Survival or Promotion???

[PISTON (BLACKCAT)]

Might as well ask the experts!!!
What do you reckon is the hardest:-
1) Survival in the Premier League?
2) Promotion from the Championship?

There is of course the "PL is a much higher standard" with "world class players" and that is very true. But not every team is a much higher standard and not every player is world class. Also, we're not talking about winning it, just scraping enough points to survive.
Then we've got the "Championship is full of s**** sides and donkeys" which is partially true but definitely not completely true.

My opinion is 2) Promotion is the hardest.
Firstly you've got to have a winning side, ie a side that wins nearly every week, not once every now and then. As you lot are finding out this season there's very little margin for error. Even when you put 5 good results together you look around and the pack are still right there. In the PL that little run would have you top half in a fortnight.
Inconsistent players/teams could survive the PL, but they couldn't get promoted from the Championship.

[Hjl]

Surviving the pl. loads of teams go up and go straight back down. It's definitely easier to get promoted than survive.

[PISTON (BLACKCAT)]

Surviving the pl. loads of teams go up and go straight back down. It's definitely easier to get promoted than survive.

How many of those teams bounce straight back up every time?
It may seem that way at the moment with newcastle being top but there's plenty of teams who've dropped and never got back on the gravy train.

[Hjl]

Surviving the pl. loads of teams go up and go straight back down. It's definitely easier to get promoted than survive.

How many of those teams bounce straight back up every time?
It may seem that way at the moment with newcastle being top but there's plenty of teams who've dropped and never got back on the gravy train.

Villa

[bodacious benny]

Survival.

[Duke]

Hard to say as it varies massively from club to club. It's rare nowadays that clubs go straight back up but we look like doing it this year and last time we went down we walked it, yet Villa are struggling massively and Norwich aren't pulling up any trees.

[biggeordiedave]

Definitely survival, although it varies season on season. In the PL this season, the bottom team could be 15th within two matches. In other seasons, the bottom team could be 12 points adrift by now.

[PISTON (BLACKCAT)]

Hard to say as it varies massively from club to club. It's rare nowadays that clubs go straight back up but we look like doing it this year and last time we went down we walked it, yet Villa are struggling massively and Norwich aren't pulling up any trees.

There's also teams like Wigan who blew hot and cold every week in the PL but managed to pick up enough random 3 points to survive for a number of years. That isn't a tactic for promotion though and look at them now.
In my opinion Newcastle have been fortunate to get their PL "bounce" on both occasions as once the novelty factor has worn off after a season you start to get settled in like say boro did and a number of other clubs. For the most part after relegation your still a PL minded team playing in the Championship, after that your a Championship team. There's always another big club or two going for it and there's always a surprise smaller club or two in the mix which means the margins for error are very small. Not to mention the play-offs, how many "guaranteed favourites" have qualified through them?

[TBC]

If you ever get relegated do you think Short will back you financially to get promoted or do you envisage a Blackburn type scenario?

[Hjl]

Leicester down for me. No manger and a bunch of key back room staff gone too.

[overseasTOON]

I watch teams get promoted and it seems to me that at least two make a good fist of survival in that first season while one is generally mired in the fight and goes down.

The second season syndrome for these surviving clubs is interesting though.

They've had a massive injection of funds but the players or club seem to have a different mentality and they struggle.

[Deano]

As someone said earlier it varies from club to club for example the team that has been promoted from league 1 to the championship will struggle to gain promotion to the premiership as the quality of player they can attract is not of the standard you find at the top end of the championship

But for clubs like our own after being relegated you still have some quality and attitudes come into it more and we can either be straight in the promotion fight or find yourself in a position like villas

That brings me to the survival argument i think sometimes clubs have a easier time surviving in the first season due to other clubs not being as clued up on how they play and from there it gets harder and becomes more about the quality of the players

[Duke]

Hard to say as it varies massively from club to club. It's rare nowadays that clubs go straight back up but we look like doing it this year and last time we went down we walked it, yet Villa are struggling massively and Norwich aren't pulling up any trees.

There's also teams like Wigan who blew hot and cold every week in the PL but managed to pick up enough random 3 points to survive for a number of years. That isn't a tactic for promotion though and look at them now.
In my opinion Newcastle have been fortunate to get their PL "bounce" on both occasions as once the novelty factor has worn off after a season you start to get settled in like say boro did and a number of other clubs. For the most part after relegation your still a PL minded team playing in the Championship, after that your a Championship team. There's always another big club or two going for it and there's always a surprise smaller club or two in the mix which means the margins for error are very small. Not to mention the play-offs, how many "guaranteed favourites" have qualified through them?

Also read: Sunderland

[Ramone]

To be honest I'd much rather be fighting for promotion than survival. It's s**** hoping every week that something will change and the team will suddenly click only to be disappointed every single time.

[biggeordiedave]

I think it all depends how the season goes. Survival on the last day is a great feeling, but not sure it's worth it for the s*** you have to endure to get there. Promotion is great, but we walked the Championship last time so I knew promotion was inevitable. This time round, it has been a lot more difficult and though we're still better off now than we were at this point last time round, I don't have the same feeling that we're guaranteed anything. So promotion this season will feel like a much bigger deal to me.

I like to see the club have a bit of ambition. We've got something to play for this season and it feels good watching us win most of our matches, regardless of the opponent. On the whole, I don't enjoy watching us lose week after week and then pulling a couple of decent performances out of our arse in May to finish 16th or 17th.

[Holystone...]

Does relegation make you want to renew your ticket in the hope of happier times winning again or jack it on after the pain you've endured?
Scum , Boro and Hull will struggle to maintain anything like present support next season if relegated. With Newcastle we had that season of joy getting promoted so we knew what to expect added to our very loyal fan base .

[Don Sholeone]

Getting promoted by far, it takes more consistency and survival is putting together a couple of good runs and reaching a minimum point threshold, then you only have to worry about being better than 3 other teams, to finish in the top 2 you have to be better than 22 other teams and just 1 slight dip in form puts an end to a lot of promotion challenges.