Season Predictions 2023-24

[petehinton]

I find anyone who puts Ipswich top 6, with their squad how it is, absolute fantasy. Ashton beef aside. The only people who should think it are giddy Ipswich fans themselves. 
 

They had a huge wobble in league one at the turn of the year, genuinely don’t have any players that are too good for the level, and are coming into a very tough league. 
 

Love the NTT20 boys, but having them above the likes of Boro and Sunderland is absolute nonsense imo based on nothing other than being starry eyed blind over a manager. 

Edited July 31, 2023 by petehinton

[ExiledAjax]

54 minutes ago, EFL View said:

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. 

I merely speak as one experienced fan who has witnessed a Mark Ashton squad develop over time.

[Mr Popodopolous]

1 hour ago, chinapig said:

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.

Think we started with a weaker squad than we came up with and the disgruntlement regarding transfers didn't help.

All the same Ipswich for 3rd this coming season, it feels fairly crazy.

[And Its Smith]

Ipswich could make a lot of people look silly! Or not…

[stephenkibby.]

1 hour ago, And Its Smith said:

Ipswich could make a lot of people look silly! Or not…

Is that's what called sitting on the fence.?

[pl00peh91]

In a hilarious bit of analysis, The Second Tier podcast have said that we have a squad that should be pushing for the top six, but because of their irrational hatred of Pearson they’ve shoved us in 16th in their predictions.

[cidered abroad]

13 hours ago, And Its Smith said:

Ipswich could make a lot of people look silly! Or not…

How do you remove the splinters from your buttocks?

[W-S-M Seagull]

17 hours 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.

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.

Isn't that exactly what Sir Alex used to do? 

I like Pearsons style. When Pearson talks, people listen. 

I think he spent the majority of the pre season games up in the stands watching? Thats what he did when he first came here? As it gives him a better view of whats going on. 

I think this season we will see a clearly defined style from us. Up until now weve been building towards that style.

15 hours ago, INCRED said:

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 

What a lot of fans of all clubs don't realise is that to build a team that has that collective desire does not happen over night and it takes quite a long time to have all the correct personalities in the squad. One bad egg can destroy the whole team ethos. I've had so much crap from other fans about how Pearson has so say taken us backwards which makes me laugh. From my perspective we've completely transformed under Pearson. I've constantly been telling them that Pearson and Co have been rebuilding the squad for the past 2 years and that at some point we will take off. 

We now look like a Nigel Pearson team. I liked what I saw last season where by and large our performances were pretty consistent as was the worm ethic. I think that level has been upped since last season. Nige saying how the players came back fitter than expected shows how far this squad has improved. 

We usually have a good season when we have that squad cohesion and that's made me feel incredibly excited about the coming season.

[!james]

33 minutes ago, pl00peh91 said:

In a hilarious bit of analysis, The Second Tier podcast have said that we have a squad that should be pushing for the top six, but because of their irrational hatred of Pearson they’ve shoved us in 16th in their predictions.

From 3:19 on here if anyone wants a laugh

 

[ollywhyte]

Seen this on Facebook, supercomputer has us finishing in 4th. Will take that

 

[IAmNick]

27 minutes ago, !james said:

From 3:19 on here if anyone wants a laugh

 

"He hasn't guided the team into mid table in his 2 full seasons in charge yet"

Wait, weren't we 14th last year? Is my understanding of mid table completely out?!

There are 24 teams in the league, so between 12th and 13th is the mid point - so around that is mid table? We were one place away. They then talk about Swansea (10th) as mid table... I'm confused!

[W-S-M Seagull]

25 minutes ago, !james said:

From 3:19 on here if anyone wants a laugh

 

Did Nige have a shit on their beds or something? 

They said lots of positive things but they didn't really give any credit that Nige has been responsible for building this squad snd bringing through the young players etc. 

They gave no reason as to why they think we'll finish even lower than last season. 

I don't actually think our performances were inconsistent. It was the results that were inconsistent but they failed to make any mention of the fact we had big injury problems last season which contributed towards the inconsistent results. 

If we would have had Baker, Benerous, Conway, Kalas and Naismith available for the season then I'd say we would have got just the 3 wins needed to put us in and around the play offs.

[ExiledAjax]

Second Tier, and Dilks in particular, seem to have a deep dislike of Pearson. Maybe because Dilks is a Derby fan and Pearson has big Leicester(shire) connections, maybe it's something else, but over the past year or two they've come out with some pretty odd comments about us and Pearson.

This is the latest one I guess.

Oh they also know that saying this sort of stuff gets lots of traction on social media. All publicity is good publicity etc.

@IAmNick in my opinion mid- table in a 24 team division is the middle 8 positions. 9th to 16th. You can also talk about the top ten and bottom ten, but that leaves only 4 positions as "mid-table". I prefer splitting it into 3 groups of 8.

Edited August 1, 2023 by ExiledAjax

[winsaw]

Be happy if the super computer is correct, I seam to remember last year it got a far few places correct 

[ExiledAjax]

1 hour ago, !james said:

From 3:19 on here if anyone wants a laugh

 

I enjoyed the rapid climb down from putting us as "one of the biggest spenders" to "top quarter at least" down to "maybe top half [of spenders]" in about 10 seconds. FWIW transfermarkt have us 6th in terms of spending.

Also touting Conway as a dark horse for the division's top scorer.

Then 16th because Pearson is holding us back. 

It's funny, I don't necessarily disagree with their fundamental argument that a different manager might be needed to take us into the top 6. But their rationale and reasoning for putting us 16th is just all over the place. My agreement with their ultimate premise doesn't detract from all of Pearson's good work so far, but it is yet to be seen if he can get us up into those top positions. I'm not writing the possibility off completely, but I have my doubts. Not to the extent of putting us 16th though. Hence I have us 9th. We'll do better than last season I think, but whether we can break into the top 6...I'm not sure.

Edited August 1, 2023 by ExiledAjax

[And Its Smith]

3 hours ago, cidered abroad said:

How do you remove the splinters from your buttocks?

I’ve said they will finish 7th so what are you on about ?

[bcfctim]

4 hours ago, pl00peh91 said:

In a hilarious bit of analysis, The Second Tier podcast have said that we have a squad that should be pushing for the top six, but because of their irrational hatred of Pearson they’ve shoved us in 16th in their predictions.

Seems a common trend this summer where in their analysis people only have positive things to say about us and our squad and then in their prediction they shove us in the bottom half because reasons

[Davefevs]

5 hours ago, ExiledAjax said:

I enjoyed the rapid climb down from putting us as "one of the biggest spenders" to "top quarter at least" down to "maybe top half [of spenders]" in about 10 seconds. FWIW transfermarkt have us 6th in terms of spending.

Also touting Conway as a dark horse for the division's top scorer.

Then 16th because Pearson is holding us back. 

It's funny, I don't necessarily disagree with their fundamental argument that a different manager might be needed to take us into the top 6. But their rationale and reasoning for putting us 16th is just all over the place. My agreement with their ultimate premise doesn't detract from all of Pearson's good work so far, but it is yet to be seen if he can get us up into those top positions. I'm not writing the possibility off completely, but I have my doubts. Not to the extent of putting us 16th though. Hence I have us 9th. We'll do better than last season I think, but whether we can break into the top 6...I'm not sure.

Spending so far:

Based on published fees or where undisclosed, suggested fees from reputable people like Percy, Piercy, Romano, Cawley.

Where no credible fee, I’ve left blank.  Here they are:

 
Most of the ones above are unlikely to be £free, which changes our position a (fair) bit?

At some point over the next few weeks I’ll try and Google each again to see if anything has come to light.

[ExiledAjax]

31 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Spending so far:

Based on published fees or where undisclosed, suggested fees from reputable people like Percy, Piercy, Romano, Cawley.

Where no credible fee, I’ve left blank.  Here they are:

 
Most of the ones above are unlikely to be £free, which changes our position a (fair) bit?

At some point over the next few weeks I’ll try and Google each again to see if anything has come to light.

Transfermarkt aren't wildly off what you've got here. They quite in Euros and I suspect take a guess at any unknown fee that you've left blank. Anyway, it's broadly similar. Were in the top 3rd for expenditure. Income is negligible right now subject to any future outgoings.

[Mr Popodopolous]

8 hours ago, ExiledAjax said:

Second Tier, and Dilks in particular, seem to have a deep dislike of Pearson. Maybe because Dilks is a Derby fan and Pearson has big Leicester(shire) connections, maybe it's something else, but over the past year or two they've come out with some pretty odd comments about us and Pearson.

This is the latest one I guess.

Oh they also know that saying this sort of stuff gets lots of traction on social media. All publicity is good publicity etc.

@IAmNick in my opinion mid- table in a 24 team division is the middle 8 positions. 9th to 16th. You can also talk about the top ten and bottom ten, but that leaves only 4 positions as "mid-table". I prefer splitting it into 3 groups of 8.

Pearson was at Derby for 6 months or maybe less in 2016. Didn't go well, that would explain a lot Dilks wise.

[ExiledAjax]

17 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Pearson was at Derby for 6 months or maybe less in 2016. Didn't go well, that would explain a lot Dilks wise.

Yeh I forget that.

[And Its Smith]

I think we need predictions if Scott stays and also if he goes.  6th if he stays. 10th if he goes 

[ExiledAjax]

Ben Fisher writing in the Guardian says the following:

"Bristol City have strengthened in defence and Jason Knight adds zest but much will hinge on the future of Alex Scott and how they replace him if the teenager moves on. The fizzy 20-year-old Tommy Conway, Scott’s housemate, could build on a fine breakout campaign."

He doesn't do a 1-24 but we are spoken about towards the end of the "Playoff hopefuls" section.

PS. I wonder who wiseowl1982 in the comments supports? A witty comment "Put a few pounds on Bristol City being relegated. They aren't a Championship club and have been inflated above their level by the largesse of Steve Lansdown who, oddly for somebody who made his fortune in financial services, has repeatedly put sentiment ahead of sound financial judgement. At some point, they will return to their natural level, which is top 10 L1."

 

[AppyDAZE]

16 minutes ago, ExiledAjax said:

Ben Fisher writing in the Guardian says the following:

"Bristol City have strengthened in defence and Jason Knight adds zest but much will hinge on the future of Alex Scott and how they replace him if the teenager moves on. The fizzy 20-year-old Tommy Conway, Scott’s housemate, could build on a fine breakout campaign."

He doesn't do a 1-24 but we are spoken about towards the end of the "Playoff hopefuls" section.

PS. I wonder who wiseowl1982 in the comments supports? A witty comment "Put a few pounds on Bristol City being relegated. They aren't a Championship club and have been inflated above their level by the largesse of Steve Lansdown who, oddly for somebody who made his fortune in financial services, has repeatedly put sentiment ahead of sound financial judgement. At some point, they will return to their natural level, which is top 10 L1."

 

Still above the tinpot club that he follows then.

[Mr Popodopolous]

My thinking for a long time now for us has been 10th.

Hard to explain why buy we feel a top 10 side and yes if injuries, bit of luck go our way, officiating better than last year we can have a crack at top 6 but just been thinking 10th ultimately for a while now.

[The Bard]

Reading/watching/listening to a few of these, all be it briefly, there is just so much laziness and/or slavish obsession to the established narratives that they aren't really going to be illuminating. They obsess about the 3 teams coming down, the 3 that came up and the ones that missed out in the play offs.  Some teams literally go unmentioned.  

I think we've got our best chance of a play off challenge since the Webster season.  Then we had a well balanced squad with a sprinkling of high quality and I think that's the case now. I think we will be more consistent and less likely to be 'found out'.  If you consider that Millwall, Sunderland, Coventry and Blackburn basically fought it out for 4th and 5th places last season, it makes you realise there really isn't a massively high bar to reach to be a play off team.  It's worth noting that 3 of those have seasoned managers in charge and so do we.   We are in the position to challenge and it would be a big let down if we don't get amongst it this season.

That's obviously different to saying we're getting promoted.  However, I get the feeling that if we did get amongst it we would maintain our challenge in contrast to the previous 3 opportunities we had under Lee Johnson.

[And Its Smith]

Ipswich being top heading into April made me re-read this thread. Shows what an incredible job McKenna has done as they were written off by pretty much everyone