Well done Watford, if not only for another away day to look forward to next year. Today’s game got me thinking about the plight of teams who experience success, and in particular the role chairmen play in deciding the future of clubs.
This year saw West Ham and Wigan excel in the Premiership, both because of inspired managers, decent investment, and most importantly, shit loads of ambition. Sunderland on the other hand embarrassed themselves, having added little more than a handful of chaff to their squad over the pre-season. Then of course there is Leeds, whose one time chairman went a bit loopy with success, invested haphazardly, and was bitten in the ass because of it. The question then, is how to follow up success with investment?
Success needs to be a platform on which to build. If it isn’t then lack of ambition is woefully exposed. Bob Murray at Sunderland exemplifies this approach. They won the Championship relatively easily, surpassing Wigan and West Ham on their way, and then stopped. Peter Risdale, on the other hand, got Leeds into the Champions League, wrote cheques the club eventually couldn’t cash, leaving them well and truly in the shit.
The answer then, is somewhere in between Bob Murray and Peter Risdale: building on success but not going over the top. Becoming a top club requires patience and the right amount of investment at the right time. This is exactly what West Ham and Wigan have done. Whilst Wigan’s investment has been modest compared to West Ham’s this season, they have been building on success progressively for about three years. West Ham have shown ambition when it was in question (£7m for Ashton) and also known how to work with the existing setup, settling on players like Mullins and Harewood who could have been expendable, but were stuck with and grew into the Premiership. Will be interesting to know what way Watford, Sheffield United and Reading go.
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