Are we a victim of the quality of football?

[Jam_Man]

Interesting original post and debate. If I may offer the same view from a different perspective:

Although we finished 2nd in 2006, and therefore by rights it wasn't as big a deal as you winning the title, it was a monumental step forward for us, breaking into the 2nd tier for the first time, so the team that did it were heroes, and are seen through rose tinted spectacles already.

My personal view is the team we have now would not only have seen off the 2005/06 vintage comfortably, but would have walked away with the league title. I am absolutely not trying to belittle Southend's achievement in winning it (nor ours in getting promoted along with you) but the division was weaker then. You won it with 82 points - I am not sure how far back you'd have to go to find a lower winning total. This season 90 points may not be enough for promotion.

There is daylight between 7th place and the rest, and all those teams have significantly better goal differences than anyone else with the exception of Southampton, who have no hope of going up with their 10 point deduction but are capable of causing chaos in the run-in (I'm very glad we've taken 4 points off them already).

The top 6 is certainly stronger but I wouldnt say the rest of the division is.

Back then we didnt have massive teams like Leeds, Norwich and Charlton to deal with.

Interestingly if Southampton got their 10 points back would only jump up one place lol.