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Two weeks out, where are we?


Silvio Dante

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14 hours ago, Pickle Rick said:

Don’t think I’ve seen any mention of starting on a points deduction ??‍♂️
 

Not worth getting too excited or being too ambitious yet.

This goes for a few other teams in the same league as well. 
 

Just depends if the EFL can pull their finger out on the matter as it has gone a bit quiet.

There's been no mention because nothing is happening 

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17 hours ago, Silvio Dante said:

Scott. Not a RWB this season thankfully but a CM. I expect us to eventually see a Scott/Williams axis in the middle

Good point - I was more going for the angle of with Arveladze the signings are players unused to this division. They’ve lost Lewis-Potter and have brought in some Turkish super lig players. May be great, but likely to be some bedding in time

Like the idea of Scott/Williams axis. But by the time that comes about is not Scott likely to be sold 

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12 hours ago, PHILINFRANCE said:

As I said, that’s fair enough.

Personally, I am quietly optimistic of a top half finish; threatening, even attaining if we are lucky with injuries, the play offs.

I hope you are right.

 

Damn. look what you've done now .... ?

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I think we're in for an exact duplicate of last season. We'll see some more star individual performances. It's a bit frustrating when we have some great players that'll fit into most champ teams but we still end up bottom half. 

Just hope we avoid the "If the season went on for 5 more games we could've well gone down" 

Edited by Sturny
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This summer is about who goes, as much as who comes in. The nightmare scenario was losing our quality younger players, and not shifting those we need to go, Palmer etc.

If the move for Bakinson goes through you have to say the management are batting 100%. 
This takes the pressure off should a late bid come in for one of the starlets, and those who have come in, or re signed, improve us in areas that needed it. 
Whilst I don’t see us as promotion candidates there is no reason not to expect a better season this year.

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Hi again, for the haters. I am still a City fan despite the hate that plenty of you put into your posts a few months back.

I am quite informed even if I was inactive, so I can tell my opinion.

I think the newcomers are pretty good. The financial aspect is bad but our staff managed to do some business. Hope that we can get a few more faces in. Keeping Semenyo and hopefully Massengo, maybe Kalas also, will put us in a good position. The coaches are working together for more than one year now. I think Nigel work will look much better this season, he knows the team better and he does what he has to do.

We have chances for top half finish with a good atmosfere in the dressing room, and with some luck you never know. Worse teams managed to get top 6 last seasons... Barnsley, Luton..

I am pretty positive about the start and I m not afraid of relegation anymore.

 

 

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On 17/07/2022 at 21:05, GrahamC said:

I think finishing 12th or above would be progress.

Think you underestimate Luton, true they have lost Naismith but seem to have recruited well to me, think repeating their finish (6th?) is tricky but I wouldn’t rule it out.

Also think Millwall are stronger overall than last season.

Hardly revelatory but think Boro, Sheff U, Watford & Norwich will do well. Burnley are harder to predict but he is getting his own side in early. West Brom have far too much quality to do as badly again & Coventry, Hull (if they gel, but poor if not) are my dark horses. Sunderland need to start well & if they do they’ll generate momentum but I have been surprised how few they’ve signed.

With regards to us I worry about Martin, he’ll be 34 in November & we don’t really have an alternative, Williams hasn’t managed to stay fit nearly enough so far with us & whilst I hope he does, to be available 38 times this season seems a stretch.

I do think we will be better defensively but are relying heavily on Weimann (who had the season of his career & has had no real break at all) & Scott (ditto) to repeat last season again.

As always it is more unpredictable than the Prem, no one saw Huddersfield or Luton as high as they finished & whilst I would like to be optimistic & say why not us, I still think the squad isn’t strong enough overall & we are hamstrung by FFP.

The biggest positive is that pretty much all of us expected at least one of our talented youngsters to have been sold by now, & they haven’t.

Plus incredibly we have managed to offload Palmer.

I think that this is finally a side assembled by Pearson. I'm sure its not his dream squad but they all know him and what he demands. I think the dressing room will be more united with some high earners like Palmer gone and slackers looking at Bakinson will smell the coffee.

I still would not be surprised to see Kalas go to further reduce the wage bill and I think the likes of Vyner has top accept a move anywhere or sit on the sidelines. My feeling is that any fee over £1.5 mil for Massengo would be worth taking.

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I would say fairly confidently we will not trouble the playoffs.

Again not a great division but finances have dictated our ability to sign players this year. 
 

We have improved RB but not anywhere else. So we can only really expect a small improvement.

Hopefully will not get into a relegation battle and there will be at least 3 worst teams.

Rotherham and Brimingham and maybe reading but after that I am struggling a bit.

5th from bottom looks about right.

As long as we stay in the championship it will be a good season. 

This is a decent standard with some big clubs and games  we should be happy at where we are at the moment considering the problems we currently have.

 

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21 minutes ago, Better Red said:

I would say fairly confidently we will not trouble the playoffs.

Again not a great division but finances have dictated our ability to sign players this year. 
 

We have improved RB but not anywhere else. So we can only really expect a small improvement.

Hopefully will not get into a relegation battle and there will be at least 3 worst teams.

Rotherham and Brimingham and maybe reading but after that I am struggling a bit.

5th from bottom looks about right.

As long as we stay in the championship it will be a good season. 

This is a decent standard with some big clubs and games  we should be happy at where we are at the moment considering the problems we currently have.

 

Agree, the only way we are getting 4th is in alphabetical order i.e as the table is today;

I look down that table and dont see anybody I would put money on us beating, we lack a onfield leader and midfield dominance, we will be doing v well to beat last years lofty finish.

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We are two weeks out! ? No seriously! I remember pre seasons where we’ve thumped teams and had a shit season. I also remember going to watch us vs Weston Super Mare and losing then going on to win the league and the cup.  I guess what I’m trying to say is we won’t know how good or bad we are till we start the season. In Nigel we trust! 

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2 hours ago, billywedlock said:

That’s the spirit . 

Just being honest.

Happy to stay in the championship and a decent cup run would be good.

After our best 11 we lack depth.

We lack a bit in midfield and pace to really improve to much on last season. 
 

Playing 3 at the back is more about the lack of quality in midfield and I think we need the extra legs in there otherwise I fear we will get over run in to may games.

Need to see the first few games to see if there is any major change. Hopefully will get a decent start but for me nothing has really changed from last season.

We have got rid of players who weren’t playing anyway and brought in just Wilson to improve the starting 11.

 

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On 17/07/2022 at 21:08, Silvio Dante said:

It’s literally Nigel’s job to know what other championship clubs have done, who they’ve signed and how they play and then combat/beat that. If he doesn’t care what they’ve done, I’d suggest he’s not doing his job.

There have been contenders, but this may be a candidate for the most moronic statement I’ve seen on here.

I somewhat disagree.

Focus should be ourselves foremost, then worry about the opposition, if I was in NP's position.

The above was LJs entire problem, he didn't focus at all on the strengths of his squad, he focused on trying to stifle and/or counter opposition overristimating the abilities of the players at his disposal as well as his own personal tsctical knowledge (citing the 'Tombola' team selections), long term result of which across his reign was a completely bereft style of play and us not knowing what to do when we had possession; added to a bloated and mismatched squad. It eventually cost him.

The key, is balance between focusing on ourselves to be the best we can be - as Nige informed the players this pre season, that's what he and the coaching staff are there for, helping them to fulfuill their potential and be a facility they can use - while setting up a general framework and system for them to operate within, and adaptability regarding opposition setup and lead up to and during a fixture.

He'll then attempt to select a team that will counter opposition based on the information given to him by scouts and the clubs analysts to pinpoint opposition strengths and weaknesses where needed while guarding against other aspects.

Per the original comment - while perhaps too strong - depending on the context was not 'moronic'. We have a manager whose job is to simply make (very tough) decisions, not scout the opposition tooth and nail.

It also ultimately depends on preference of what you/I/others would prefer in a manager overall.

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1 hour ago, Better Red said:

Just being honest.

Happy to stay in the championship and a decent cup run would be good.

After our best 11 we lack depth.

We lack a bit in midfield and pace to really improve to much on last season. 
 

Playing 3 at the back is more about the lack of quality in midfield and I think we need the extra legs in there otherwise I fear we will get over run in to may games.

Need to see the first few games to see if there is any major change. Hopefully will get a decent start but for me nothing has really changed from last season.

We have got rid of players who weren’t playing anyway and brought in just Wilson to improve the starting 11.

We ended the season in a much better state. First wins back to back less goals conceded late on and less goals conceded from set pieces. Maybe some of the teams did drop the standard a bit due to the season coming to an end, but it speaks volumes about the squad that we didn't!

We have a much more solid side IMO and after watching these friendlies i keep forgetting we still have Kalas, Semenyo and Benarous to return. Scott only came back today too so actually i think this is a strong as we have had it since we collected all those players a few seasons ago. To say " We have brought in just Wilson to improve the starting 11" is not true. I can't believe you have forgotten Naismith and Sykes who will feature most games.

I agree it feels we are light in the middie but once Bakinson is off the wagebill and the Massengo issue is sorted, we should be able to bring in one or two more. 

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3 hours ago, Red Billy said:

We are two weeks out! ? No seriously! I remember pre seasons where we’ve thumped teams and had a shit season. I also remember going to watch us vs Weston Super Mare and losing then going on to win the league and the cup.  I guess what I’m trying to say is we won’t know how good or bad we are till we start the season. In Nigel we trust! 

The good thing for me is that the pre-season games have been very competitive / feisty, not tippy-tappy affairs.  We’ve got 90 minutes into most players already, and I think we are well prepared.  All 3 new boys (bar Bajic) have settled really quickly.

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I would love to be as optimistic as OP, but I think anything above about 14th would be good. We are rebuilding still really (although have sorted out a lot of issues form last season).

Optimistically I think we could get as high as 10th.

It is the championship though, so anything can happen.

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A lot of pessimism on here, fair comment too based on our results.

I feel the opposite, last season wasn’t as bad as the results would suggest. Had we not conceded late in the Blackpool opener the season would have played out differently, that I’m convinced of - we were playing well but had the confidence issues spilling over from the previous seasons and a dressing not pulling in same direction under Pearson - confidence was our Achilles heel.

We’ve moved on Palmer, COD, Bakinson - ideally we move Vyner & Wells but they’ll be involved in the squad as adequate back up if there’s no options to move.

The core of the remaining squad played through all that last season & finished well; all those here know what Pearson expects.

Scott, Pring, Semenyo, Tanner, Atkinson, Conway, Aymen* & HNM all have another years solid experience and majority will only get better this season. 

Hopeful Williams will get a full season without injury & Semenyo quickly back to full fitness.

The additions of Naismith & Wilson are clearly targeted & look to add strength. Couple more signings would be good.

Sykes not sure yet but can’t be any less effective than COD had become but with potentially to offer more. 

I like that we’ve added Jason Euell to the coaching team, he’ll be a positive factor.

Based on all that we’ll do better than most  expect us to, become a difficult team to beat & with a potent front line when WSM are fit and firing.

No point predicting the exactly what place we’ll end up as it’s the championship but I believe we’ll really enjoy this season, regardless of where we finish.

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10 hours ago, Better Red said:

Just being honest.

Happy to stay in the championship and a decent cup run would be good.

After our best 11 we lack depth.

We lack a bit in midfield and pace to really improve to much on last season. 
 

Playing 3 at the back is more about the lack of quality in midfield and I think we need the extra legs in there otherwise I fear we will get over run in to may games.

Need to see the first few games to see if there is any major change. Hopefully will get a decent start but for me nothing has really changed from last season.

We have got rid of players who weren’t playing anyway and brought in just Wilson to improve the starting 11.

 

Naismith looks a huge improvement to me. Excellent passer. Scratching my head that he used to play as a right winger.  Sykes also adds something we lacked (dribbling ability on the break). 

 

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7 minutes ago, Monkeh said:

12th that's where we will finish,

We are the very definition of midtable side,

We've strengthened and should be harder to beat, but not enough quality to crack the top 10 but more then enough quality not to be in the bottom 10 

I think you've summed it up perfectly. 

As it stands we lack a bit of extra quality going forward and don't have the strength in depth should we pick up a few injuries, but hopefully we will be more resolute defensively and harder to score against.

If Semenyo and Scott continue there improvement and Weimann has another good goalscoring season then we may be able to creep in to the top half but it does look like a mid table side to me (which isn't necessarily a bad thing).

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22 minutes ago, Monkeh said:

12th that's where we will finish,

We are the very definition of midtable side,

We've strengthened and should be harder to beat, but not enough quality to crack the top 10 but more then enough quality not to be in the bottom 10 

Look at who made the play offs. Forest   Huddersfield and Luton came from nowhere really.  At least 1 side will do that this year.

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3 hours ago, The Bard said:

Naismith looks a huge improvement to me. Excellent passer. Scratching my head that he used to play as a right winger.  Sykes also adds something we lacked (dribbling ability on the break). 

 

Naismith makes squad better.

Bettet than Kalas, Atkinson, Klose ? Not much in it for me.

Sykes will likely be on the bench post Seymenyo coming back

Again makes squad stronger but not 1st 11

 

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14 minutes ago, Gillies Downs Leeds said:

Naismith adds leadership qualities sadly missing in recent seasons.

Agree, plus Klose.

And I'm hoping James and Williams being fully fit with regular games will also help in that respect.

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2 hours ago, Gillies Downs Leeds said:

Naismith adds leadership qualities sadly missing in recent seasons.

Agree so a bit better in terms of ability but a lot better in terms of leadership.

Not a big improvement on the player front but maybe in the dressing room which is important.

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