C0ck

Interesting point of debate though - what is the criteria for being a 'big club'

From 1979-1990 Nottingham Forest were second only to Liverpool in terms of trophies won. I can't remember them being thought of as one of the big clubs back then, despite all the success they had under Clough.

New era - Ha! Quite the opposite. However, I suppose you are right to a certain extent. I enjoyed 2003-04 with Claudio (apart from Monaco), remember the one before Monaco through? 2nd leg at Highbury, needed 2 to win. That was one for the ages. Then well, 2004-05, 2005-06 great years (on paper) and yet I found myself ever more listless watching the style of play that developed under JM. Also, a massive issue arose back then. One which we ALL used to take the piss out of Man U for. Weekend Warrior 'fans', the f**king prawn sandwich brigade as that twat Keane put it. They began to appear almost overnight. You sure you're not one of them?

What do you consider constitutes a 'big club'? Financial resources, stadia, size of fan base, silverware etc. What's your main criteria for it?

It was a masterclass of sorts, in how to win ugly on a weekly basis. You can't say we played with flair back then though.

What do you consider makes a big club? Stadia, financial clout, attendance, income, silverware? We are talking recently here, NOT historically.

Nope, just measuring things objectively at the moment. This is about Directors/owners/finance.

I just want to go back to enjoying watching us play and not have all this absolute baggage weighting the club down.

United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Man City, Newcastle Utd, Spurs. That's 6 right off the bat that are certainly bigger than us in terms of support, revenue, financial backing and as you've said, stadiums. West Ham and Everton also potentially have claims to be bigger (although less than the above), especially when income generation is taken into account (West Ham especially - for reasons which seem a bit - hmmmm). The last aspect which marked us as a 'big club' was international visibility/marketing but that's been on the wane for years now. And far more clubs not just in La Liga but the Bundesliga and Ligue 1 growing on the international stage now. Realistically we are simply a (bit) bigger than an average domestic top flight club now.

Fair play to Capello on that, didn't really think much of him up till then. Absolute lily livered spineless shower of PC sh*te at the FA, who then proceeded to install an elderly human-owl hybrid who was more likely to piss himself in a nursing home rather than bring it home. An absolutely disgraceful episode.

I wasn't giving the lack of shirt sponsorship as an example of financial probity, it's quite the opposite as it brings in revenue. I was making a general point that you can either spend mega bucks and win titles (in theory) and potentially then go tits up when the owner gets bored/indicted/becomes an international pariah, or play it safe and incur the wrath of fans. That's the situation we find ourselves in because we've deluded ourselves that we're one of the big boys and it's our birth right to be always at least in contention for the league/winning silverware. See the 'Wenger Out' Gooners as an even better example of this. You think we are a much bigger football club than we were in the Roman/JM era? Not a chance. We were punching far above our weight for years, almost decades really. Arguably we are back to our natural level, but without the good times and lets be honest, enjoyment of the 70's or 90's Italian connection. I certainly don't remember any of this identity crisis angst back then. I would venture there are about 6-7 PL clubs that could easily be considered bigger than us now.

I guarantee you would then have people moaning the directors/owners are putting financial probity above winning trophies, they don't care about the club etc etc etc. The genie was let out of the bottle 2 decades ago here and it will never go back in. The real issue is we're just not a big club without the use of financial steroids. People need to accept that.

Just to be clear though, you couldn't pay me enough (LOL) to return to the 2000's RA/JM era either. Trophies aside, a style of play which quite literally left me sedated at times.

Running a successful football club is easy if you have endless kremlin money to throw at it. Not so easy without it, is it?

TBH given the hand that was dealt in Feb/March 2022 I'm not quite sure what people are expecting.