Squatnose from the site Small Heath Alliance – made a post comparing 2003 to this season. The main basis was:

Interesting to compare the first 16 games of the season we finished 10th with this year.

In December 2003 after 16 games our record was P16 W6 D5 L5 F14 A18 Pts 23.

Spurs (H) W 1-0; Southampton (A) D 0-0; Newcastle (A) W 1-0, Fulham (H) D 2-2; Leeds (A) W 2-0; Portsmouth (H) W 2-0; Man Utd (A) L 0-3; Chelsea (H) D 0-0; Aston Villa (H) D 0-0; Bolton (A) W 1-0; Charlton (H) L 1-2; Wolves (A) D 1-1; Arsenal (H) L 0-3; Liverpool (A) L 1-3; Blackburn (H) L 0-4; Leicester (A) W 2-0.

That was a season many fans look back on with fondness, Forssell scoring loads, David Dunn and Savage performing well.

But look at that record – this season we’ve won more, scored more, conceded fewer and gained more points!

That season we fell away badly after the Sunderland cup defeat and the defeat at home to Leicester. The promise of proper investment in January should give us the opportunity to avoid such a disappointing end of season. My one concern is that we don’t have any strikers scoring regularly like Forssell did back then. Yes Bowyer is scoring for fun at the moment, but that may not be sustained.

We missed an opportunity to build 6 years ago and the rest is history.

I’d agree with this conclusion.

So the question is, can we press on and build on our success so far. It would be absolutely tragic to have a good season in 2009/10 like we did in 2003 – but fail to improve.

The difference this time appears that we now have a board that are willing to put their hands in their pocket and provide funds for the manager to strengthen the squad.

We don’t need to do what Leeds did and buy a load of players, 2 or 3 quality players in January and 2 or 3 quality players in the summer will probably do it. Alex appears to have built a great team spirit. Adding too many players too quickly can easily ruin that and we end up dropping down the table and maybe even out of the division. However small additions of quality, should help the team spirit – hopefully spurring those who stay, to play even better.

We then look to build slowly but surely. Hopefully the new board will be patient.

Kev (Once again thank you Squatnose for the inspiration)