For a club like yours the steps should surely be;
1. Promotion
2. Survival
3. Consolidation
4. Establish
5. Aim towards the limit of your capability
Any step may take a few years, you could skip a step, or you may need a couple of goes to achieve any one of them.
This season survival is the key, the money the tv deal brings will dramatically change the finances of your club, and the caliber of players you can attract will change to match that. A few seasons in the top flight under the right management (from boardroom to boot-room) and Brighton won't be a plucky little club patronised by the pundits and underestimated by the opposition, but a fixture of the league.
Look at Southampton, they came up after years in the lower leagues, stayed up and now a season flirting with relegation is unlikely. They'll be able to compete in the cups if they take them seriously and are fortunate with fixtures.
Hell the last time we went down and returned we fluked a 5th placed finish, a combination of poor management from the owner and a poor manager screwed us, but had we been better run we could have strengthened from a position of power and consolidated as a top half team.
The top of the Premier League isn't a closed shop as proven by Spurs. Sure they benefit from being financially secure and being a fashionable club, but with the right manager at the helm and sound purchases and they have (in my life time) moved from a quintessential midtable club, into one of the best teams in the country, playing some of the best football.
Also, I don't know how wealthy your owners are, but being in the top flight will have sickening rich people casting admiring glances your way. The kind of wealth that will allow you to grow exponentially. You also benefit from being close to London, which is a huge thing for a club these days as players will be more likely to sign for you than Burnley, say.
It may be years of midtable mediocrity, but as long as you don't treat the top flight as either a lovely adventure (like Blackpool/Hull) or the limit of your ambition (like Sunderland/West Brom/Stoke) it's ****ing brilliant.
1. Promotion
2. Survival
3. Consolidation
4. Establish
5. Aim towards the limit of your capability
Any step may take a few years, you could skip a step, or you may need a couple of goes to achieve any one of them.
This season survival is the key, the money the tv deal brings will dramatically change the finances of your club, and the caliber of players you can attract will change to match that. A few seasons in the top flight under the right management (from boardroom to boot-room) and Brighton won't be a plucky little club patronised by the pundits and underestimated by the opposition, but a fixture of the league.
Look at Southampton, they came up after years in the lower leagues, stayed up and now a season flirting with relegation is unlikely. They'll be able to compete in the cups if they take them seriously and are fortunate with fixtures.
Hell the last time we went down and returned we fluked a 5th placed finish, a combination of poor management from the owner and a poor manager screwed us, but had we been better run we could have strengthened from a position of power and consolidated as a top half team.
The top of the Premier League isn't a closed shop as proven by Spurs. Sure they benefit from being financially secure and being a fashionable club, but with the right manager at the helm and sound purchases and they have (in my life time) moved from a quintessential midtable club, into one of the best teams in the country, playing some of the best football.
Also, I don't know how wealthy your owners are, but being in the top flight will have sickening rich people casting admiring glances your way. The kind of wealth that will allow you to grow exponentially. You also benefit from being close to London, which is a huge thing for a club these days as players will be more likely to sign for you than Burnley, say.
It may be years of midtable mediocrity, but as long as you don't treat the top flight as either a lovely adventure (like Blackpool/Hull) or the limit of your ambition (like Sunderland/West Brom/Stoke) it's ****ing brilliant.
