These clowns the other week said we will be the worst league champions for a number of years. All of them previous champions were in receipt of parachute money! We've had this incredible season without the massive parachute money! Makes our season a lot better than previous winners.
I think the bitterness from a lot of these fans is because we took an opportunity that was there for us but might not be there for them if/when they peak. With the horrible start Southampton made and Leicester Ipswich too in terms of performance it was quickly clear there was a bigger chance than usual for a non-parachute team to go up. Other expected big hitters seemed to be struggling too in Sheff Utd, Norwich etc.
These Derby fans have missed out as they are about 2-3 transfer windows behind us with a similar recruitment strategy (albeit I think they are actually spending more and paying more in wages)- Eustace spoke about it a little after their loss against us.
But the peak window to take advantage of the strategy- (have a decent squad at a decent age and well bedded in) is quite a small one. When their peak comes up they might even miss out on the playoffs if the parachute teams have their act together or a Wrexham/Birmingham are spending bigger sums than them and a couple of other teams are peaking at the same time.
And if you miss the chance at the peak the squad more often than that goes. We were lucky Frank and Doug kept our squad together even when Southampton wanted Rudi, Bobby to Sheff Utd and Milan looked likely to go to Wolfsburg. The players who could have gone wanted to give Frank one more year, most other clubs wont get that togetherness. That gamble payed off for everyone. But if we didn't go up this year imo it would likely be a sizeable rebuild to quite a few key players.
Benjamin Bloom (imo a decent fan/pundit) called it in September he was saying how surprisingly open the Championship has turned out this season and how if any club wants to put their foot down there is a massive rare opportunity here. And only one team did and was able to.
But what makes it great with the 2nd Tier Podcast specifically is that Lampard was the early season punchline to their jokes. For example the loser of their prediction league has to be a Frank Lampard superfan for the day. At the start of the season they were chuckling but Frank has taken a team that spend well into the bottom half of the championship on wages and made them at least top 2. I'm not sure there are many other managers out there who could have done that with our resources.
Well the season is very nearly up and Frank is walking onto the pitch potentially with a Championship winners medal around his neck saying to those jokers "How do you like that big boy?"!!
