[Albion] "Too good to go down"

[Johnny RoastBeef]

Over the course of a season no team is too good to go down if they go down!!!

Almost true, but try telling that to Bournemouth who went down last season because Goal Line Technology failed to rule out a valid Sheff Utd goal versus Villa, that ultimately relegated the Cherries.

Will Lee Mason's brain fart cost us the point that sends us down?

 

[Icy Gull]

No way, imo you are looking through striped tinted glasses. We are no better than Fulham or Newcastle. No one except us will remember our good football if we go down. Anyway Fulham play good football like us, will they be remembered as the best team to go down ever if they get relegated? No

I’ll remember Fulham as the team who had more loanees in the team than players they owned. They do don’t they?

Seem to remember Forest were too good to go down and they haven’t come back since either. They went down with Clough as manager I think too

 

[Springal]

Most of my neutral mates don't think we are to good to go down, because we don't score enough goals.

We play footballer that football bloggers or those with a photo of a footballer as their photo on Twitter is perceived as good - but it is not cutting edge enough to be 'good' football.

Genuinely I don't think to many of our players would be sought after by PL clubs if we got relegated. Probably White & maybe Bissouma & Webster, maybe Alex Mac but the rest are probably somewhere between PL & Championship quality.

That is not to criticise the players as we have a very young squad and there is potential there. Different levels of course, but at least under Poyet we did play with some cutting edge, unfortunately at this level we lack that

 

[elwheelio]

In recent ish times I remember the Blackpool team that played wide open expansive football under Holloway , they won a few games early on in the season like 3-2 4-3 sort of scoreline and the media were comparing their attacking style to Brazil but their defending akin to Sunday league pub team , much like Brighton they were exciting to watch but came up short to the sorrow of the media .

I don't think we are quite as bad at defending as that Blackpool team were , but the similarity is there for all to see .

If we do go down then I think we will always be remembered as the best ever Premier League team to have been relegated by a country mile .

Is your last paragraph a joke?

 

[Weststander]

Bournemouth

 

[Joey Jo Jo Jr. Shabadoo]

That West Ham team that got relegated should have been top half - incredible group of players. Didn't they get 40 points or have I mixed them up with another team?

The Leeds team that got relegated in the early Noughties was decent too

2002-03 West Ham side got relegated on 42 points which I believe is the record number of points a team has gone down with in a 38 game season, they'd finished 7th the previous season with 53 points.

Leeds but, most famously Manchester City who actually slid from the equivalent of the Premiership straight down to tier 3 !

That came in the Premier League era of football. City were relegated from the PL in 1995-96 season (having finished 16th and 17th the previous two seasons) they were then relegated to what is now League One after two seasons in the second flight. I don't know if they were ever considered too good to go down in 95-96 though as they'd been a bit of a yo-yo club for 10 years by that point.

 

[Stato]

The one that comes to mind is the last Nottingham Forest side to be in the top division. I've looked it up and it was 1996/97. They had finished 9th the year before, but ended up dead last on 34 points, despite everyone saying that they couldn't possibly. Frank Clark sacked and replaced with Dave Bassett part way through the season. The squad included: Steve Stone, Bryan Roy, Ian Woan, Kevin Campbell, Dean Saunders,Colin Cooper, Alf Inge Haaland, Mark Crossley, David Phillips, Scot Gemmill, Pierre Van Hooijdonk and Stuart Pearce, who was player manager for a few months in between Clark and Bassett.

 

[maresfield seagull]

Good enough to stay up But Not good enough ,to not go down

 

[Lifelong Supporter]

I think we would be seen as a club that rather lost the plot. All the foundations in place, decent money spent but not the strikers or choice of strikers to score the goals that win football matches. It was inevitable that Murray would lose his PL edge and what have we done about it ? Not enough !!!! This is pretty clear whether we stay up or do down.

'Too good to go down' ? No way, our strikers are not that !!

 

[zefarelly]

I don't think too good to go down is a thing, it's more a too stubborn or too nice to stay up. Bmuff and Fulham most recently spring to mind.

certain managers get reputations as being relegation winners for turning up instilling fire, belief, confidence and battling grit, not necessarily the way forward but it often gets a job done, with £100m + at stake clubs take desperate measures.

hopefully Tony has a chat with GreyHam to remind him about the scale of the stakes, and requests he instills some of those things at the expense of the unicorn model, for a few weeks at least, to see us safe.

Our current trajectory suggests too nice to stay up.

 

[blue-shifted]

The one that comes to mind is the last Nottingham Forest side to be in the top division. I've looked it up and it was 1996/97. They had finished 9th the year before, but ended up dead last on 34 points, despite everyone saying that they couldn't possibly. Frank Clark sacked and replaced with Dave Bassett part way through the season. The squad included: Steve Stone, Bryan Roy, Ian Woan, Kevin Campbell, Dean Saunders,Colin Cooper, Alf Inge Haaland, Mark Crossley, David Phillips, Scot Gemmill, Pierre Van Hooijdonk and Stuart Pearce, who was player manager for a few months in between Clark and Bassett.

This is exactly what we need.

To see players named.

Nobody remembers off the top of their head who was playing in a relegated Leeds team 17 years ago

 

[Change at Barnham]

I can't remember the year (pre-Premier League?) but I recall Norwich City looking safe as houses with not many games left in the season, but suddenly just about every result went against them and they got relegated.

Does anyone else recall that or am I imagining it?

 

[loz]

Interesting chat this.

I maybe a bit biased but the Palace side that were relegated on 49 points in 92 /93 were not too shabby all be it a 42 game season, got to the semi final in the league cup as well.

The palace side that went down in 94 / 95 season on 45 points and reaching the semifinals of both cups were pretty good as well...spurning the old joke which club were in the last 4 of all competitions

 

[Change at Barnham]

I can't remember the year (pre-Premier League?) but I recall Norwich City looking safe as houses with not many games left in the season, but suddenly just about every result went against them and they got relegated.

Does anyone else recall that or am I imagining it?

I think this is the one that is in my memory bank.....
7th at Christmas, pushing for Europe and then won only one of their last 20 games, finishing 20th.
Probably not 'too good to go down', but certainly went into a tailspin.

Despite losing striker Chris Sutton to Blackburn Rovers before the start of the season in England's first £5 million transfer, Norwich made a strong start to the season and seemed capable of reproducing their impressive form of the two previous seasons. By Christmas, they stood seventh in the table and looked good bets for a UEFA Cup place.

But then it all went wrong, after an injury to first-choice goalkeeper Bryan Gunn. Their final good result of the season was a 2-1 victory over title challengers Newcastle United on New Year's Eve and after that, the Canaries went into a sudden freefall, won only one of their final 20 league games (a 3-0 home win over Ipswich Town in the East Anglian derby which still kept them in 11th) and plunged into 20th place and relegation after a seven-match losing streak followed by a draw - ending their nine-year tenure in the top flight just two years after they had narrowly missed out on the league title.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

We got away with an awful lot in 18/19 and were definitely not too good to go down.
Chris stuck to his beliefs and played ultra-defensively to keep us up.

Last season, I felt that GP set us up to be more defensive in the crunch games.
I wonder if he will be similarly pragmatic now.

 

[Starry]

we were relegated with a squad including matteo, viduka, radebe, milner, lennon, johnson, robinson, kelly, harte on paper and as individual players, too good to go down - but we went down on 33 points (as did leicester and wolves who dropped with us) so we clearly stunk the place out

 

[vagabond]

"Too good to go down"

I haven’t looked into this too much, but if I recall that West Ham team that went down probably has a lot of parallels with ours. Lots of young talent. Some exciting players who went on to have good careers at bigger clubs. Played good football, good refreshing attacking manager at the time. Yet were unlucky a lot and didn’t win very often.

Gulp.

 

[Johnny RoastBeef]

Juventus got relegated with 91 points in 2005/06, having lost only 1 match. They were definately too good to go down. But thats what you get for cheating.

 

[Stato]

This is exactly what we need.

To see players named.

Nobody remembers off the top of their head who was playing in a relegated Leeds team 17 years ago

If you know the season, then Wiki usually has a page for that team in that season: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003–04_Leeds_United_A.F.C._season#First-team_squad

That Leeds one had Paul Robinson,Gary Kelly, Ian Harte, Alan Smith, Viduka, Barmby, Lennon,Wilcox, Mcphail, Batty, Matteo, Radebe, Duberry, Bakke, Scott Carson and a very young James Milner. You'd say that they should have been far too good for relegation, a lot of this lot had played CL football in the few seasons before, but the club was a mess with three managers across the season; Peter Reid, Eddie Gray and Kevin Blackwell and by the following season all bar Kelly, Radebe, Lennon & Bakke were gone.

 

[Swansman]

I haven’t looked into this too much, but if I recall that West Ham team that went down probably has a lot of parallels with ours. Lots of young talent. Some exciting players who went on to have good careers at bigger clubs. Played good football, good refreshing attacking manager at the time. Yet were unlucky a lot and didn’t win very often.

Gulp.

They had a lot of experienced players (for once, not usually their style). Matthew Upson, Tal Ben-Haim, Wayne Bridge, Kieron Dyer, Boa Morte, Hitzlsperger, Benni McCarthy.. players who had either just failed somewhere or were on their way down.