I needed my football fix so I watched this week's televised games. It looks to me like there will be no easy games this season. Blackpool start 4 players 6'4'' or taller. There LCB is an absolute beast. The Coventry announcer said "Giant" about 10 times during the match commentary. Coventry have replaced Willis with very good and very big CB. They also have a striker on loan from Aston Villa who comes on as a late sub and has scored in added time in each of his last two appearances. MK Dons have young striker who has scored in his last 3 cup matches. So they gave him a start in the league and he opened his account after only 10 minutes after brushing off a physical CB. And it doesn't look like they have any questions at LB either. You can see a bit of their performances at the following link: And Wimbledon can only get better as they have signed a giant Finnish striker on loan. He came on as a late sub and scored a headed goal, not from a set piece, after being on the pitch for about 5 min's.
It's early days, Hefty. I'd say, at the moment, the league looks to be considerably weaker, this season. That may make it more competitive as there's no standout teams like Luton, Barnsley and to a degree, us. I don't think it's a case of teams stepping up. More so the standard has dropped and brought more of the league teams closer together in terms of quality.
Agreed. Barnsley and Luton were truly stand out last season, there’s nothing special this year, sadly that includes us. It’s who gets the wind on their sails this season for me.
im praying that we will be top two minimum before the season ends, with automatic promotion,with the new money i can only see us getting better, if we are there or thereabouts in Jan i can see championship top six signings to push us over the line
Too early to be sure of anything other than its not going to be a walk, this league is full of obstacles and it takes a strong resilient side to compete, coupled with a strike force that can be relied on game after game, we aint there yet but are moving in the right direction. So far we are lagging behind our form of last season marginally, based purely on results, but win the next two games and we are back on track., with a squad, that to me looks stronger than the one that finished last season, and it will need to be, but so far no one is running away with it and its all to play for.
Clocky There is an article on the Salut Sunderland website mirroring exactly what you've said about our start to the season with graphs to show how well or otherwise we are doing. Were behind after six games on last season but fixture against fixture were actually one point better off. I think it's too early to say either way but September could be a big month for us if we can get back to winning ways at Accrington on Saturday and put a few wins together. Consistency will see teams promoted whoever can achieve it.
Cowley the Lincoln manager looks to be heading for Huddersfield so that could bring to an end their bright start to this season. mind I thought when Jones left Luton they'd suffer and how wrong was I then.
Its too close to call really, when I saw the fixture list, I expected a tough start to the season, and the fact that we were so poorly prepared made it even harder, but after the opening game JR got his act together and we have done well since imo. The Peterborough game was hard to take but if we respond in the right manner we should get back on track, I think we will, and am looking forward to getting back to winning ways against the Aussies and the Ackies this week.
Let’s face it lads it was a freak result, we’ve never been beaten by that many goals since Ross came, and I’m more than confident that it won’t happen again! We will be up there come the end of the season, of that I’ve no doubt.
When Southampton won League 1 many moons ago they had Ox Chamberlain, Schneiderlein, Lallana, Ricki Lambert and Fonte' playing for them. I wouldnt say the quality has improved but teams are certainly alot more physically stronger now which is where we suffered last season. Ive said it before and ill say it again, 442 is the way forward in this league with preferably a big strong target man upfront and a couple of big Centre backs and workhorses in the middle of the park.
Fact of the matter is that whichever way you look at it we have gradually downgraded on our playing staff, we’re now a fully integrated League One side and have no divine right to beat other teams, it’s going to be a scrap.
The worry for me is teams who win leagues , are the ones who’s can finish teams off and win games 4/5-0 looking back on the last 18 months I can’t recall us doing this once, the only time we look a good league 1 team is when we have a go at teams, the problem is soon as teams hassle us and press we fall to bits and panic and yet still Ross hasn’t learnt how to deal with this, and until we learn to manage games better we won’t make top 2
Between refreshes of the Takeover thread, I've set up a spreadsheet with last season's results on compared to this season so I could see how we compared to last season. 10 games in and we have the exact same points as last season with 19, we've scored 4 goals less (16 vs 20) and have conceded 2 goals more (12 vs 10). If we beat Lincoln next week we will have more points than at the same stage last season, our 11th game last season was the home draw to Peterborough, we then won the next 6, will be an ask to repeat that feat but I remain optimistic.
Not bad considering we had Maja last season who scored fifteen goals in half a season and this time we've got Grigg and Wyke who have scored about ten league goals between them since they signed. Credit to Ross for getting us scoring goals without a competent striker.
No. Ross hasnt learned and other teams know what to expect and are more likely to nullify us. Get shot of ross and we have a whole different ball game
The goals are being scored for opportunist reasons predominantly macgeady and Maguire. In this pub league the skill of players like these will always get you some goals It's not a result of our build up play, creativity etc because we are still a hoofball team in the main. Maja left before ross had a chance to ruin his natural talents.
You're wrong about Maja and you're being unfair to Ross about it. Did you not see him in the warm ups working on his hold up play, previously the weakest part (nonexistent really) of his game? That's Ross. He can't take credit for his natural talent but he can take credit for helping him make use of it and you think he was ruining him? Bias much. Also as I've said elsewhere you'd do well to lower your expectations, if you're expecting lots of build up play and creativity in league one with league one players no wonder you're disappointed. Almost every game we play better than the opposition anyway, on the whole. Add to that the fact we remain almost impossible to beat and fight until the last whistle and you should be buying Ross a pint not criticising him.
Also McGeady stayed because he was happy under Ross and Maguire was signed by him so if they are "opportunistically" scoring goals then who should get the credit for that? That's right, this guy
