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In September 2008 Plymouth Argyle, then a Championship side, signalled their ambition of pushing towards the Premier League by signing Belgium international striker Emile Mpenza following his release from Manchester City.

While City, , have gone on to assemble one of the most expensive squads in history, crippling off-the-field problems at Home Park have left Argyle with a small squad of old heads and willing youngsters scrapping for the club's Football League survival.

"When I think about how we fought and worked so hard to get the club from League Two into the Championship and to see how quickly we have gone right back down, it is very difficult," said French goalkeeper Romain Larrieu, who has been at the club since 2000 and is their .

"Considering the size of the hole that apparently exists in our finances, I do not even think that we got to live the dream. I have been through it all and I do not know what happened. Funnily enough, nobody has admitted to me that they made mistakes."

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A year , Nigel Adkins can be pleased with what he has achieved since succeeding Alan Pardew at St Mary's.

In the past 12 months, Adkins has , enjoyed a successful summer in the transfer market ( while buying the likes of full-back Danny Fox from Burnley and ) and overseen a strong start to the Championship season.

But perhaps his biggest achievement, possibly even the secret of his success, has been to build a winning culture at a club where it was questionable whether everyone was pulling in the same direction.

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This time last year Paul Konchesky was preparing to make his Liverpool debut after a .

Fast forward 12 months and the 30-year-old is gearing up for Leicester's trip to Barnsley as the Championship resumes after the international break.

He has exchanged one of the most famous clubs in England for one of the most ambitious.

The east Midlands club are - the wealthy Raksriaksorn family who own a firm that sells duty-free goods at Thailand's airports - and have strengthened way beyond the means of many top-flight clubs, let alone most of their Championship rivals, as .

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