It depends how you're defining over achievement. In terms of club size, we aren't overachieving, we're probably about where we should be in that regard, but in terms of our current budget, we definitely are.
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Lowe - "We're overachieving ...............
- Thread starter jimsing
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I think you are being a bit ambitious there, over optimistic by a long way. We have had our fun at the top, and now we must allow those teams with serious ambitions of promotion to take over. They may be below us at the moment, but they will have games in hand and should jump above us when things level out.
We have beaten the lesser teams in the league, but we have had trouble with the bigger, wealthier, and, dare I say it, more serious contenders for promotion.
We have improved immensely from last season, but we are nowhere near promotion candidates, although a chance of getting into the play-offs at the end of the season would put the icing on the cake and would give us something to get excited about at the end of the season.
I don't think you can only look at the size of the place or the crowd size etc. You also have to look at the location and the money available in that location. Plymouth is a relatively remote, relatively poor city. It lacks well paid jobs. It's not a place where money flows, development happens etc. There is far more business, and so money, around most of the big(ger) northern cities. Even somewhere like Norwich which is, arguably, also relatively remote is MUCH closer to London and the east Midlands - that proximity means there is more wealth around the area. It's quite hard to identify a comparable place to act as a benchmark to compare with. Carlisle is perhaps similarly remote (although it's on the way to other larger places) but it is MUCH smaller. Swansea might make for a good comparison but I suspect that south Wales has benefited from much more inward investment in the last 30+ years as the coal and steel industries have waned. In the past, football finances were primarily about crowd sizes and playing squads were much more local so location was much less of a factor but now they are really all about external money and then TV revenues once the external money takes a club to the top level. I think we're probably in about the right place (but lower where we used to be when external money was not such a big factor in the game).
Well we now know we are not serious automatic promotion candidates and that our earlier league position was false given we had not played most of the top sides. The next question is are we realistic play off contenders? The run up to Christmas should tell us that. I just hope we don’t lose confidence and start losing to teams we would have beaten a few weeks ago. I dont blame Lowe for the last three defeats (although may have picked slightly different teams) but it will be management weakness if a lack of confidence means losing to weaker teams.
Interesting. Do you put Charlton in that 'serious contender' category ?
We could have beaten Wigan. A team you seem to think we should roll over to. There was very little between Argyle and Wigan, but we were slow to react to their substitutions and tactical adjustments in the second half.
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We have a very different approach to transfers. For example, Hardie we got on the cheap, and many others. Our 'bigger' competitors choose to sign players who have made their mark and probably past there best. That requires a big wage bill.
I think we've had great success doing what we're doing. Thinking back to Bolasie, Halmosi, Buszaky, Gary Poole. ..just to name a few at random.
So, budget shouldn't reflect where you should aspire to be, or where you end the season.
It certainly didn't when Leicester paid Fleetwood £1m for an unknown player called Vardy.
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“Fanbanter “ website lists all English clubs in terms of average historical attendances.
Argyle are listed as 41st.
Currently we sit in 48th place in the league pyramid....
Argyle are listed as 41st.
Currently we sit in 48th place in the league pyramid....
We are probably below 41st over the last decade or two, although may be close this season.
Yes, historically we've been lower championship, upper L1, probably along the lines of what Wycombe and Rotherham are achieving now.
None of that stuff matters if a smaller club has a bigger budget. Which they may have as a result of a wealthier owner, parachute payments, bigger non-matchday income or simply a more reckless board or owner.
I'd partly agree there's no reason we shouldn't be up there though, for the reasons you listed plus being smarter than most of those clubs with bigger budgets.
Remember lots of those cities have multiple clubs though, and there are smaller cities with undoubtedly bigger clubs historically (Wolves and Sunderland off the top off my head). Not to mention all the well-trodden stuff about poor transport links etc. So it's not quite that simple.
