[Albion] There goes Europe

Justice said:

Has the relaxed revolving door policy finally bit us on the arse? I haven’t seen a team out there fighting for each other for weeks. Individuals trying to hit the headlines with a wonder shot when better options on the pitch have been available I see plenty of those.
We have become sloppy the manager wants a bigger club, players want to play for a bigger club no wonder we are suffering.
The club got complacent thinking we had enough to cruise through another season. To be fair to RDZ he kept telling them they didn’t.

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Perfidious Albion said:

It is still too early to write off Europe next year. But even if we don’t, just consider who we are and how far we have come. From bumping along the bottom of the Prem just a few years back we are now among the best.
Are we not getting a little “ entitled “? We did the Europa League for the first time and now people expect it all the time.
I will not be sorry if we finish top half but below the Europa League places. Next year with our best players back we can concentrate on domestic competitions and maybe bring some overdue silverware to the Amex.

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dejavuatbtn said:

Top ten squad with the biggest surplus in PL history - all from dregs of fortnightly trips to a town full of dog shit.
Yep, one thing’s for sure, we won’t be going to Hereford in the league next season.

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portlock seagull said:

“It absolutely was…”, “the simple fact…”

Exactly. Hence why it was never realistically on!! Doh.

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Peacehaven Wild Kids said:

Personally I’ve been reading this “qualifying for Europe” thingy for the last few weeks in the same context as a time I read a Pompey forum.

It was a good few years ago and they were literally flat broke and on a thread discussing how much was owed to the players someone piped up (in all seriousness) “Any news on the new stadium? “

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macbeth said:

my argument was that it was on until we lost our matchwinners. those other teams just have several more available than us

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portlock seagull said:

Again, precisely. Bigger better richer squads always win in the end. We knew this starting out. Naive to think we’d go through season without at some stage. Fun whilst lasted.

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macbeth said:

but this is where my frustration lies with the recruitment last summer. because, as much as we’ve fallen short at the end, it’s not like we are a million miles off. west ham managed to sign kudus, chelsea signed palmer, both players we tried for but couldn’t get done for whatever reason. had we managed that, and addressed a couple of the obvious, glaring holes that everyone could see within the squad, it could’ve been a very different story

the profit from mac and caicedo was all well and good, but it absolutely was not reinvested properly (so far, there’s still plenty more). that’s what’s going to either set us apart from the likes of southampton, or condemn us to the same fate. they sold van dijk and replaced him with vestergaard and hoedt (who they already had), neither of whom were that good, and wasted other money on carrillo and elyounoussi, who were both crap. then at that point, the pipeline for talent was no longer there, which then subsequently impacted their ability to repeat the ‘sell high and replace well’ trick in future windows. and it was a gradual downward spiral from there. obviously it would have been impossible for them to directly replace VVD, but they got it wrong, and broke that chain of being able to develop and sell the replacement.

i think we’ve done well with baleba and pedro, and they’ll develop to be really good players, and we still have enciso, mitoma and pervis who are great assets, but there’s only so many windows where we can make the mistake of not reinvesting the profits correctly before we end up on that same downward spiral

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portlock seagull said:

#TeamsLikeBrighton cannot sustain any degree of success at the very top of the pyramid. The system is stacked against. We know this. Many on here call it corruption, and it sort of is. I get that argument. Do well, and you’re dissembled. The money, even record amounts of, cannot replace fast enough or repair the damage caused by success. Martin Samuel’s did an article on this recently but many of us were saying same well before. Our success was and always will be a ‘blip’ because of the richer clubs. Anyone who doesn’t understand this or believes otherwise is kidding themselves. We’re not supposed to win things or keep best employees, football is rigged towards a handful of immensely rich and powerful clubs. It’s entertainment masked as sport. I see it for what it is and enjoy the moment. Zero expectation mind!

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macbeth said:

all the more reason to try our best to make it count when we do find ourselves in strong positions, then. barber is mentioning about competing for silverware - best strike whilst the iron is hot!

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