Stability pure and simple. We all accept that staying in the Premier League is going to be difficult ... in fact the number of articles written about this is getting tedious - "specialist subject - the bleeding obvious". Paul Jewell a few months ago lifted the curtain on what he was facing, a club who had already accepted Championship football when he arrived, whose confidence was shot, and a very clear desire for the season to end as soon as possible. This summer will see a revolving door at Pride Park as they seek to rebuild for what I believe will be a really tough season in the Championship. (In that there are lots of potential sides who could be promoted in addition to the play off teams and those coming down - QPR and Sheff Utd for a start.) As for Stoke and Albion, well the Baggies are undoubtedly ahead of us in terms of potential to stay up. With players like Greening and Gera already in the side they need less additional players, although they like Stoke need to strengthen. My lot ... well it depends on the depths of Peter Coates pockets and who is available. However, the key has to be stability, and I think no matter how bad things get next year the Pulis / coates axis will stay together - simply because there is little point changing direction part way through. You only need to look at Leicester to understand the alternative. What ever happens its going to be er, different - I for one am looking forward to it, and given the crowds yesterday, so are a lot of others!

The thing that everyone is missing when they write these blogs is that next season is not a one off season. Every year brings another season and as a WBA fan I can tell you I would rather have been relegated twice in the last five years and have the club we have now than have gone the way we were facing pre-Gary Megson and be wondering who to support as our beloved club heads underground. I was in the UK 1993-1995 and had to decide between being a Baggie or an Oxford United fan - I think I picked wisely. In the season I lived in Oxford WBA came to town. It was a close game which may have even ended in a draw. The two teams are now worlds apart. For the teams like Stoke and (hopefully) Hull or Bristol City this is not the beginning of the end but rather the beginning of the beginning. This is their chance to build season upon season with improved finances. Yes, we three teams going up may struggle but we can also if managed correctly secure our future long term whether we 'survive' or not. So it is definitely worth celebrating. Congrats to Stoke and good luck to the teams in the play-offs.

I think Crazy George has hit the nail on the head. For a team to become esablished in the Prem nowadays takes more than one promotion. It is a case of building season upon season. Hence the baggies look better prepared this time than they were after their previous 2 promotions. Likewise, Sunderland have survived this time after a couple of promotions and relegations. If a club can yo-yo in this way for a couple of bounces, then they can build their resources to the point where they can cling on to their hard earned place in the Prem at perhaps the 3rd attempt. This may mean that some of the saleable young assets have to be cashed-in to bolster the kitty if relegation does occur, but as long as the club maintains a steady strategy of reinvesting such transfer monies along with the parachute payments, then it should stand them in good stead to challenge for another crack at the big time. When Derby got promoted last year, there was hardly a single supporter who would have claimed that they were the 3rd best team in the division. Week after week we would leave the ground, shaking our heads in disbelief that we had managed to win yet another game in which we had been totally outplayed. The fact was that Billy Davies had virtually bullied and cajoled effort and performances out of a group of players who were woefully short of technical ability, even for the Championship. When these players were exposed to the Premiership, Billy's bullying and cajoling were never going to be enough. Add to this the fact that the board of directors seemed to have decided right from the start to adopt a longer term strategy rather than spend very much money to bolster this squad. They appear to have taken the money that had fallen in to their laps by this unexpected promotion and chose to use this to re-establish the club's financial position, which had seen them around £50m in dept only a year earlier. The plan seems to have been that the parachute payments could then be used to finance the next bounce of the yo-yo.