Loderingo

Job for Osman?

Back in the 90s there was a period where the gap between the Prem and the Championship was huge and the 3 sides who went up would invariably come straight back down. Since then the Championship has closed that gap and now there isn't a huge difference in quality between the top half of the Championship and the bottom half of the Premiership. As a result a gap has now started to open up between the Championship and League One, and it is more common to see yo-yo teams like Rotherham. If you look at attendances that shows a pattern. Leeds have a higher average attendance so far than half the premiership clubs and even City have a higher attendance than 3 Premiership teams. By contrast only 4 League One teams have a higher attendance than the lowest Championship club (Luton). Really only Sunderland, Ipswich and Portsmouth could make a case they deserve to be in the Championship at the moment. A lot of clubs in that division have either seen better days (Coventry, Bolton) or are going nowhere (Rovers, Gillingham) plus a few clubs like Accrington and Fleetwood for whom it's probably as good as it gets. I don't agree we won't go back there every again. Ipswich have shown that if you don't invest you can slip down the league, while Prem clubs being relegated twice is becoming more common for those who invest badly.

Why would a South American gold miner want to buy Bury? Unfortunately, it is too late now and the only way back is via a phoenix club.

You will never get government intervention. FIFA hates it when governments try to interfere with football affairs. If anyone is going to intervene it would have to be the FA...

Time's up. Guess we wait for the EFL to pronounce judgement

Sad news about Bury.

Leyton Orient are another one who have found life tough in the shadow of bigger teams. Teams like Yeovil and FGR are small clubs but they don't particularly have any local competition. Our own relative success vs Rovers has seen us grow our combine share of local fans. If you think at one point it was nearer 50/50 and it is now 75% City, 25% Rovers

Bolton also now given a deadline of 5pm Tuesday as their takeover is taking too long.

Sorry left 2 clubs out: L2 South (24 clubs) - Plymouth, Exeter, Torquay, Yeovil, Swindon, Newport, FGR, Cheltenham, Eastleigh, Aldershot, Maidenhead, Woking, Crawley, Dover, Barnet, Boreham Wood, Bromley, Dagenham , Ebbsfleet, Sutton, Orient, Colchester, Stevenage, Cambridge L2 North (24 clubs) - Carlisle, Barrow, Morecambe, Fylde, Chorley, Oldham, Salford, Stockport, Macclesfield, Crewe, Wrexham, Hartlepool, Bradford, Halifax, Harrogate, Scunthorpe, Grimsby, Mansfield, Chesterfield, Notts County, Port Vale, Walsall, Solihull, Northampton

It's an interesting idea. In Germany and France they have 3 national leagues before splitting into regional leagues. In Italy and Spain they have 2 national leagues before splitting into regional leagues. We have 5 national leagues before the split happens with conference north/south. In fairness our travel times are probably smaller than in some of the other countries. I think there was an idea mooted around for a while of merging league 2 and the conference and re-arranging into league 2 north and south. One of the issues with regional leagues is that it becomes a lot harder to get promotion e.g. for Italian Serie C there are 3 regional leagues so the winner of each one goes up automatically and the 3 second place teams play off for one spot If you merged the current L2 and Conference into 2 regional divisions you would get the following: L2 South (23 clubs) - Plymouth, Exeter, Torquay, Yeovil, Swindon, Newport, FGR, Cheltenham, Eastleigh, Aldershot, Maidenhead, Woking, Dover, Barnet, Boreham Wood, Bromley, Dagenham , Ebbsfleet, Sutton, Orient, Colchester, Stevenage, Cambridge L2 North (23 clubs) - Carlisle, Barrow, Morecambe, Fylde, Chorley, Oldham, Salford, Stockport, Macclesfield, Crewe, Wrexham, Hartlepool, Bradford, Halifax, Scunthorpe, Grimsby, Mansfield, Chesterfield, Notts County, Port Vale, Walsall, Solihull, Northampton Lots of derbies in there. Poor old Northampton would have to travel North rather than South

What a complete shambles. It feels like sadly Bury are going to be kicked out, which would be a tragedy for a club that has a decent history. I feel that Bolton will limp on but you might as well put (R) by their name in the league table now. If Bury get kicked out I hope the EFL stump up to cover the lost match revenue as it is a lot for clubs like Burton and Accrington

Cyprus has a population of less than a million but their league is ranked 4 places better than Scotland in the UEFA coefficient.

Just found out that UEFA are planning to split the Europa League into Europa League and "Europa League 2" (final name not decided), with teams from the weaker leagues being hived off with 7th in the Prem into the latter. They want to give teams from the weaker leagues a chance to go further in Europe. Sounds ideal for Celtic!

According to the UEFA coefficient Scotland is the 19th best league in Europe (behind Serbia but ahead of Norway), while the Romanian league is ranked 30th best. So a pretty poor result. Celtic's problem is that their own league is so uncompetitive that they can't step it up when they get to Europe.

I’ve gone for 7th-9th. I’d be disappointed if we didn’t make top half with all the talent we have but I’m worried that a lack of experience (only 3 players over 30) might see us fall short of the top 6.