This gets a great deal of debate so thought it worth a thread of it's own.
What do we define as a long term plan?
Holding onto a younger manager rather than sacking them at the first sign of trouble? Not for me, the manager is but one cog in a bigger wheel and, let's face it, any young manager who achieves success here would be picked off by a richer vulture. We, literally, can't afford, to watch a manager fail in the hope that they will come good. That being said, I still believe the timing of Darren Moore's sacking was beyond stupid and completely derailed our season
Building from bottom up? One philosophy right through the Academy to first team, and bringing our kids through, is a fantastic idea, it's dependant on two things though.
1) Having kids good enough to achieve the level we are at. This is extremely difficult at Champ level and virtually impossible at Prem because the amount of kids that reach that peak early on is very small.
2) If we do find kids that have that potential, they, again will be picked off by richer vultures due to the corrupt system that, not only does nothing to protect against it, but seems to actively promote it.
I would argue that we have had the same, very successful, long term plan in place for many years and that is one of financial stability.
We don't overspend, our wage structure is well managed and we were pioneers of flexdown contracts.
This, however, has had a two way effect.
It holds us back when we get promoted but
It makes us incredibly strong when we get relegated.
This means we are in a sort of limbo, not good enough to stay up, too good to go down.
The only time we have had any prolonged success (in terms of staying up) was under Pulis and Hodgson, two pragmatic, no nonsense managers.
That's why I think we have to accept that the ideology of a young, upcoming manager, playing flowing football, is, unfortunately, fanciful at the very least.
This may not sit well with many but, as the financial dice are not loaded in our favour, when it comes to the corruption of the greed league, our best chance of a long term plan seeing fruition may not be with a 30 something Cruyff wannabe, it's more likely a 66 year old, weathered old warhorse.