Sliding doors

[BeaumontFox]

Hypothetical discussion, but imagine back in 22/23, Madders had scored his penalty against Everton, or Faes didn’t play at Anfield and thus didn’t score 2 OGs... Any of the draws had been a victory, or Everton simply f**ked their final game, and we’d stayed up by the skin of our teeth… How different do you think our situation would be now? I often think about how crucial those two points were.

Edited 26 May 2025 by BeaumontFox

[st albans fox]

Just now, BeaumontFox said:

Hypothetical discussion, but imagine back in 22/23, Madders had scored his penalty against Everton, or Faes didn’t play at Anfield and thus didn’t score 2 OGs... Any of the draws had been a victory and we’d stayed up by the skin of our teeth… How different do you think our situation would be now?

 

Six point deduction last season and we’d have been relegated ……

[BeaumontFox]

Just now, st albans fox said:

Six point deduction last season and we’d have been relegated ……

It’s not as simple as that. The mass exodus of players probably wouldn’t have been as bad. We could’ve retained some of the quality surely.

[Langston]

Not quite what the thread is hypothesising, but I think one of the biggest sliding doors moments we ever had was Fofana's injury in summer 2021.. He was all set up to have a huge season for us.. Wound up buying Vestergaard in a panic..

[st albans fox]

Just now, BeaumontFox said:

It’s not as simple as that. The mass exodus of players probably wouldn’t have been as bad. We could’ve retained some of the quality surely.

We’d have still needed to sell and no way our recruitment would have been good enough 

admittedly being relegated last season would have been difficult but I reckon we’d still have managed it  with that deduction 

[MattFox]

We only needed one win from Bournemouth, Leeds and Everton to stay up 

[sm1]

If Maddison scores the pen we stay up, but that would've just been a temporary fix. The clubs broken, we would've got relegated anyway.

[BeaumontFox]

Just now, MattFox said:

We only needed one win from Bournemouth, Leeds and Everton to stay up 

That’s my point. It only ONE thing had changed.

[BeaumontFox]

2 minutes ago, sm1 said:

If Maddison scores the pen we stay up, but that would've just been a temporary fix. The clubs broken, we would've got relegated anyway.

You’re probably right. It’s a hard pill to swallow looking at our bench now vs the side who were “too good to go down”.

Edited 26 May 2025 by BeaumontFox

[Sly]

Delaying the inevitable 

[Lambert09]

8 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

Six point deduction last season and we’d have been relegated ……

No chance. The competition that season was woeful and we’d have been attractive to a new manager. 
 

we’d have got 25% more for Maddison and would have kept Barnes. 
 

I think that were so poorly run eventually we might have gone down but not the next season.  Scraping around at the bottom of the prem is probably not as enjoyable as a championship campaign though so I’m not sure if I’d have preferred that 

[sdb]

9 minutes ago, Langston said:

Not quite what the thread is hypothesising, but I think one of the biggest sliding doors moments we ever had was Fofana's injury in summer 2021.. He was all set up to have a huge season for us.. Wound up buying Vestergaard in a panic..

Even his injury in the Spurs game we lost, last game of the 2021 season. He stays on, we don't use Ndidi as a CB and we finish 4th. We'd just won the cup so people weren't so down about it, but that game (which meant nothing to Spurs) feels like the beginning of the spiral, in hindsight at lease. 

[Bert]

I think we’d have been in a position to have taken a points deduction still have stayed up the following season. 
 

We would’ve got much more money for Maddison, probably wouldn’t have sold Barnes. Probably wouldn’t have signed players that would get us up from the championship but not good enough to stay in the prem. 

 

But who knows, it didn’t happen and the rest is simply conjecture. 

[BeaumontFox]

8 minutes ago, Lambert09 said:

No chance. The competition that season was woeful and we’d have been attractive to a new manager. 
 

we’d have got 25% more for Maddison and would have kept Barnes. 
 

I think that were so poorly run eventually we might have gone down but not the next season.  Scraping around at the bottom of the prem is probably not as enjoyable as a championship campaign though so I’m not sure if I’d have preferred that 

We’ve been plucked dry of almost all talent. It’s astounding when you compare what we had that season VS now.

 

It’s been a real cock tease of a couple of years. Forest at home 4-0, feeling things were going to be ok and we were back on track before losing it all over international break. January, Villa away when it looked like Tete & Co were the answer to our prayers. The championship win where Enzo looked as though he was going to help us to reinstate ourselves as a stable PL team… Every single positive turned to absolute shit.

 

Now I’m struggling to see any positives.

Edited 26 May 2025 by BeaumontFox

[MattFox]

Bottling top 4 against spurs is the real sliding doors moment tbf

 

 

[BeaumontFox]

4 minutes ago, Bert said:

I think we’d have been in a position to have taken a points deduction still have stayed up the following season. 
 

We would’ve got much more money for Maddison, probably wouldn’t have sold Barnes. Probably wouldn’t have signed players that would get us up from the championship but not good enough to stay in the prem. 

 

But who knows, it didn’t happen and the rest is simply conjecture. 

That’s the point of the thread.

[BeaumontFox]

Just now, MattFox said:

Bottling top 4 against spurs is the real sliding doors moment tbf

 

 

I dunno mate. We ended up in the ECL, you think CL would’ve been better??

[Bert]

1 minute ago, BeaumontFox said:

That’s the point of the thread.

Quite clearly 🤦🏻‍♂️  

[Groby_Blue]

2 minutes ago, BeaumontFox said:

I dunno mate. We ended up in the ECL, you think CL would’ve been better??

£££££££££££££

[EastAnglianFox]

Just now, Bert said:

Quite clearly 🤦🏻‍♂️  

Tbf it does seem that you need things spelling out on here more than most 

[Claudio Fannieri]

20 minutes ago, BeaumontFox said:

Hypothetical discussion, but imagine back in 22/23, Madders had scored his penalty against Everton, or Faes didn’t play at Anfield and thus didn’t score 2 OGs... Any of the draws had been a victory, or Everton simply f**ked their final game, and we’d stayed up by the skin of our teeth… How different do you think our situation would be now? I often think about how crucial those two points were.

Would just have been kicking the can down the road. The rot had already set in because of poor decisions. Even the massive shock of that relegation has not given certain decision makers the kick up the arse so if we had stayed up, it would have just papered over the cracks even more. Whole club is in denial. We are lucky that we got Enzo for 12 months who at least tried to reset the culture of the club, to a point

so is Ruud but he has such a piss poor run he has lost any credibility. 

[SouthStandUpperTier]

10 minutes ago, sdb said:

Even his injury in the Spurs game we lost, last game of the 2021 season. He stays on, we don't use Ndidi as a CB and we finish 4th. We'd just won the cup so people weren't so down about it, but that game (which meant nothing to Spurs) feels like the beginning of the spiral, in hindsight at lease. 

The defence was doing just fine in that game until Kasper punched the ball into his own net.

[Chelmofox]

2 minutes ago, Claudio Fannieri said:

Would just have been kicking the can down the road. The rot had already set in because of poor decisions. Even the massive shock of that relegation has not given certain decision makers the kick up the arse so if we had stayed up, it would have just papered over the cracks even more. Whole club is in denial. We are lucky that we got Enzo for 12 months who at least tried to reset the culture of the club, to a point

so is Ruud but he has such a piss poor run he has lost any credibility. 

My sliding doors moment was the Castagne shot at Newcastle. I thought everything aligned for us that game and was convinced that shot had gone in.

 

To your point though - survive that season and we could have survived the next with a points deduction. It was Everton's time to go, and we let them get away with it.

[The Year Of The Fox]

Wish we had a revolving door.

[Bert]

12 minutes ago, EastAnglianFox said:

Tbf it does seem that you need things spelling out on here more than most 

Bore off, go and pick on someone else. Not my fault you’re bored.