ScottishRoyal ankeny The bigger question is,what did we spend in the second season to establish ourselves in the prem?
Spot on!
This seems the obvious question to ask and I can't blieve only one person's mentioned it. Too many people on here can'ts break down a problem. The lack of second season spending is clearly the crux of the 'why did we get relegated argument'.
Its not even the amounts that matter but the positions and the players.
I've written longish pieces on this but ... essentially ...
Lita, Little, Sidwell all made much-reduced contributions in that second season because they'd found bling, got crocked or took a far better opportunity.
Kitson covered Lita's absence to some extent (total strikeforce goals 1st season = 24, 2nd season = 20, so not that great a fall) however, Kitson's goals tended to be more spectacular and we needed a goal poacher. Given that, in effect, we went down due to a goal, having a good finisher actually taking the chances in tight games (such as a 0-0 near the end of the season). Someone who could take those half chances that come randomly in a game. Further to that, the infamous second season syndrome seems to affect individual players - I don't think its all a coincidence that our most productive striker was one whose first Premiership season was so curtailed. Teams work out how to play against players. Kitson was a new problem.
But we'd not have needed that extra contribution from Lita so much if we'd had the creativity outwide we'd had in previous years. 11 different players tried and failed to play in the right wing position in the second season. For the want of a relatively small sum or risking playing someone like Cox there and giving them 5 games to see how they do, we lost the balanced and aggressive wide play. With Hunt tending to come inside and no right wing, the onus on the team fell on the centre of midfield.
And that was just not the same beast it was the previous season. It had neither the defensive grit or attacking strength of simply having Sidwell's engine in there.
Scott Brown, who the club actually spoke to, would have made a difference. We could have, easily imo, found a player in the January window 2007 and given them a few months to fill Sidwell's shoes. Players like Steve Davis (now at Rangers) went for a few million when we were making similar sized bids in that time frame. There's good young players available. I don't think it was a mission impossible.
Anyway, old news. I hope, if we ever find ourselves in that position again, we learn from our mistakes.
