at some points you have to take risks. The spending of money in the January we got relegated was one of them and then spending money to get back at the first attempt was the other. One paid off, one didn’t. If we get relegated this season, our finances will be nowhere near as bad as the last time we went down. The wage bill is lower and one or two of the very high years of losses will be off the three year cycle for PSR.

The Championship isn’t that good. Leeds are top with a vastly inferior squad to when we played them last season.

Mavididi and Winks were key parts of our Championship promotion. We needed to get promoted or we would have been in big trouble. Had to do what was needed.

I'm not going to list all the good signings, but we made plenty of them recently too. We'll be favourites to win the Championship next season if we go down. We will have more than a good enough squad to get promoted again. There is just a huge gap between the two leagues.

Still doesn't make it a crap squad. A squad that drastically underperformed, yes.

It wasn't a crap squad of players as they had achieved two top 5 Premier League finishes and an FA Cup win.

We aren't buying players so we are compliant with PSR and don't get hit by a load of charges by the EFL if we get relegated. Getting relegated previously with a squad that had a top 8 wage bill, obviously wasn't part of the plan and has made things tough.