Not old enough to remember that as I was born 5 years later. Hope I'm not just comforting myself, would think they were different times.
There seemed to be more scope for movements up and down the table from one season to the next, more chance of some of the lets call them provincial clubs to do well and everything looks like it was less set in stone in terms of established pecking order. I know we were poor the season before that too, but still.
3rd to 6th was Derby, Ipswich, Stoke, Burnley for example. Clubs of that kind of stature can't really hope to get that high these days and if they ever did it would be 1 of them, not 4 clubs like that. Stoke were 15th the previous season, Burnley were newly promoted. It's sad from a sporting perspective and makes things more stale but that's the way it is.
Works the other way around as well. The birth of the true superclubs in the era of huge sponsorships, European prize money, overseas fans adding to club coffers, the globalisation of the league and how it all accumulates year after year for certain teams like never before means it's so much more unlikely for one of the supposed big clubs to drop now too. Everything more set in stone due to all that extra wonga and less dramatic movements up or down the table by and large.
Even when people were saying Ten Hag out voters would have sacked Fergie after his initial period of the club ties into all that. Different era from then as well in those same kind of terms. I do remember those days (as well as 10 year old can), and while there was always a lot of pressure on the big clubs to do well it seemed slightly lesser, clubs didn't sack a manger quite as often as they do now and it was more understood that these big climbs or falls up and down could happen because they did happen more often then. Everything more cemented now including it being a lot less likely for a club like ours to be relegated.
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