Hi all... Tranmere fan in peace (Genuinely!)
Firstly, and I know this is the case for every Tranmere fan I know, we hope you get promoted and deservedly so. Under any proposal that has been put forward, including our ones, you would be and I think it is safe to say that you will be. Given the tough times you've had recently regarding club ownership and stadium issues, you guys deserve it.
The reason for us putting up a fight is that under PPG, we would be relegated by 0.04 PPG. We had just won 3 on the bounce (not THE in form team but ONE OF the in form teams in the league), we had 4 teams directly above us in our next games, we were 3 points behind AFC Wimbledon and we had a game in hand. Other info that you guys may not realise (and why should you... you don't support TRFC!) is that we invested in January and had a squad that was now just starting to gel. We have just had two promotions on the spin and adjusting to life in League One was always going to be hard. Trust me there is a huge gap between playing North Ferriby and Coventry! It was always the plan to start off the season, assess in January, then add some transfers in Jan. Coupled with that we had a decent Cup run which involved replays creating a lot of fixtures in that busy Winter period.
I get that the League table doesn't lie. After 34/35 games we deserve to be in the bottom 3. However teams constantly make come backs late on in the season. You just have to look at last season... 3 of the bottom 4 at this stage didn't get relegated with the teams in 15th, 16th and 18th going down. Wimbledon made up a 7 point gap and Oxford went on their best run of the season. Momentum is everything at the latter stages... Less so at the top because you're there as you've played excellent footy all season but it really kicks in for a team near the bottom. Now of course there is no guarantee at all that after 44 games we would have stayed up. But there is also no guarantee that we would go down. Is 0.04 points really fair on a team to drop down a division due to a worldwide pandemic? Personally I don't think so.
Our proposals take a bit of time to understand and while they do save ourselves, they are also fairly reasonable. There is going to have to be a rule and regulation change regardless so we are just putting our case forward. Our owners have saved this club and turned it around and whilst going down wouldn't be a big issue as we would be expected to challenge straight away for promotion, it does put a tarnish on the hard work of last season in which we battled through to gain promotion.
I also don't understand the now hatred towards our club and owners from some posters. If you were in our position then you would be fighting in the exact same way (though it is true this could have all been mentioned a couple of weeks earlier).
It all comes down to the vote... I have seen the Owners of Rotherham, Peterborough, Sunderland and Accrington all say it would be unfair on us to go down and if it went to a vote whereby there would be promotion and no relegation then I think that would be the outright winner as was the case in League 2. You then just balance the league up in the course of the next couple of seasons which is seen as a result of a global pandemic. You could suspend the Checkatrade trophy (you lucky bastards would be able to send your 23s!) for one of two seasons to allow for the extra games which result in more revenue for clubs which makes up slightly for revenue lost during this current period.
Anyway regardless of what your stance on us may be, good luck with your imminent promotion and hopefully we'll be playing each other again soon. Had a great time at St Andrew's this season (Cheers for those 3 points
) and you were the best team we've seen at Prenton Park this season by a long way. All the best.