It's quite depressing when you think of the depths Sir Gary Megson and Paul Thompson dragged us from, the work that went into keeping us going under Peace and where we are as a club now.
A position of third in the Championship shouldn't be sniffed at given the season's stage. But while we have a decent enough starting eleven our squad lacks the quality and character of so many of the players you've mentioned there.
Genuinely feel we're at a crossroads as a club. We're at a precarious time in our history, much more so than when we missed out on promotion under Darren Moore (his mate notwithstanding) and James Shan's caretaker tenure.
Winter's coming........... ?
When we were owned by JP, the global economic & political situation was reasonably stable, so we only needed to look to JP for change.
Over the past 5 years, the situation has changed dramatically, & in retrospect, selling the club to a Chinese owner was not the best decision.
IMO, Lai's hands are pretty much tied, & he can only do what he's told to do by the Chinese leadership.
It's certain that he won't be allowed to put any additional capital into the club, so we have to be self sustaining.
To make us more valuable, we have to be an EPL club, GL won't care how that happens: for him, style is not an issue, it's just results.
As you say, we're in a perfect storm.
