Hillsborough started a good thread about what we would need to do if we were to be promoted to the Championship this season. There were some really constructive comments but unfortunately, gwru and TH Miller have ruined it by posting totally unrelated comments. I've therefore started a new thread which I ask gwru and TH Miller not to post on. I've extracted some of the previous comments below so that forum members can contribute their thoughts. Let's see if we can have a really sensible and adult discussion!

New Yorkshire

I don't really get the point. PW isn't doing anything wrong at the moment and clearly proving that he can develop talent, spot a good signing, manage egos and inject a feeling of togetherness into the squad. He makes changes when he thinks it will improve our chances and HAS NO FAVOURITE players despite the boll ox that is spouted on here. Wilder has a style that works with his squad and he has added big money players. His style would not work at Liverpool or probably Lincoln so there is not a blueprint to follow - managers are successful when they develop ethos and approach that supports their personalities and qualities and they get a squad of players that buys into it. That's what we have - a settled dressing room and a belief we can win. Or you can believe/troll that there is a magic potion that Wilder, Warnock, Evans etc have that they give to the players.

Smiler

Relative to what we have available, Sheff Utd spent a lot of money in The Championship. That's not a criticism of Wilder who has done an incredible job, but financially they are in a different world to us. Despite what detractors say, it would be no small achievement to win promotion. How to stay up is a very different matter. Us and Ipswich are near the top of League One. Barnsley, Luton and Charlton are near the bottom of The Championship. Charlton have invested heavily and are the only one of the three with a real chance. Wigan are a yoyo like we are. It's a massive gap to bridge and quite rightly Tony Stewart isnt going to risk massive debt to try and bridge it. It's one thing to go up, but whether its Paul Warne, Alan Stubbs or Jurgen Klopp in charge it's a different scale of challenge staying up. It is much harder now than it was even two seasons ago. The gap has grown. There is no magic answer.

Glenn Miller

I think we have a stronger squad of our 'own' players than the previous two promotions. One of the key assets we have in terms of Championship survival is a 'together squad' built on Warne's foundation of a footballing family where all the players are relatively equal (in terms of reward), all share the same work ethic, there are no bad apples to upset morale and everyone works towards a common goal. When you are a team with a limited budget such as RUFC, these things are paramount to achieving success. You have to hope that this togetherness will be sufficient to help us survive the first season back in the Championship.

To enhance our chances of survival requires the input of money. When we were last promoted the discussion was around affording a £1M striker. This is an approach which I believe is fatally flawed. Not only would it undermine the togetherness of the squad, but it would be insufficient by itself to make a material difference to the quality of the team. If we wish to invest to guarantee survival, I believe the minimum outlay would be at least £25M, ie. five players worth around £5M each. Whilst the Stewarts are in charge, this is obviously not going to happen.

The only other avenue would be to bring in better loan players. That would again undermine the wage structure and possibly cause friction. What's more, you don't always get the quality required - take Towell as an example.

It's a conundrum for teams like us and we're not alone. I'm just pleased that I'm not the one who has to make the calls. However, I think our best chance of Championship survival is to hope that the likes of Wiles, Ogbene, Olosunde, Icky, Robertson, Lindsay, Crooks, Thompson, Lapado and Smith really hit their strides at the higher level and that, possibly, we can persuade loanees such as Barlaser, Iverson and Adelakun to hang around for a while or join us permanently.

Smiler

I think he would prefer top two! We have a realistic chance. Cant fault the job he is doing. GlennMiller ha**** the nail on the head. Spending more on a handful of players isnt the answer - it risks destroying the one thing we can turn into an advantage for us which is togetherness and spirit - and we havent got the resources to spend big across the board. The answer is to try again to do what we nearly did last time. We are trying to do things properly. Look at the big clubs around us. They have all in masses of debt and spend way beyond their means, and that is in League One. To be honest if (big if) we do go up one thing that might help us stay there might be that some chickens come home to roost for a Birmingham, Wednesday or Derby or similar and they enter freefall. It has happened before with Blackpol and Bolton. We should also probably be hoping that if we do go up Wycombe and Peterborough join us, because the bigger clubs might be better placed to make a fist of it. I've got no problem at all with what we did last season and what we are doing this time round. I'm proud of how we go about things and we are close to achieving the best that we can realistically ever hope to achieve.