Have we really fell drastically behind in the last 6 years? No we haven't, other teams haven't ran away from us, no more ahead than they were a 5, 10 or 15 years back, the only difference is the pack on the fringe of things have become more competitive. People said when Hodgson went and then Kenny that we wouldn't challenge for a very long time, yet we did.
It's not really a question of falling further behind, it's a case of being off the pace for a more sustained period (potentially), it's not really that the gulf widens and we drop off, otherwise, when people were predicting the same thing 10 years ago, the forecast for where we would be now would have been difficult to contemplate. As it is, we failed to capitalise on a good season and became an also ran this season, we start again in the Summer, same old until something gives, but like I said, we need to reassess where we've gone wrong at personnel and procedure levels and then we can move forward.
I'm not dreaming about anything, I'm trying to be realistic and not be too optimistic, or indeed, defeatist. Taking care of the small details means sorting out the basics, trimming the squad, looking at how we value players interms of quality and value, sorting out the CEO position, sorting out the "panel", they're the fundamentals that have dragged us back. Sort that out and we can possibly push on.
"Do you think we can compete with a team with triple our budget", well yeah actually, we just did. Like I said, the basics need sorting, like the issue of spending what money we do have, more effectively. We could have spent half of what we did in the Summer and bettered the current team, so like I said, moaning about resources is missing the point.
