Punching above our weight. What do you think would elevate us above mid table next season?

[Foreveram]

1 hour ago, Bris Vegas said:

Derby have never been a similar size to West Ham. We're a similar size club to West Brom, Norwich and Coventry City. Not West Ham who are and always have been a top 10 sized club in this country.

 

[Bris Vegas]

Unless people just consider size of club is based on trophies won?

Derby’s 2 league titles and 1 FA Cup is better than West Ham’s 3 FA Cups.

But West Ham beat Derby in every other category, from stadium size, to famous players, to global support, to attractiveness for players, to finances, to global reputation.

There is a reason why players like Stimac and Wanchope left Derby for West Ham, especially the latter who had his whole career ahead of him. They moved up the ladder, not sideways or down.

And when West Ham got relegated, it was a massive deal as they were rightfully dubbed a huge club for the Championship. They bounced back right away, similar to Newcastle, because that’s what the big clubs do as they have larger resources and the name to attract better players.

Derby may have been a name back in the 70s. But that is 50 years ago now and over the past 40 years 80% of the time has been spent in the 2nd tier.

We are similar to West Brom, Coventry, Norwich, Ipswich, Middlesbrough, Sheffield United, Blackburn, Leicester, Forest, Sheff Wed, Brighton. Throw a blanket over all of us. A ceiling of midtable PL, with the only current difference down to a mixture of recruitment and luck.

West Ham have always been a step up on the ladder, likewise Everton, Villa and Newcastle. A long with the big six, they are the top 10. 

[Gee SCREAMER !!]

4 hours ago, Bris Vegas said:

Derby have never been a similar size to West Ham. We're a similar size club to West Brom, Norwich and Coventry City. Not West Ham who are and always have been a top 10 sized club in this country.

 

They've only finished in the Top 10 about 15 times and most of them have been 8th -10th in over 100 years

[Gee SCREAMER !!]

5 minutes ago, Bris Vegas said:

Unless people just consider size of club is based on trophies won?

Derby’s 2 league titles and 1 FA Cup is better than West Ham’s 3 FA Cups.

But West Ham beat Derby in every other category, from stadium size, to famous players, to global support, to attractiveness for players, to finances, to global reputation.

There is a reason why players like Stimac and Wanchope left Derby for West Ham, especially the latter who had his whole career ahead of him. They moved up the ladder, not sideways or down.

And when West Ham got relegated, it was a massive deal as they were rightfully dubbed a huge club for the Championship. They bounced back right away, similar to Newcastle, because that’s what the big clubs do as they have larger resources and the name to attract better players.

Derby may have been a name back in the 70s. But that is 50 years ago now and over the past 40 years 80% of the time has been spent in the 2nd tier.

We are similar to West Brom, Coventry, Norwich, Ipswich, Middlesbrough, Sheffield United, Blackburn, Leicester, Forest, Sheff Wed, Brighton. Throw a blanket over all of us. A ceiling of midtable PL, with the only current difference down to a mixture of recruitment and luck.

West Ham have always been a step up on the ladder, likewise Everton, Villa and Newcastle. A long with the big six, they are the top 10. 

Everton and Villa . More famous players. Norwich and Brighton.  West Ham have spent nigh on 40 years in Championship level football and the same amount arsing around the tale end of Div 1 as it was.  Before that they spent 2 years playing in the Southern League. 

Pass the Dutchie matey it's a good un.

[Comrade 86]

12 minutes ago, Bris Vegas said:

Unless people just consider size of club is based on trophies won?

Derby’s 2 league titles and 1 FA Cup is better than West Ham’s 3 FA Cups.

But West Ham beat Derby in every other category, from stadium size, to famous players, to global support, to attractiveness for players, to finances, to global reputation.

There is a reason why players like Stimac and Wanchope left Derby for West Ham, especially the latter who had his whole career ahead of him. They moved up the ladder, not sideways or down.

And when West Ham got relegated, it was a massive deal as they were rightfully dubbed a huge club for the Championship. They bounced back right away, similar to Newcastle, because that’s what the big clubs do as they have larger resources and the name to attract better players.

Derby may have been a name back in the 70s. But that is 50 years ago now and over the past 40 years 80% of the time has been spent in the 2nd tier.

We are similar to West Brom, Coventry, Norwich, Ipswich, Middlesbrough, Sheffield United, Blackburn, Leicester, Forest, Sheff Wed, Brighton. Throw a blanket over all of us. A ceiling of midtable PL, with the only current difference down to a mixture of recruitment and luck.

West Ham have always been a step up on the ladder, likewise Everton, Villa and Newcastle. A long with the big six, they are the top 10. 

[B4’s Sister]

I’ve not read all of the previous four pages so I may be out of sync with responses. I’ve not got any major expectations for the next season. There will be a new team and a settling in period and we need to be patient.  An above mid-table result is unrealistic. Throughout this season there have been grumbles of Warne relying on experience and not giving some younger players enough opportunity. It looks like that situation will change. I’m looking forward to seeing a new dynamic, but we need to give coaches and players chance to connect and develop. 

[Bris Vegas]

27 minutes ago, Gee SCREAMER !! said:

Everton and Villa . More famous players. Norwich and Brighton.  West Ham have spent nigh on 40 years in Championship level football and the same amount arsing around the tale end of Div 1 as it was.  Before that they spent 2 years playing in the Southern League. 

Pass the Dutchie matey it's a good un.

I mean, I guess it all depends on how you’d categorise a big club.

The way I see it is global reputation, and when offered the same deal, who a player is likely to choose.

Very few people have heard of Derby County outside the UK. Far more have heard of West Ham. As a global reputation, their reach has always been greater.

And going back to players, we have lost better players to West Ham despite playing in the same division as them. Not the other way around. 

If you measure titles, Huddersfield are bigger than us. If you measure stadium size, then Sunderland are bigger than Villa and Derby are bigger than Villarreal and Fiorentina.

[Gee SCREAMER !!]

19 minutes ago, Bris Vegas said:

I mean, I guess it all depends on how you’d categorise a big club.

The way I see it is global reputation, and when offered the same deal, who a player is likely to choose.

Very few people have heard of Derby County outside the UK. Far more have heard of West Ham. As a global reputation, their reach has always been greater.

And going back to players, we have lost better players to West Ham despite playing in the same division as them. Not the other way around. 

If you measure titles, Huddersfield are bigger than us. If you measure stadium size, then Sunderland are bigger than Villa and Derby are bigger than Villarreal and Fiorentina.

I measure it on 40 more years as league club, 2 League titles but also 3 times runner up, overall time spent in the top division and attendance when you not. We've also broke the British record on transfers both in and out on a fair few occasions as recently as 3 in 12 months in the 90's. Wanchope left and Stimac left as the club decided to sell, both went for under market value. One due to injury record and one due to attitude.  West Ham wasn't' their desired move it was the best available.   West Hams global reach really relates prior to the last 10 years on having a sensationalised hooligan element rather than the playing of intricate top end football, they had one period of about 25 years in division 2.

I'm not convinced that putting West Ham and Derby side by side in the premier League with the same wage offer, that a player would choose West Ham other than the living in London which equates to geography rather than club size. 

Re players moving from club to club, don't know but I'd imagine , certainly prior to 25 years it was because they weren't good enough to play here rather than stepping up. 

 

Edited May 25 by Gee SCREAMER !!

[Van der MoodHoover]

On 22/05/2024 at 15:05, May Contain Nuts said:

What isn't factored into the third season is the tendancy to see his sides fall away / have a big wobble toward the end of a season. It's been pointed out that the manager who replaced him had a worse PPG but there's a chance it could have happened anyway. They'll never have the squad depth to cover late season issues.

There's also every chance that they simply replaced Warne with a poorer manager. There are plenty of them, without it meaning he himself represents the upper echelons of football management.

I don't think being a League One promotion specialist means much in the grand scheme of things but it's clearly been beneficial to us to this point.

We saw a late season fall away in his first season with us.

And we had a later season striking crisis this time around, saved to an extent by being able to bring in Gayle.

So something in what you say I think....

[Crewton]

Derby were a far bigger club than West Ham from the latter's first appearance in the Football League in 1920 until Derby's decline in the 1950s, and it wasn't until West Ham moved to their taxpayer-funded stadium in 2017 that they exceeded Derby's record average attendance of 37,000. Whenever we were at the same level between 1969 and 2002, I regarded us as similar sized clubs, with one being more successful in knock-out competitions but never good enough to even get close to winning a league title (they have ONE top 4 finish to their credit compared to our FIFTEEN, which of course includes 2 league titles).

They've moved ahead of us in recent years thanks entirely to their free stadium and the emergence of London as a World Class City and thus a magnet for wealthy foreign investors, but until they win a league title, they're 'all mouth and trousers'.

[jimtastic56]

We can “Spin it” however we like about us and West Ham , But at the moment , they are years ahead of us . Many teams have spent 20 years in the EFL . How do we do better than mid-tale ? We can’t afford top-half players . So the manager has to come up with a unique brand of winning football.

[MackworthRamIsGod]

The only way we could get a competitive edge currently is with clever recruitment, which would include recruiting from abroad. We need to find the best players costing the least amount of money. Easy 😆

When you compare Eranio and Raziak both costing nothing to Claud Davies and Robert Earnshaw at 3.5 million a pop, it proves paying transfer fees guarantees nothing if the recruitment is crap.

Hopefully Mark Thomas has done his homework and it pays dividends.

[jimtastic56]

Just talking on Sky about the £125 million game . They are saying the Zamora final is the cruelest of all time . Only Fozzy left from that game . Could he still have chance to make amends for the goal that came from his side of the pitch? Perhaps another final ?

[Turk Thrust]

On 25/05/2024 at 07:23, Crewton said:

Derby were a far bigger club than West Ham from the latter's first appearance in the Football League in 1920 until Derby's decline in the 1950s, and it wasn't until West Ham moved to their taxpayer-funded stadium in 2017 that they exceeded Derby's record average attendance of 37,000. Whenever we were at the same level between 1969 and 2002, I regarded us as similar sized clubs, with one being more successful in knock-out competitions but never good enough to even get close to winning a league title (they have ONE top 4 finish to their credit compared to our FIFTEEN, which of course includes 2 league titles).

They've moved ahead of us in recent years thanks entirely to their free stadium and the emergence of London as a World Class City and thus a magnet for wealthy foreign investors, but until they win a league title, they're 'all mouth and trousers'.

They also get 65,000 attendance every home game. 

[Crewton]

23 minutes ago, Turk Thrust said:

They also get 65,000 attendance every home game. 

Because they were given that stadium on a 99 year lease which, for the 2022/23 season, cost them £3.6m. I believe that most of their home games are attended by a large number of tourists and people who don't even support West Ham, because they're able to keep ticket prices competitive against other London clubs.

It was such a good deal, brokered by the Government friends of Baroness Brady, that the law firm that advised the Client body have recently settled a damages claim for negligence :-

https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/west-ham-london-stadium-taxpayers-e20-allen-overy-b1131440.html

[Tamworthram]

27 minutes ago, Turk Thrust said:

They also get 65,000 attendance every home game. 

Just to be a pedant, the capacity is only 62,500 so they don't actually get 65,000. In fact, the average attendance has only exceeded 60,000 in one season since moving.

[LeedsCityRam]

1 hour ago, Turk Thrust said:

They also get 65,000 attendance every home game. 

Good mate of mine is a WHU season ticket holder & he says that since moving to the Olympic Stadium, the 'home' crowd number is inflated by fans of many other teams who take the opportunity to watch top level football as not difficult getting tickets - some of who actually wear their Celtic, Man Utd, Liverpool & Rangers tops in the ground.

That said, I would say West Ham are comfortably bigger than us now given London's explosion as a global hub in the past 25 years, their mostly Prem presence during that time & the disproportionate media attention clubs in London get.

On 25/05/2024 at 00:30, Bris Vegas said:

We are similar to West Brom, Coventry, Norwich, Ipswich, Middlesbrough, Sheffield United, Blackburn, Leicester, Forest, Sheff Wed, Brighton. Throw a blanket over all of us. A ceiling of midtable PL, with the only current difference down to a mixture of recruitment and luck.

You've massively overrated Coventry there - they are of a similar ilk to Birmingham & Stoke with ordinary levels of support & limited history going back many years. Brighton have no significant top division track record & wouldn't be seen as a big fish even in the Championship - they're just having a golden period but like Wigan, Charlton & Reading before them, won't be particularly noticed when they inevitably drop down a division or two. Middlesbrough & Blackburn also had golden periods from 1995-2005 but their crowds (Boro pre-Aitor Karanaka & Blackburn for some time now) have been as low as 11k/12k on occasion - neither belong in that collection of clubs, none of whom would ever drop to that level in the current era. I would add Wolves to that list though.

Edited May 26 by LeedsCityRam

[jimtastic56]

1 hour ago, Tamworthram said:

Just to be a pedant, the capacity is only 62,500 so they don't actually get 65,000. In fact, the average attendance has only exceeded 60,000 in one season since moving.

Didn’t we play them at home in the FA cup the season before last ? They brought 5,000 and we could only muster 20,000 home fans . But then we don’t like night games 🤷🏻‍♂️

[Tamworthram]

10 minutes ago, jimtastic56 said:

Didn’t we play them at home in the FA cup the season before last ? They brought 5,000 and we could only muster 20,000 home fans . But then we don’t like night games 🤷🏻‍♂️

"They only came to see the Derby".

[Bris Vegas]

1 hour ago, LeedsCityRam said:

Good mate of mine is a WHU season ticket holder & he says that since moving to the Olympic Stadium, the 'home' crowd number is inflated by fans of many other teams who take the opportunity to watch top level football as not difficult getting tickets - some of who actually wear their Celtic, Man Utd, Liverpool & Rangers tops in the ground.

That said, I would say West Ham are comfortably bigger than us now given London's explosion as a global hub in the past 25 years, their mostly Prem presence during that time & the disproportionate media attention clubs in London get.

You've massively overrated Coventry there - they are of a similar ilk to Birmingham & Stoke with ordinary levels of support & limited history going back many years. Brighton have no significant top division track record & wouldn't be seen as a big fish even in the Championship - they're just having a golden period but like Wigan, Charlton & Reading before them, won't be particularly noticed when they inevitably drop down a division or two. Middlesbrough & Blackburn also had golden periods from 1995-2005 but their crowds (Boro pre-Aitor Karanaka & Blackburn for some time now) have been as low as 11k/12k on occasion - neither belong in that collection of clubs, none of whom would ever drop to that level in the current era. I would add Wolves to that list though.

We are a similar size club to Birmingham and Stoke.

A few trophies 50 years ago doesn’t change that. We all have the same potential so we’re all similar sized clubs.

Attendance figures, whether it’s 28k or 22k doesn’t matter. It’s extra income in the matchday revenue but it’s not that much difference.

We get higher attendances than Villarreal. We’re not a bigger club. 

Given we’re in a group of about 20-30 similar sized clubs, odds are we will spend more time at second tier level as opposed to the top tier.