Season Predictions 2023-24

[W-S-M Seagull]

9 hours ago, EFL View said:

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. 

From my own conversations with fans of other clubs most of them vastly under estimate what a job Pearson has done. 

I think because it's Nigel Pearson, other fans expect us to walk the league under him.

When he came here, we had a squad full of players that were not good enough and who were just comfortable to be at Bristol City living in a place place and earning good money. 

The squad was completely unfit and we had lots of injuries. 

He was tasked with basically rebuilding the club whilst cutting costs quite substantially and only having very limited funds to bring players in. 

Since he's been here he's installed a culture at the club where every player is expected to be incredibly fit and to run and work hard. That's exactly what you'd expect from a Nigel Pearson team. But what other fans do not realise is that implementing a culture does not happen over night. There are so many moving parts to it. We are now one of the fittest teams in the league and with all the added time that will be added this season, fitness is going to be huge. 

I think saying he kept things stable is overlooking what he had to contend with to keep us in this division. 

He had to cut the wage bill massively whilst basically being told to work with what he had. He was tasked with turning the whole club around. The season before last we had to play 18 year old striker Sam Bell at RWB. Last season we had to play Andy King at CB and then had to play full backs at CB as we have been desperately unlucky with injuries since Nige has been here. 

We have seen year on year progression whilst never being in any danger of relegation. The job he has done under all those circumstances has been exceptional rather than "good" 

The work Nige has done with the academy players has been very refreshing. Our starting 11 next week will likely contain 6 academy players plus even more on the bench. The majority of those players walk into a lot of Championship sides. 

Other managers would not have invested in the academy players like Nige has as they would be too concerned about their own records. 

Nige has pretty much done exactly what he said he would do. It's not been easy but in some ways it has been enjoyable to watch our journey. When he came here we struggled to even get a shot on target in a lot of games. Now we're a team that presses from the front, plays on the front foot and we are full of energetic attacking players. 

Nige has restructured the club. He brought in Dave Rennie to oversee the medical/fitness department. He brought in Fleming and Euell as coaches and the biggest one was getting Brian Tinnion to be technical director which is essentially a DoF role. On the playing side the club is now joined up all the way from the academy to the first team and everyone is on the same page and pulling in the same direction. 

The work that Brian and Nige do together is incredible. 

We have probably never ever had this kind of professionalism about us as a club before, and that's down to Nige. 

This is the 1st summer where Nige has had some decent funds and he has spent it very very wisely. I think most of us are expecting a top 10 finish at least this season. I have us down as to be one of the genuine dark horses this season. 

I can see us easily finishing above Coventry who you've put ahead of us as they've lost their best two players and they've had a high turnover of players. Their manager has even said they are not ready for the new season. 

Last season we were pretty much in most games. We were consistent with our performances. It looks like over pre season we have taken a big step forward so I'm incredibly excited for the coming season. I've not been this excited for a very long time and I think that's a measure of how things are going for us right now.

[W-S-M Seagull]

5 hours ago, Bryans Left Peg said:

Don’t see Stoke getting top half.

I don't either. I think they've signed something like 10 players? Very rarely in football does signing that amount of players yield instant results. 

We've now got a settled squad which we've added to intelligently. The players here have helped create the culture we now have. They've set the standards themselves. By and large the whole squad had the training camp away together in Austria and have had a good pre season together. The cohesion within the team is clear to see. 

You don't get all that instantly when you sign 10 players at once. It takes a team a while to gel and its why I think the likes of Stoke and Coventry will be lucky to get out of the bottom half.

[Son of Fred]

2 hours ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

expecting a top 10 finish at least this season.

Expecting??? - not hoping?

2 hours ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

I've not been this excited for a very long time

Said the actress to the Bishop.

[pl00peh91]

Not the Top 20 podcast have us finishing 10th this year, which is pretty decent I think 

[And Its Smith]

The more I go through every team the more confident I get

1. Leicester
2. Leeds
3. Southampton 
4. Middlesborough
5. Sunderland
6. Bristol City
7. Ipswich
8. Watford
9. Norwich
10. Coventry
11. Millwall
12. Stoke
13. Swansea
14. Birmingham
15. Blackburn
16. West Brom
17. Preston
18. Huddersfield
19. Hull
20. Plymouth
21. Cardiff
22. QPR
23. Sheff Wed
24. Rotherham

[W-S-M Seagull]

Most predictions I've seen has us around 18th which I find quite bizarre. We had Andy King playing CB last season and full backs playing centre back, had some big injuries and yet we finished 14th. 

Yet despite us signing players which gives us depth, people think we'll do worse? Baffled. 

I'd go as far as saying had we of had Baker, Kalas, Conway and Naismith available for the majority of the season, we'd have been knocking on the door of the play offs. 

Edited July 31, 2023 by W-S-M Seagull

[ExiledAjax]

42 minutes ago, pl00peh91 said:

Not the Top 20 podcast have us finishing 10th this year, which is pretty decent I think 

Some interesting opinions from NTT20 I thought. 

I broadly agreed with their bottom half. Not sure I'd have QPR rock bottom but they are absolutely in trouble and will be down in that bottom 6. I'd also possible swap Rotherham and Cardiff and have Cardiff going down, I think the turmoil off the pitch will finally tell and they'll get relegated.

Mid-table again fine. I'd probably have Coventry in the top 6, and we're an interesting pick for 10th. My view is it's the right prediction but that our ultimate finish is going to be very dependent on luck and injuries. I'd say anything between 6th and 14th is possible for us as we've still got some exposure to depth issues - for example if we sell Scott and get one injury then our centre midfield suddenly looks thin. I don't know, maybe it's years of conditioning but I just can't bring myself to put us above 8th.

Top 6 I'm sorry but I can't put Ipswich 3rd like NTT20 did. They're reasoning was basically that they're on a big upper and will come flying out of the traps. Awesome lads, enjoy 3rd place in September but wait until you have to slog through the winter and your huge squad is disgruntled to the core. I predict Ipswich are this season's faders. Start well, fall away, finish about 9th.

I do agree on Leicester though. I'm close to some fans and staff there and it's either going to be a beautiful 100+ point dream of a season, or Coady, Winks et al are going to prove themselves past it and they'll struggle to make Enzoball work. I think 3rd/4th is the right call.

Top 2 I've no qualms with either. Both will be strong.

[Davefevs]

3 hours ago, ExiledAjax said:

Some interesting opinions from NTT20 I thought. 

I broadly agreed with their bottom half. Not sure I'd have QPR rock bottom but they are absolutely in trouble and will be down in that bottom 6. I'd also possible swap Rotherham and Cardiff and have Cardiff going down, I think the turmoil off the pitch will finally tell and they'll get relegated.

Mid-table again fine. I'd probably have Coventry in the top 6, and we're an interesting pick for 10th. My view is it's the right prediction but that our ultimate finish is going to be very dependent on luck and injuries. I'd say anything between 6th and 14th is possible for us as we've still got some exposure to depth issues - for example if we sell Scott and get one injury then our centre midfield suddenly looks thin. I don't know, maybe it's years of conditioning but I just can't bring myself to put us above 8th.

Top 6 I'm sorry but I can't put Ipswich 3rd like NTT20 did. They're reasoning was basically that they're on a big upper and will come flying out of the traps. Awesome lads, enjoy 3rd place in September but wait until you have to slog through the winter and your huge squad is disgruntled to the core. I predict Ipswich are this season's faders. Start well, fall away, finish about 9th.

I do agree on Leicester though. I'm close to some fans and staff there and it's either going to be a beautiful 100+ point dream of a season, or Coady, Winks et al are going to prove themselves past it and they'll struggle to make Enzoball work. I think 3rd/4th is the right call.

Top 2 I've no qualms with either. Both will be strong.

There is a view amongst many of these pundits (and I massively rate the NTT20 guys) and that is they are a sucker for a young coach that play good football.  Martin, Manning…now McKenna.

Take aside the Ashton stuff, do we really see a forward line (inc wide forwards) of Hirst / Ladapo / Chaplin / Broadhead (injured again), Aluko, etc, backed up by a midfield of Morsy, Luongo, Evans, Jack Taylor bring good enough for 3rd?  I don’t - it’s not Jack Clarke, Ellis Simms, Diallo, etc like Sunderland (minus Stewart), is it?

And we e not mentioned their defence, that has a Burgess and Woolfenden at the heart of it.  Walton in goal is good.  But they should’ve strengthened the CB.  Leif Davis and Harry Clarke have pedigree from their PL clubs but unknown quantities at this level, backed up by Greg Leigh, Donacien and Wes Burns.

I might be totally wrong, but their fans are thinking Morsy and Luongo and gonna run midfields.  Did they do that in their pomp with better players around them?  Chaplin, ditto.

Mid-table best for me, more likely a wake-up call, bottom third, especially when they can’t get their best eleven out.  They didn’t even walk the league, they finished behind Plymouth.

[Oh Louie louie]

Manning as a coach Chaplin upfront they got no chance, sound like a bunch of comedian's to me . 

[ExiledAjax]

17 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

There is a view amongst many of these pundits (and I massively rate the NTT20 guys) and that is they are a sucker for a young coach that play good football.  Martin, Manning…now McKenna.

Take aside the Ashton stuff, do we really see a forward line (inc wide forwards) of Hirst / Ladapo / Chaplin / Broadhead (injured again), Aluko, etc, backed up by a midfield of Morsy, Luongo, Evans, Jack Taylor bring good enough for 3rd?  I don’t - it’s not Jack Clarke, Ellis Simms, Diallo, etc like Sunderland (minus Stewart), is it?

And we e not mentioned their defence, that has a Burgess and Woolfenden at the heart of it.  Walton in goal is good.  But they should’ve strengthened the CB.  Leif Davis and Harry Clarke have pedigree from their PL clubs but unknown quantities at this level, backed up by Greg Leigh, Donacien and Wes Burns.

I might be totally wrong, but their fans are thinking Morsy and Luongo and gonna run midfields.  Did they do that in their pomp with better players around them?  Chaplin, ditto.

Mid-table best for me, more likely a wake-up call, bottom third, especially when they can’t get their best eleven out.  They didn’t even walk the league, they finished behind Plymouth.

I agree. I think the other wildcard is that these young managers who play nice football - they're on the radar of the big boys. We get to sacking season in late October and a bigger club needs a new manager...well we saw with Jones and Beale last season that there's a vulnerability there. 

McKenna may well start well with a side with nothing to lose, but if they're top 6 when West Ham need a replacement for a sacked Moyes...don't discount that threat.

As I say, I can accept Ipswich starting well, but think they'll not have the staying power one the big boys turn it on in 2024.

Did you think anything of the Coventry chat? New owners and a fair bit of churn but Simms is a top signing and Lateabuediare (sp) and Dasilva are solid and I think Thomas is a great pick up. Consistent with a top manager...I fancy them to go play offs again.

The other one that people seem to be rating is Birmingham. So much churn, so much uncertainty, a new manager without much track record, still issues with the stadium even if new owners are in. Not sure I see them much above 16th it so.

Edited July 31, 2023 by ExiledAjax

[ExiledAjax]

FWIW

10th to 20th is really loose and really anything could happen in there.

[Davefevs]

8 minutes ago, ExiledAjax said:

I agree. I think the other wildcard is that these young managers who play nice football - they're on the radar of the big boys. We get to sacking season in late October and a bigger club needs a new manager...well we saw with Jones and Beale last season that there's a vulnerability there. 

McKenna may well start well with a side with nothing to lose, but if they're top 6 when West Ham need a replacement for a sacked Moyes...don't discount that threat.

As I say, I can accept Ipswich starting well, but think they'll not have the staying power one the big boys turn it on in 2024.

Did you think anything of the Coventry chat? New owners and a fair bit of churn but Simms is a top signing and Lateabuediare (sp) and Dasilva are solid and I think Thomas is a great pick up. Consistent with a top manager...I fancy them to go play offs again.

The other one that people seem to be rating is Birmingham. So much churn, so much uncertainty, a new manager without much track record, still issues with the stadium even if new owners are in. Not sure I see them much above 16th it so.

I haven’t listened yet

[W-S-M Seagull]

1 hour ago, ExiledAjax said:

Did you think anything of the Coventry chat? New owners and a fair bit of churn but Simms is a top signing and Lateabuediare (sp) and Dasilva are solid and I think Thomas is a great pick up. Consistent with a top manager...I fancy them to go play offs again.

Coventry have lost Gyokeres and about to lose Hamer. Without them last season they'd have been down near the bottom I think. 

Last season they found a way to win after a difficult start. Momentum took them a long way. 

I see a lot of Coventry fans predicting top 2/play offs and a lot of people have them down as getting in the play offs. 

Very high turnover of players. 8+ signings so far and Robins saying he wants at least 3 more. They've nit had the greatest of pre seasons and Robins said the other day they are not ready for the new season. 

Very very rarely in football does signing 10+ players work out. They've not had a pre season together so have not had a chance to build that team spirit that took them so far last season. 

Simms is decent but he wont win Coventry matches by himself like Gyokeres did. Lati and JD were not really good enough for Swansea and us. Didn't Thomas have a terrible time down the road? The foreign guys they've signed look decent but the Championship is a tough league. 

With a possible play off final hang over plus huge expectations from 18k season ticket holders I just can't see them repeating last season at all. They have a tough start so they may be under a lot of pressure from their expectant fanbase quite early on. 

I can actually see them really struggling. There are a lot of similarities with us and when we got to the final. 

[Supersonic Robin]

On 30/07/2023 at 08:56, EFL View said:

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?

2023-24 Championship Predictions: 1st-12th (substack.com)

2023-24 Championship Predictions: 13th-24th (substack.com)

I think your prediction for us is pretty fair - I have us down to finish between 7th-12th.

My main disagreements with your predictions would be:

• Hull to finish significantly lower
• Blackburn to finish a bit lower
• Watford to finish a bit higher

Interesting to see how Ipswich do. Many people are tipping them for top 6, which looks a bit optimistic to me. Good luck for this season.

11 hours ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

From my own conversations with fans of other clubs most of them vastly under estimate what a job Pearson has done. 

I think because it's Nigel Pearson, other fans expect us to walk the league under him.

Agree that Pearson's work is underappreciated by many neutrals (and even many of our own fans!)

I don't think many people appreciate just how much of a sh*tshow Pearson inherited.

The fact Pearson isn't very 'fashionable' doesn't help either. As @Davefevs says, fans and pundits both take a kinder view of younger managers who set their teams up to complete 1000 passes every week.

6 hours ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

Most predictions I've seen has us around 18th which I find quite bizarre.

Yepp, maybe I'm being naive here, but I have no idea on what basis people could predict us to finish in the bottom third.

[W-S-M Seagull]

9 minutes ago, Supersonic Robin said:

I think your prediction for us is pretty fair - I have us down to finish between 7th-12th.

My main disagreements with your predictions would be:

• Hull to finish significantly lower
• Blackburn to finish a bit lower
• Watford to finish a bit higher

Interesting to see how Ipswich do. Many people are tipping them for top 6, which looks a bit optimistic to me. Good luck for this season.

Agree that Pearson's work is underappreciated by many neutrals (and even many of our own fans!)

I don't think many people appreciate just how much of a sh*tshow Pearson inherited.

The fact Pearson isn't very 'fashionable' doesn't help either. As @Davefevs says, fans and pundits both take a kinder view of younger managers who set their teams up to complete 1000 passes every week.

Yepp, maybe I'm being naive here, but I have no idea on what basis people could predict us to finish in the bottom third.

I'm not sure many other managers would have kept us in this division, let alone rebuilt the club and put some solid foundations in place with next to no money. 

It makes me laugh when people say Pearson is out of touch with modern football tactics. At every club he's been at he's adapted and used a different system. I think the way we are going to play this season is going to shock a lot of people! 

If someone can give me a logical reason as to why we'll finish below where we finished last season then fair enough but no one has yet been able to do that. I find that our fanbase is generally quite realistic about where we will finish every season and it's not too far wrong. 

[ExiledAjax]

33 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

Coventry have lost Gyokeres and about to lose Hamer.

Big losses for sure but Hamer's not gone yet, though I accept that Robins' recent remarks show he's almost certain to leave by the end of August. 

I mentioned the churn, but it's player churn under a stable management team and with most of their off-field issues sorted under the new ownership. So it's stable churn rather than unchecked changes.

Can you truly reconcile a play off final hangover with a high churn of players? If many of those players have left then isn't it more of a fresh start but under a management team who have done it once and can leverage that experience? Maybe you can spin it either way.

On the bit below, I think it's a Simms who's different to last season, and even last season he got 7 in 1,100 minutes for Sunderland, plus 11 PL appearances once recalled. I watched him way back in the Sunderland game a year ago and he was very good against us. I think he'll be a force. The others, time will tell but we've seen plenty of players leave clubs with a shrug and then have a great season elsewhere, I'd not write those guys off based on past performance.

34 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

Simms is decent but he wont win Coventry matches by himself like Gyokeres did. Lati and JD were not really good enough for Swansea and us. Didn't Thomas have a terrible time down the road? The foreign guys they've signed look decent but the Championship is a tough league. 

34 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

Last season they found a way to win after a difficult start. Momentum took them a long way. 

I guess ultimately I'm saying that lightening could strike twice.

I think Coventry are one that are hard to place so absolutely you could be correct and me wrong, but I think there's enough there to put them higher up.

[Davefevs]

34 minutes ago, Supersonic Robin said:

I think your prediction for us is pretty fair - I have us down to finish between 7th-12th.

My main disagreements with your predictions would be:

• Hull to finish significantly lower
• Blackburn to finish a bit lower
• Watford to finish a bit higher

Interesting to see how Ipswich do. Many people are tipping them for top 6, which looks a bit optimistic to me. Good luck for this season.

Agree that Pearson's work is underappreciated by many neutrals (and even many of our own fans!)

I don't think many people appreciate just how much of a sh*tshow Pearson inherited.

The fact Pearson isn't very 'fashionable' doesn't help either. As @Davefevs says, fans and pundits both take a kinder view of younger managers who set their teams up to complete 1000 passes every week.

Yepp, maybe I'm being naive here, but I have no idea on what basis people could predict us to finish in the bottom third.

Here’s a table of my own prediction (FWIW), compared to BB (Benjamin Bloom), GS (Gab Sutton) and 20 (Not The Top 20).  These 3 are decent, well informed.

Ipswich, Hull, Stoke and Watford are the most variable. City’s range is small.

18 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

I'm not sure many other managers would have kept us in this division, let alone rebuilt the club and put some solid foundations in place with next to no money. 

It makes me laugh when people say Pearson is out of touch with modern football tactics. At every club he's been at he's adapted and used a different system. I think the way we are going to play this season is going to shock a lot of people! 

If someone can give me a logical reason as to why we'll finish below where we finished last season then fair enough but no one has yet been able to do that. I find that our fanbase is generally quite realistic about where we will finish every season and it's not too far wrong. 

Incredible that people are still using words like “Dinosaur”. It’s lazy based on aged.  Why aren’t some of the youngsters being called “naive” for example.  I’m sure if you spoke to Kieran McKenna in 10 years time, he’d say he was a bit wet behind the ears in his formative years.

Nige is pretty modern in his thinking, but people forget he is a “football manager”, not a coach / head-coach. He just uses / empowers his experts like Fleming, Rennie, Euell to do some of the grunt work.  He doesn’t need to run the sessions, he observes.  It allows him to see more imho.

[ExiledAjax]

11 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Here’s a table of my own prediction (FWIW), compared to BB (Benjamin Bloom), GS (Gab Sutton) and 20 (Not The Top 20).  These 3 are decent, well informed.

Ipswich, Hull, Stoke and Watford are the most variable. City’s range is small.

Sutton's backing of Hull and NTT20's backing of Ipswich are the real outliers. Both pretty wildly optimistic IMO.

You've then clearly got the block from 9th down to 18th where it's really anyone's guess. I personally wouldn't die on the hill for any of my placements in that mid-table melee.

Top 5 and bottom 5 are pretty consistent though, and I largely agree with them.

As ever, check back in during the first international break when the window is closed and teams have ten or eleven games under their belt. That's the point we can start to look at the stats as well and get a steer on who is misplaced at that moment.

Edited July 31, 2023 by ExiledAjax

[!james]

22 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Here’s a table of my own prediction (FWIW), compared to BB (Benjamin Bloom), GS (Gab Sutton) and 20 (Not The Top 20).  These 3 are decent, well informed.

 

Interesting to compare! I know a few others are due out this week (Second Tier)

I am currently putting together my ante post bets for this season, working my way through the NTT20 pods - love to see something similar for Leagues 1 & 2 if it exsists?! 

[Davefevs]

9 minutes ago, ExiledAjax said:

Sutton's backing of Hull and NTT20's backing of Ipswich are the real outliers. Both pretty wildly optimistic IMO.

You've then clearly got the block from 9th down to 18th where it's really anyone's guess. I personally wouldn't die on the hill for any of my placements in that mid-table melee.

Top 5 and bottom 5 are pretty consistent though, and I largely agree with them.

As ever, check back in during the first international break when the window is closed and teams have ten or eleven games under their belt. That's the point we can start to look at the stats as well and get a steer on who is misplaced at that moment.

I was surprised that NTT20 made such a big play about a cup tie against Burnley as a barometer.  It means little / nothing.  Jeez, we played well against Man City, a whole league higher.  They talk about stats, but it’s easy to take the numbers in Lg1 when there are 20+ sides worse than and see them as good, but they don’t play out at a higher level.  There will be a lot made of their results against the top 6/7…and they were good, something like p12 w5 d6 l1…but the two promoted sides are tipped to be relegated / bottom 6.

You are right, we won’t know much until several games in.  And there is much of muchness about the middle chunk.

[glastored]

12 hours ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

From my own conversations with fans of other clubs most of them vastly under estimate what a job Pearson has done. 

I think because it's Nigel Pearson, other fans expect us to walk the league under him.

When he came here, we had a squad full of players that were not good enough and who were just comfortable to be at Bristol City living in a place place and earning good money. 

The squad was completely unfit and we had lots of injuries. 

He was tasked with basically rebuilding the club whilst cutting costs quite substantially and only having very limited funds to bring players in. 

Since he's been here he's installed a culture at the club where every player is expected to be incredibly fit and to run and work hard. That's exactly what you'd expect from a Nigel Pearson team. But what other fans do not realise is that implementing a culture does not happen over night. There are so many moving parts to it. We are now one of the fittest teams in the league and with all the added time that will be added this season, fitness is going to be huge. 

I think saying he kept things stable is overlooking what he had to contend with to keep us in this division. 

He had to cut the wage bill massively whilst basically being told to work with what he had. He was tasked with turning the whole club around. The season before last we had to play 18 year old striker Sam Bell at RWB. Last season we had to play Andy King at CB and then had to play full backs at CB as we have been desperately unlucky with injuries since Nige has been here. 

We have seen year on year progression whilst never being in any danger of relegation. The job he has done under all those circumstances has been exceptional rather than "good" 

The work Nige has done with the academy players has been very refreshing. Our starting 11 next week will likely contain 6 academy players plus even more on the bench. The majority of those players walk into a lot of Championship sides. 

Other managers would not have invested in the academy players like Nige has as they would be too concerned about their own records. 

Nige has pretty much done exactly what he said he would do. It's not been easy but in some ways it has been enjoyable to watch our journey. When he came here we struggled to even get a shot on target in a lot of games. Now we're a team that presses from the front, plays on the front foot and we are full of energetic attacking players. 

Nige has restructured the club. He brought in Dave Rennie to oversee the medical/fitness department. He brought in Fleming and Euell as coaches and the biggest one was getting Brian Tinnion to be technical director which is essentially a DoF role. On the playing side the club is now joined up all the way from the academy to the first team and everyone is on the same page and pulling in the same direction. 

The work that Brian and Nige do together is incredible. 

We have probably never ever had this kind of professionalism about us as a club before, and that's down to Nige. 

This is the 1st summer where Nige has had some decent funds and he has spent it very very wisely. I think most of us are expecting a top 10 finish at least this season. I have us down as to be one of the genuine dark horses this season. 

I can see us easily finishing above Coventry who you've put ahead of us as they've lost their best two players and they've had a high turnover of players. Their manager has even said they are not ready for the new season. 

Last season we were pretty much in most games. We were consistent with our performances. It looks like over pre season we have taken a big step forward so I'm incredibly excited for the coming season. I've not been this excited for a very long time and I think that's a measure of how things are going for us right now.

I couldn’t have put it better myself. So I won’t!

[Davefevs]

6 minutes ago, !james said:

Interesting to compare! I know a few others are due out this week (Second Tier)

I am currently putting together my ante post bets for this season, working my way through the NTT20 pods - love to see something similar for Leagues 1 & 2 if it exsists?! 

I don’t bother doing ones below Champ in the main.  I might do a 1-24 for Lg1, but I don’t follow the ins and outs religiously like I do the champ.

Not sure if you’re a twitter user:

 

[ExiledAjax]

2 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I was surprised that NTT20 made such a big play about a cup tie against Burnley as a barometer.  It means little / nothing.  Jeez, we played well against Man City, a whole league higher.  They talk about stats, but it’s easy to take the numbers in Lg1 when there are 20+ sides worse than and see them as good, but they don’t play out at a higher level.  There will be a lot made of their results against the top 6/7…and they were good, something like p12 w5 d6 l1…but the two promoted sides are tipped to be relegated / bottom 6.

You are right, we won’t know much until several games in.  And there is much of muchness about the middle chunk.

Yeh I don't think many will be saying "Burnley put out some incredible stats in the Championship and have a young talented manager in Kompany, so I've put them 3rd in the Premier League". Call that a wild comparison by me but it's essentially the NTT20 Ipswich argument.

Edited July 31, 2023 by ExiledAjax

[Davefevs]

[And Its Smith]

3 hours ago, Davefevs said:

There is a view amongst many of these pundits (and I massively rate the NTT20 guys) and that is they are a sucker for a young coach that play good football.  Martin, Manning…now McKenna.

Take aside the Ashton stuff, do we really see a forward line (inc wide forwards) of Hirst / Ladapo / Chaplin / Broadhead (injured again), Aluko, etc, backed up by a midfield of Morsy, Luongo, Evans, Jack Taylor bring good enough for 3rd?  I don’t - it’s not Jack Clarke, Ellis Simms, Diallo, etc like Sunderland (minus Stewart), is it?

And we e not mentioned their defence, that has a Burgess and Woolfenden at the heart of it.  Walton in goal is good.  But they should’ve strengthened the CB.  Leif Davis and Harry Clarke have pedigree from their PL clubs but unknown quantities at this level, backed up by Greg Leigh, Donacien and Wes Burns.

I might be totally wrong, but their fans are thinking Morsy and Luongo and gonna run midfields.  Did they do that in their pomp with better players around them?  Chaplin, ditto.

Mid-table best for me, more likely a wake-up call, bottom third, especially when they can’t get their best eleven out.  They didn’t even walk the league, they finished behind Plymouth.

The only caveat to that is that we know good managers improve players and they have a very good one in my opinion. I’ve got them 7th but think top half for sure 

[EFL View]

7 hours ago, ExiledAjax said:

Some interesting opinions from NTT20 I thought. 

I broadly agreed with their bottom half. Not sure I'd have QPR rock bottom but they are absolutely in trouble and will be down in that bottom 6. I'd also possible swap Rotherham and Cardiff and have Cardiff going down, I think the turmoil off the pitch will finally tell and they'll get relegated.

Mid-table again fine. I'd probably have Coventry in the top 6, and we're an interesting pick for 10th. My view is it's the right prediction but that our ultimate finish is going to be very dependent on luck and injuries. I'd say anything between 6th and 14th is possible for us as we've still got some exposure to depth issues - for example if we sell Scott and get one injury then our centre midfield suddenly looks thin. I don't know, maybe it's years of conditioning but I just can't bring myself to put us above 8th.

Top 6 I'm sorry but I can't put Ipswich 3rd like NTT20 did. They're reasoning was basically that they're on a big upper and will come flying out of the traps. Awesome lads, enjoy 3rd place in September but wait until you have to slog through the winter and your huge squad is disgruntled to the core. I predict Ipswich are this season's faders. Start well, fall away, finish about 9th.

I do agree on Leicester though. I'm close to some fans and staff there and it's either going to be a beautiful 100+ point dream of a season, or Coady, Winks et al are going to prove themselves past it and they'll struggle to make Enzoball work. I think 3rd/4th is the right call.

Top 2 I've no qualms with either. Both will be strong.

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. 

[EFL View]

1 hour ago, Supersonic Robin said:

I think your prediction for us is pretty fair - I have us down to finish between 7th-12th.

My main disagreements with your predictions would be:

• Hull to finish significantly lower
• Blackburn to finish a bit lower
• Watford to finish a bit higher

Interesting to see how Ipswich do. Many people are tipping them for top 6, which looks a bit optimistic to me. Good luck for this season.

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)

[EFL View]

13 hours ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

From my own conversations with fans of other clubs most of them vastly under estimate what a job Pearson has done. 

I think because it's Nigel Pearson, other fans expect us to walk the league under him.

When he came here, we had a squad full of players that were not good enough and who were just comfortable to be at Bristol City living in a place place and earning good money. 

The squad was completely unfit and we had lots of injuries. 

He was tasked with basically rebuilding the club whilst cutting costs quite substantially and only having very limited funds to bring players in. 

Since he's been here he's installed a culture at the club where every player is expected to be incredibly fit and to run and work hard. That's exactly what you'd expect from a Nigel Pearson team. But what other fans do not realise is that implementing a culture does not happen over night. There are so many moving parts to it. We are now one of the fittest teams in the league and with all the added time that will be added this season, fitness is going to be huge. 

I think saying he kept things stable is overlooking what he had to contend with to keep us in this division. 

He had to cut the wage bill massively whilst basically being told to work with what he had. He was tasked with turning the whole club around. The season before last we had to play 18 year old striker Sam Bell at RWB. Last season we had to play Andy King at CB and then had to play full backs at CB as we have been desperately unlucky with injuries since Nige has been here. 

We have seen year on year progression whilst never being in any danger of relegation. The job he has done under all those circumstances has been exceptional rather than "good" 

The work Nige has done with the academy players has been very refreshing. Our starting 11 next week will likely contain 6 academy players plus even more on the bench. The majority of those players walk into a lot of Championship sides. 

Other managers would not have invested in the academy players like Nige has as they would be too concerned about their own records. 

Nige has pretty much done exactly what he said he would do. It's not been easy but in some ways it has been enjoyable to watch our journey. When he came here we struggled to even get a shot on target in a lot of games. Now we're a team that presses from the front, plays on the front foot and we are full of energetic attacking players. 

Nige has restructured the club. He brought in Dave Rennie to oversee the medical/fitness department. He brought in Fleming and Euell as coaches and the biggest one was getting Brian Tinnion to be technical director which is essentially a DoF role. On the playing side the club is now joined up all the way from the academy to the first team and everyone is on the same page and pulling in the same direction. 

The work that Brian and Nige do together is incredible. 

We have probably never ever had this kind of professionalism about us as a club before, and that's down to Nige. 

This is the 1st summer where Nige has had some decent funds and he has spent it very very wisely. I think most of us are expecting a top 10 finish at least this season. I have us down as to be one of the genuine dark horses this season. 

I can see us easily finishing above Coventry who you've put ahead of us as they've lost their best two players and they've had a high turnover of players. Their manager has even said they are not ready for the new season. 

Last season we were pretty much in most games. We were consistent with our performances. It looks like over pre season we have taken a big step forward so I'm incredibly excited for the coming season. I've not been this excited for a very long time and I think that's a measure of how things are going for us right now.

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

[INCRED]

In the Championship it’s not just about having good technical players. It’s also about the collective desire to work hard for your team mates, athleticism and a team spirit 

These attributes are what NP and the coaching staff have been working on over the last 12-18 months. If you then add the new players into the squad to give us more depth then I genuinely think we will make our mark on this league providing we stay clear of key injuries 

if Scott stays then I’m fairly confident we can make top 6, if he is sold then depending on who/if we replace him with it could lower our chances 

A lot of twists and turns ahead but the way the club have approached the close season, the signings so far and the pre season form all bodes well for 23/24 

My expectations are much higher this season because we look to have turned a corner and actually have all the pieces in place to make a mark and genuinely be contenders for promotion 

[chinapig]

53 minutes ago, ExiledAjax said:

Yeh I don't think many will be saying "Burnley put out some incredible stats in the Championship and have a young talented manager in Kompany, so I've put them 3rd in the Premier League". Call that a wild comparison by me but it's essentially the NTT20 Ipswich argument.

It's also equivalent to predicting that Cotts' League 1 champions were so good at that level that they would finish 3rd in the Championship. They struggled of course.