So, last season with a bigger and better squad, bigger budget and best fans, we were clear favourites for promotion and succeeded in that. Since promotion, the only people I've heard/read that think saints can do well are other Saints fans, and the one Leeds fan who said we are a dangerous proposition. So what is it that brings us to be overlooked in the chance for promotion, or at least a challenge? Being predicted to finish 13th is rather insulting to be honest, considering teams like Peterborough, M'boro, Pompey, Derby, Palace, Barnsley and Bristol City are in this league. However, being fairly overlooked for promotion, do you think its a concept/tag that Adkins and the players will prefer or will they miss the expectation of having to perform week in week out. In my opinion the pressure of promotion last year brought the best out of the players, they didn't want to put a foot wrong! Yet this season I think the league will be surprised and the release of pressure will bode well for the team..
Isnt that just the speculation from the Telegraph? AFAIK we were 6th favourites with the bookies for promotion...
No game in this league will be easy this season, and we have just come up from a lower league, that is why we are not favourites to go up.
Can't rely on bookies odds as one factor is the money being placed. Perhaps Saints fans are just big gamblers! Off topic, on OS there is a report about u18 tour of denmark. Doddie climbed onto a high dive board where he remained for 10 min until a life guard went up to walk him down. I hope someone filmed that!
The rapid decline and financial meltdown, then rescue by saint markus put us in the limelight in L1, so the lazy journos tipped us to go up. Plus there were few teams with the sort of ground, infrastructure and recent history that saints had in league 1, so most teams saw it a real challenge to "put us in our place" hence the sort of vitriol from boscombe and brighton towards us. Also we had to contend with both a different style of football, and really horrible pitches. These sort of things will be more level in the Championship (fallingdownpark aside), plus there are teams who have recently come down with the potential financial meltdown that can provide, and with a more illustrious recent past than us, so they get the column inches in the press. I think also that not many teams will achieve back to back promotions so we may be discounted by some for that reason as well. I woulod prefer to be dismissed by the press, and then slowly creep up on promotion than start as slam dunk favourites only for people to be disappointed at the first point dropped.
Agree with olddellboy, being favourite is a burden. Luckily, we will be considered promising rather than favourites in the Championship.
Fair point about the bookies tipping us for promotion/play offs, however I do remember Saints being 4-1 favourites to bounce straight back up from Champ to Prem, sadly that didn't work out
saints fans are expecting too much, i definitely wouldn't call 13th insulting considering the competitiveness in this league
There are never any easy games in this league. 13th definitely isn't insulting for a just promoted team, I don't think any of our lot were tipped that highly, Four Four Two said we'd finish 18th!
Ignore the predictions and let our players do their own talking on the pitch. They're certainly capable of finishing higher than 13th, and we will finish higher than that too.
Back in the Championship & not being the club everyone raises there game against or ground everyone wants to play at, will be good this year. Expect when the team gels after a few games & the wins start to come in we will go back up the predictions board.
