EFL View

Some of our fans were reluctant for us to get loans in but it’s self-defeating not to. Premier League clubs hoard so much talent in their academies that it’s a market all championship teams need to exploit if they’re to succeed. Even Burnley and Sheff Utd with their parachute payments relied on borrowed players for a lot of the season. I think we’ve got the sweet spot with three. Williams is a key player, Hutchinson is great off the bench and Scarlett has a bit part role. It gives us the injection of quality without making the team overly reliant on them in a way that Coventry and Middlesbrough last year.

Agreed on Yeboah. He was dangerous when he came on, caught Brandon Williams out a couple of times.

Not sure where you’ve got your information from for the first paragraph but it’s not accurate. We spent a lot getting out of L1 but our spend this summer was fairly typical by Championship standards. The board won’t have been gambling on promotion this season, in fact I doubt any of them would have expected us to have started as well as we have. As for the game tonight, we just about shaded it. Thought Bristol City did very well at stopping our playing out from the back for the first five minutes. We’ve not looked as nervous on the ball since the opening 20 mins of the season at Sunderland. From that point, we controlled the first half. After the last half hour we were possibly lucky to escape with the win. We looked very nervy and City did well to exploit some of the spaces out wide, causing Hladky a lot of problems. Statistically he’s been the best shot stopper in the league and his distribution is top notch but he still doesn’t command his area enough. Felt like there could have been more opportunities created through the middle though. Our subs didn’t make much impact. Scarlett is still in the adjustment phase that all of our signings under McKenna have had to go through, given the complications of the roles in the system. We missed having Burns and Ladapo as options too, although I’m aware there were City players missing as well so not an excuse. If I had to rank that against the rest of our performances so far this season it would probably be somewhere in the middle. Happy to get three points out of that when at times it looked like we might have to settle for one. My pre-season assessment of Bristol City as a team who will be pushing for the playoffs but probably just miss out hasn’t changed. I rate Conway very highly, even if he should have done better with that early chance, and defensively it’s a much better team than a few years back. For us, I have no idea whether it will continue. I had us down as a midtable side in pre-season so to be nine points ahead of third with a game in hand is ridiculous. It should be another good contest back at Portman Road.

Good thread. You're correct to identify the cut-back to Chaplin as being our main threat. We scored countless goals from those situations last season. He's always been an exceptional finisher but he's found a new level under McKenna. Leif Davis provides a lot of his goals and will be playing in the Premier League next year regardless of whether we maintain our fast start. I agree that we've benefited from being given space in behind a fair few times, which is largely due to teams not showing us enough respect because we've just come up from League One. What encourages me though is that we've won games in different ways, coming out on top in the basketball style matches at Portman Road and grinding out 1-0 victories away from home. McKenna has massively improved as a tactician since the middle of last season where we had a bit of a slump and had become a bit predictable, before he mixed things up and we went on that crazy run of 13 wins in 14 to finish second Our biggest weakness defensively is when balls are played in between Woolfenden and whoever is playing right-back (Williams or Clarke) Their communication isn't always the best and Conway might fancy a goal, especially from a header. Looking forward to heading to Ashton Gate tomorrow. I think it'll be a tight game, I'll go for a 1-1 draw.

Interesting, thanks for that. From an outside perspective, things definitely look more positive than they did two years ago.

Cheers, good luck to you too. Those three, as well as Norwich, were the hardest to place. I did a more in depth article about Watford in April detailing why I think they're in for a poor season unless things change. I like the Ismael appointment but it'll take a while to implement his style and like most Watford managers, he'll probably be out before he has the chance. Why Watford’s failure to win promotion must be the catalyst for off-field change (substack.com)

I think they had us way too high in 3rd as well and I think your prediction of trajectory may well be right but not for the reasons you say. We had a very big squad last year and it didn't negatively affect us. We've had very little turnover and 90% of our squad were with us in League One so I can't see too many of them being disgruntled at not starting Championship games.

Interesting. Who are your top six?

Cheers. I think the job he's done has been a good one and it's definitely a positive that he's kept things stable, I was only highlighting that he often hasn't been able to do that during his career.

Thanks. Perhaps overreliance was the wrong word to use, and I don't think the senior players are past it, I was more trying to highlight that there's been some good succession planning. Thought the Ashton issue might pop up! So far things his influence has been positive, as when he came in we were in such dire need of a football person around the club and some drive to get things moving forward following the lack of direction of the Marcus Evans era. Obviously we've incurred some pretty big losses by League One standards along the way and I'm aware that his popularity eventually fell off a cliff with Bristol City though. At this stage it's so far so good, but getting a team with our budget out of League One isn't exactly an outstanding achievement so the real assessment of his performance will come in the next couple of years.

Hi I’m an Ipswich Town fan who writes a blog about the EFL. I’ve written a predictions/preview article ahead of the Championship season. It’s quite long winded so I’ve split it into two parts. What are your expectations ahead of the season? So far I think the spending has been very sensible, adding a small number of upgrades to strengthen in different positions and lower the average age of the squad, rather than spending silly money on a complete overhaul, assuming that £20m+ will be coming in for Scott later in the window. It'll be a big jump from 14th to the playoffs but I definitely think you'll be higher than last year. Obviously predictions always bring disagreement but I hope you like what I've written anyway. It was posted on Wednesday so a couple of things will be a little out of date. Cheers 2023-24 Championship Predictions: 1st-12th (substack.com) 2023-24 Championship Predictions: 13th-24th (substack.com)