Will we see the premiership again - and do we want to?

[BWFC_Insane]

This is something that is topical in more ways than one. We're seeing the fight for survival in the premiership play out currently with teams sacking managers to try and survive.

Its been pointed out that Nottingham Forest have spent 'somewhere around £160M' to bridge the gap between the championship and premiership and are currently outside the bottom three on goal difference. I don't know what debt that involves or whatever...but....

We have a significant cliff edge between league one and the championship too financially. One that could be tricky to bridge. We've seen Wigan struggle - and have spent more than we have too. Even if its possible with excellent management to bridge that gap and survive I think that's broadly where the possibility ends. We've already heard Sharon say that should we get to the championship that is where her and the FV investment group would need 'help' or to find further investment to progress.

In football anything is possible. We could go up (maybe even this season) survive a season by some luck, find some investor who is willing to push us further on - maybe even retaining Sharon and the board - get up towards the top half of the championship and eventually challenge for promotion. I don't think it's very likely. Not unless the financial pyramid of football changes considerably. We've fallen at the worst possible time in that regard. But nothing is ever 'impossible' in football.

Now the likelihood is one thing. The other question is 'would we want to'. And I guess Sunday has shown that you can have immense pride in your team and live the big occasions outside the top flight. I'm not convinced that being in the premiership would have felt much better than Sunday - and comes with the considerable downsides of increased financial stability risks - the nonsense of top flight football with its VAR and never ending procession of massive spenders and conveyor belt of plucky clubs being asset stripped by the 'big boys' if they dare to actually achieve something. On the other hand - if we don't want to can a club the size of Bolton sustain itself on the 'never never' without that ultimate ambition and actual possibility of sitting again at the top flight. We've seen of late Preston (the closest example I can think of) and plenty of unrest there. A solid championship club in debt to an owner who has kept them there brilliantly but been unable to propel them further forward. The mantra of 'its just great to have a club' and feeling of a 'journey back' doesn't sustain you forever and I wonder at what point fans lose interest if they feel its just treading water at best season after season with little promise of anything beyond that?

For me this all speaks to problems in football - not Bolton Wanderers. We are well run, hopefully relatively secure and still on an upwards journey. The town and team have never been closer and that is great to see.

But the ultimate problem is that 'glass ceiling'. Back in 2005 that ceiling was maybe 6th or even 5th in the top flight. And people were frustrated with that. Manager, fans, players. But we were in many senses one of the european 'elites' for a few seasons and still the ceiling caused issues. Consider now that ceiling is maybe 14th-10th in the championship. If we were to get there I do wonder how long it would take for people to lose interest and things to slide backwards somewhat. Equally if we were to find a way to propel ourselves beyond that would we enjoy the journey with the extra risks and likely initial failures - we didn't magic our way to premiership solidity overnight it took close to a decade and the gap was much smaller then......

[TANGODANCER]

Too big a jump for quite a while for me..We need to really concentrate on staying alive, with League One yet a hopeful dream. Festina Lente.

[truewhite15]

I'd always prefer to see the club as high up the pyramid as possible. I mean, what else is competition for? I wouldn't trade the club for it, though. If that means settling for mid-table mediocrity in thr Championship - well, I've seen the other end. I was at Wycombe, and watched the kids vs Coventry, thinking I'd never see us play again. I can settle.

[Worthy4England]

I'd always prefer to see the club as high up the pyramid as possible. I mean, what else is competition for? I wouldn't trade the club for it, though. If that means settling for mid-table mediocrity in thr Championship - well, I've seen the other end. I was at Wycombe, and watched the kids vs Coventry, thinking I'd never see us play again. I can settle.

Yeah - pretty much where I am with it, TW15. I'm a little mystified around IE's aspirations to be there in 5 years (think this is one of those 5), because it's going to take more than nous from the manager. I'm struggling to see a model that doesn't stretch your investments (just some that maybe do it less so than others) and even those look more like 10 year plans, if you're lucky, rather than 4th Div to 1st in consecutive seasons...The table stakes for the Champo are significant (Wigan are losing shed loads to be last). In the Prem, they're huge. So I don't see us doing this easily, without generating a shed load of cash through player trading (most of the Clubs previously highlighted were flogging £15m assets) or Mr/Mrs Sugar Daddy, which has it's own problems, when they stop throwing money away...

[BWFC_Insane]

I'd always prefer to see the club as high up the pyramid as possible. I mean, what else is competition for? I wouldn't trade the club for it, though. If that means settling for mid-table mediocrity in thr Championship - well, I've seen the other end. I was at Wycombe, and watched the kids vs Coventry, thinking I'd never see us play again. I can settle.

Yeah - pretty much where I am with it, TW15. I'm a little mystified around IE's aspirations to be there in 5 years (think this is one of those 5), because it's going to take more than nous from the manager. I'm struggling to see a model that doesn't stretch your investments (just some that maybe do it less so than others) and even those look more like 10 year plans, if you're lucky, rather than 4th Div to 1st in consecutive seasons...The table stakes for the Champo are significant (Wigan are losing shed loads to be last). In the Prem, they're huge. So I don't see us doing this easily, without generating a shed load of cash through player trading (most of the Clubs previously highlighted were flogging £15m assets) or Mr/Mrs Sugar Daddy, which has it's own problems, when they stop throwing money away...

Yeah I'm in the camp of 'have to dream' otherwise what's the point? BUT lets protect the club at all costs first and foremost. There is something about the way Sharon runs us that I think has connected with the town and probably if I'm honest more so than even the premiership days did.

I mean we're bringing in big crowds now - ones that are pushing towards what we might have attracted as a top flight side (and wouldn't have come close to these crowds in the 80's or early 90's) so there is something to be said for the ability to keep ticket prices down, build a community and really link the town and club together.

I'm enjoying it. I actually think we've probably slightly underperformed in the league this season. We've seen how good we are in glimpses but I think we've probably slipped a little under our ability in league positioning. But there is time to fix that.

The premiership as much as I'd love to be there again it does scare me. The reality of it is truly scary now. Equally we've just won a trophy for the first time in over 30 years so its important not to rose tint where we are. Plenty to enjoy about the club but also plenty of games at this level are pretty dire affairs.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Fascinating topic. It's something that's worried me for a while. It even worries me about the second division, which is even more of a financial basket case; at least Prem clubs are making the money they spunk, whereas almost also Champo clubs' seasons incur losses running from the eye-watering to the life-threatening.

I completely understand the desire to compete as high as possible, and if we get to the play-off final I'll be rooting for us to win. But a win would come with worry. Do we try to get by on third-tier expenditure, as Wycombe and Rotherham did? Can we learn from say Luton and Coventry?

More personally, I would worry immensely about Evatt. Although it's possible we'd adapt well a division up - more "footballing" teams, none of your cow-fields - fact is we are far more likely in the next tier up to find ourselves losing more than we win. And Bolton fans (here and elsewhere) have frequently proven themselves short of patience with Evattball when we don't win every game. I can picture us having a month of losses and the pressure growing. Sharon and the board were patient in the Fourth Division and again at times last season; would they be patient if faced with a real relegation potential? Would Evatt fall out of love with Bolton?

If we go up, there are a few paths we could follow. All of them prompt questions.

1. Get investment. From whom? How much input would they have? Are they good people? What happens to FV?

2. Don't get investment - try to stay up on third-tier, or at least sensible, budgets. Can the players/coaches cope? Can the fans?

3. Without new board input, take bigger risks. Do our board members actually have the money? Will they take the risk? What if we go down anyway?

These are all reasons the Champo scares me, and why I'm kinda quite happy where we are - winning more than losing, tracking upwards. When I started watching Wanderers, we spent a decade in this division (or the one below it) so it's felt weirdly like home to me. Under Parky, it was far more enjoyable in this division than the one above. Maybe it'd be different under Evatt. Or maybe it'd just be more fiercely divided.

[officer_dibble]

I’ve always said I’d rather win an FA cup than win the battle to stay in the premier league season on season (Everton). We dared to dream that one a couple of times - it’s why when we got down to this level I was keen on us giving this competition a proper go. It’s actually been a real bonus of being down here, despite the strife of the earlier rounds and games v u21s etc.

For me you live for games like yesterday - I want us to do as well as we can but you have to accept with the highs come the lows…can’t beat being a Bolton fan at the end of the day. There’s no way a bog standard premier league fan gets that high we had!

I honestly don’t know whether we will be top flight again - and if we do, we won’t enjoy it!

[Worthy4England]

I'd just question whether there's a medium/long term sustainable model for "missing out" in League 1. Leeds, Sunderland, Ipswich etc. all spent a chunk of time down here, but they all have pretty strong catchment areas. At the moment, we're making year on year progress, but I wonder whether we'd be improving numbers if we were having a season like Oxford/MKD (who performed well last year and this are fighting at the other end) and hadn't made the PJ final.

The other part, is if we're a selling club, to make the investment headroom, then when we flog Dapo, Aimson and a few others, we probably need to accept that and hope it beds in, rather than doing major drama.

Not a criticism of the way we're heading - it's great at the minute - but everything's been pretty much positive since FV took over.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

I'd just question whether there's a medium/long term sustainable model for "missing out" in League 1. Leeds, Sunderland, Ipswich etc. all spent a chunk of time down here, but they all have pretty strong catchment areas. At the moment, we're making year on year progress, but I wonder whether we'd be improving numbers if we were having a season like Oxford/MKD (who performed well last year and this are fighting at the other end) and hadn't made the PJ final.

This is true. Take the Neal era - after relegation to the Fourth in 87, it was upwards - promotion in 88, cup win and strong league finish in 89, play off semis in 90, play off final in 91 - but then 91/92, barring some cup-run fun (Swindon/Southampton – minor compared to what came soon after), was a huge disappointment and he paid with his job.

Course Rioch then gave us the ride of our lives, and Todd the best season ever (no takebacks turnaroundtouchtheground), and the Premier era began. But that one season of backsliding under Neal felt like an eternity and things soon went sour.

[BWFC_Insane]

Fascinating topic. It's something that's worried me for a while. It even worries me about the second division, which is even more of a financial basket case; at least Prem clubs are making the money they spunk, whereas almost also Champo clubs' seasons incur losses running from the eye-watering to the life-threatening.

I completely understand the desire to compete as high as possible, and if we get to the play-off final I'll be rooting for us to win. But a win would come with worry. Do we try to get by on third-tier expenditure, as Wycombe and Rotherham did? Can we learn from say Luton and Coventry?

More personally, I would worry immensely about Evatt. Although it's possible we'd adapt well a division up - more "footballing" teams, none of your cow-fields - fact is we are far more likely in the next tier up to find ourselves losing more than we win. And Bolton fans (here and elsewhere) have frequently proven themselves short of patience with Evattball when we don't win every game. I can picture us having a month of losses and the pressure growing. Sharon and the board were patient in the Fourth Division and again at times last season; would they be patient if faced with a real relegation potential? Would Evatt fall out of love with Bolton?

If we go up, there are a few paths we could follow. All of them prompt questions.

1. Get investment. From whom? How much input would they have? Are they good people? What happens to FV?

2. Don't get investment - try to stay up on third-tier, or at least sensible, budgets. Can the players/coaches cope? Can the fans?

3. Without new board input, take bigger risks. Do our board members actually have the money? Will they take the risk? What if we go down anyway?

These are all reasons the Champo scares me, and why I'm kinda quite happy where we are - winning more than losing, tracking upwards. When I started watching Wanderers, we spent a decade in this division (or the one below it) so it's felt weirdly like home to me. Under Parky, it was far more enjoyable in this division than the one above. Maybe it'd be different under Evatt. Or maybe it'd just be more fiercely divided.

Ultimately if Evatt has ambitions of being a top manager then he needs to deal with that sort of scenario. And learn how. As a manager you will need to adapt to situations and find ways of getting the best out of your players.

IF we were to go up I think we'd need huge patience with it. Parky got untold stick but worked absolute miracles with basically nothing here and I think Evatt would need to do something along those lines. Hopefully he'd have more patience from the fans than was afforded Phil but at the same time he would definitely have unconditional backing from the owners.

At Bolton Evatt can lose 5 on the bounce and not even think about his job. He might have fans being unhappy but lets be honest it would be nowt compared to basically anywhere he'd move to if he lost 5 in a row. And he'd know Sharon would not bin him. But with that comes the responsibility to make the best of whatever we have and if he was to 'give up' because things were less than ideal then he's not got what it takes. I happen to think he has got what it takes to make it but possibly and arguably is one where the club and fit is huge in determining that.

The test for me would be Evatt and what he feels is needed to compete and whether like you say we can provide that. Ultimately we've seen managers outgrow Bolton, one way or another.

[boltonboris]

To answer your question, without all the if's and but's, surely the answer is "Yes", right?

[irie Cee Bee]

As much as Evatt loves Bolton, without financial backing he will be gone after one year fighting relegation in the Championship. Many other clubs will be after him making big offers. I frankly am finding the Premiership very predictable and mundane. Its out of our reach without heavy investment and to what end...battling relegation as the big teams fight for European places. . I thouroughly enjoy winning games and am enjoying this season in L1. Do I want to stay there, no, but It will be very tough in the championship without the investment, and without it we will struggle.

[sleepingindiana79]

I have all the faith in the world with Sharon when it come to her finding investment when we need it she seems to know a lot of people and I’d imagine we would be a attractive investment for anyone wanting to invest in us but think the key for us is evolve as a club I think that’s how Brentford have done things and brighten.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Sunderland sneak into the Champo playoffs on the last day. Which is sort of good news considering they only went up last season, but sort of bad news considering they replace Millwall, who – despite despicability – are run on somewhat more sensible financial lines than many in the division.

Instead, we can perhaps take heart from the fact that Luton and Coventry are in the playoffs. Maybe, just maybe, it's possible to compete in that division without dicing with your financial future.

[GhostoftheBok]

This is an interesting topic.

I don't believe in any kind of Championship glass ceiling for a club of our size, position and reputation.

I've long been of the view that Championship clubs are generally horrendously run and the waste at that level is so massive that a club on a much lower budget can compete reliably if properly run. Obviously everything is made easier by money, but loads of Championship clubs are paying daft money to League One level players.

Clubs that come down tend to be massively dysfunctional and the managerial churn at that level tends to see the same dross be given jobs over and over again. If the Prem relegated lot had a long term plan that included relegation the Championship would be nearly impossible, but they hardly ever do.

We can go up, stay up and then push for promotion. We'll probably need some more investment within two years of getting to the Championship to make that happen, but not massive amounts.

Once you're in the Premier League the income levels are enough that you can be whatever your ability dictates. We might yo-yo, but you can build a proper club on those Prem payments.

It's the waste in the Championship that is everything. Clubs with huge budgets often get very, very little for their money and you can match and even outperform them on a fraction of their resources. There are a lot of people in jobs at that level who would never get a gig in other countries, because a lot of owners are there in the hope they get to the Prem for the payday without any understanding of the game. Too many of them will throw £8-10m at any old striker in the hope they can sneak the play-offs, rather than wait 6-12 months for the right player to become available and build properly.

We currently have a good footballing department and that is massive. I'd rather have our football staff than swap them for some of the dross at that level and an extra few million quid. Obviously I'd rather ALSO have the millions, but there you are.

Now, the fans issue is a big one. If we get to the Championship will the fans accept us not spending money to fix problems in the short term, so that we can find better solutions later. Insane likes to say there's no such thing as long term squad planning and football is all about short bursts of opportunity - which for me is the kind of thinking that wrecks clubs at that level. If we can be patient and make good use of our resources then that is a division we can tackle over a few windows.

Championship clubs will spend in the summer, have a slow start, sack the coaching staff and go in a totally different direction - invalidating a good section of their summer spending. We can finish above those clubs in our first season with a coherent recruitment strategy and united dressing room.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Well, either Cov or Luton will be there next season. Good luck to them. Makes me feel like it's the mid-80s again. But also makes me feel like the Champo perhaps isn't the spendocratic death-march I feared.

[GhostoftheBok]

Well, either Cov or Luton will be there next season. Good luck to them. Makes me feel like it's the mid-80s again. But also makes me feel like the Champo perhaps isn't the spendocratic death-march I feared.

It's hard to see how people continue to defend the idea of the Championship being some impossible division when those are the finalists, yeah.

Same goes for Millwall consistently finishing in the top half for four years and bothering the top 6 twice.

Five of the top eight "don't have enough money to compete" and/or are new to the league. Yet there they are.

It's easy to mess it up by going with tired ideas like signing players just because they "know the league" (despite being crap), appointing coaches purely on name recognition or getting guys in who have consistently failed at the level before. Hopefully we continue to make good decisions.

[Prufrock]

I mean, yes and no. Preston are one of those teams and they're still supposedly losing a million a month.

[Worthy4England]

Has anyone said it's impossible to get out of? It's difficult like any Division, surely?

To echo Pru's point, when we talk about those teams bucking the market (Luton, Milwall, Coventry), they're still pretty significantly loss making (Just not as loss making as others). If Blackburn is in the list for example, Venkey's have put lots in and continue to do so.

The only question I have is how far FV are willing to go (with/without additional investment)

[GhostoftheBok]

I mean, yes and no. Preston are one of those teams and they're still supposedly losing a million a month.

One of the reasons Preston have spent so much is that they've been trying to play catch-up with off-field development.

They suffered from huge underinvestment for years and they've had a lot of bills related to their ground, academy and training ground (they are now based at Euxton).

We appear to be using the bond system to pay for similar expenses on our end, to give us five years of manageable football expenditure separate from those long term structural costs.

Preston's actual football spending to reliably stay up hasn't been that big and we need to spend less to maintain reasonable facilities. Though obviously we'd like to have a proper training ground again. Almost all of Preston's football spending in the past few seasons (fees and agents fees) has been offset by Robinson's move to Sheff Utd.

Equally, Preston haven't done all that well in the market. They've had one top eight finish and made a lot of bad calls on transfers. Despite that, they've generally finished very comfortably in mid table.