Life in the Championship vs life in the Premier League.
Posted on July 1st, 2010 | 54 Comments |
Newcastle United are back in the big time. But for for me, departing the Championship has left me with a tinge of sadness, and a tinge of fear as I ponder what is to come next season.
This is not a rubbishing of my teams chances in the Premier League next season, in fact I believe we have it in us to stop up without massive investment. Rose-tinted? Perhaps, but it is what I believe we can do in what I believe is a very much over-hyped Premier League. The point that I am trying to look at here is the change in mindset between life in the Championship and life in the Premier League, and which mindset is better from a fans perspective.
I am chuffed to bits that we are not far off kicking off a new Premier League season, with us in it this time. I think every fan wants to see their team competing against the best, they want to see the Manchester United’s and the Chelsea’s coming to their home ground.
But with each game against the elite of English football comes a certain air of unexpectance, a notion that perhaps we would be lucky to get anything out of the game before it has even kicked off, which when you look at the strength of the teams at the top of the league then it is perhaps unsurprising that fans feel like that.
Games like that are pretty much ‘write-off’ games, not just for us, but for a fairly high percentage of the rest of the teams in the Premier League also. In fact you only have to look at Wolves at Manchester United last season to get where I am coming from. That is not to say that teams won’t try in these games, of course they will, but it is more a case of teams expecting to lose, but anything else is a bonus kind of thing.
I think the majority of us understand that free flowing attacking football will not be on the agenda for us next season, and that the main focus will be to get as many points we can and to ensure we survive first and foremost. That is all well and good, and I will be over the moon if we do survive given the crap we are being put through at the minute, but it isn’t very exciting is it?
This is where life in the Championship kicks in. Granted, some of our football was awful last season, although it did improve after Christmas in fairness, but there was always a feeling going into every game that we could win it, and we did for the majority of the time.
Nothing beats the feeling of following a winning team, and that sticks in any league and at any level. That is what the Championship gave us, that feel-good factor. Sure, trips to Scunthorpe and Doncaster may not be as exotic as trips to London, but it didn’t matter as we had that feel-good factor that comes with following a winning team.
I guess my long point made short is, what is better for you as a fan? Do you prefer to see our team pitting their wits against the elite in the Premier League whilst knowing full well that we aren’t going to get results as frequently as we did last season? Or do you prefer life in the Championship, with the knowledge that we would be favourites for most games and stood a good chance of getting a result in every game we turn up for?
The ultimate answer would be a mixture of both. I would love to go into the Premier League with the knowledge that we stood a good chance of getting results as frequently as we did in the Championship. Let’s face it though, that IS wishful thinking!
Last year we had the game without the glamour. It was a good reminder of what football is all about and of course winning is a great way to spend a season. I think we have a better team than we did last year and the year before. Carroll, Nolan, Barton, Collo, Enrique and roughtledge are all finding their spots in the team and on the pitch and playing together as a unit. If we can keep this going next season despite the losses well in good stead.