With the new league two season now less than a week away, what are your expectations for the new season and where do you think we will finish come the end of the 2012/13 season. I recently completed all my predictions for the noircat league and regardless of my individual team forecasts at this stage, I decided to tally the points outcome of my forecasts and calculated a grand total of 83 points to season end. 83 points is generally good enough for a second place finish in League Two, however, last season it would only have been good enough for fourth place and a play-off place. 2011/12 HTML: 1 Swindon T (P) 46 29 6 11 75 32 +43 93 2 Shrewsbury (P) 46 26 10 10 66 41 +25 88 3 Crawley T (P) 46 23 15 8 76 54 +22 84 4 Southend 46 25 8 13 77 48 +29 83 5 Torquay U 46 23 12 11 63 50 +13 81 6 Cheltenham 46 23 8 15 66 50 +16 77 7 Crewe Alex 46 20 12 14 67 59 +8 72 8 Gillingham 46 20 10 16 79 62 +17 70 9 Oxford United 46 17 17 12 59 48 +11 68 Now there is an obvious bias behind my predictions but looking at last seasons table above, it highlights the massive task ahead for 2012/13. Knowing that we probably need to achieve at least an additional 13 points on top of last seasons finishing total to achieve any realistic chance of autos, although my minimum expectation of play-offs can be achieved by ensuring we do not fail in games such as the Crewe home fixture last season. Final Auto and Play-Off point totals since 2004-05 HTML: 2010-11 . 2009-10 . 2008-09 . 2007-08 . 2006-07 . 2005-06 . 2004-05 86 . 93 . 85 . 97 . 89 . 86 . 83 81 . 83 . 79 . 92 . 88 . 83 . 80 80 . 82 . 78 . 88 . 85 . 81 . 80 79 . 73 . 78 . 82 . 84 . 78 . 78 73 . 73 . 75 . 80 . 74 . 72 . 75 69 . 72 . 70 . 78 . 72 . 71 . 72 68 . 72 . 69 . 78 . 71 . 66 . 72 So please give me your thoughts on what you believe is required to gain promotion from League Two this season, including points tally, where you think we will finish and so on and finish by giving us your decisive answer... 2nd - 83 points
as it stands id like to say autos but I havent seen us strengthen in th areas we badly needed too. yes good organisation could stop us conceding so mnay goals and hopefully we can still be top scorers but I would have really thought with a couple of good signing at the back in terms of full backs mainly that I could say autos. atm i'd think we may just scrape playoff so 6/7th
I really think that this season is a hard one to call, I want to say we can get automatic promotion, but I am not sure, our first choice midfield is probably the best in the division, but Charlie Lee must play more matches and not spend half the season watching from the stands, I think Strevens and Burton offer good competition when added to Kedwell, Birchall and Miller, but I do have concerns at the back, I would have liked a new centre half to compliment Essam and a new left back and probably a winger (if only as a John Hodge style super sub), its not too late for these additions to be made, but as it stands we should make the play offs.
Scoring was not a problem last season, keeping goals out was! We still have not filled them full back positions with players better than last season! Are we going to do the same as last season and have other players filling in as Martin will be sent off every other game and i was far from convinced by Fish or Evans! Don't see us challenging for autos unless the defence is sorted, so must be aiming for mid to high 70s for a play-off place, but not even sure we are capable of that!
definitely in the top 2 dozen ........and it wasn't funny when I said the same on the Plymouth board. roll on tomorrow.
Don't worry BSG - by next Tuesday night, as I go home from the Wycombe game, I'll probably be sick and tired of football.
2012/13 Where will we finish? Away to Burton isn't it? Sorry I've tried to resist and wait for someone else to write it but couldn't hold off any longer. League wise I think around 10th unfortunately.
http://bwinbetting.com/leagues/league-two/league-preview,22314.html Not sure if anyone else has read this but it has a nice little write up on several promotion contenders. It predicts we'll be in the play offs. Apparently though we still have Jo Kouffor playing for us this season.
not if we are in the play offs- that might be Saturday 18 May 2013 @ Wembley. ( my pendanticity is not always appreciated )
BSG - purely from a grammatical ( Queens English ) point of view, pedantry is strictly correct. However you should be able to find that pedanticity is also acceptable- but am I might just being pedantic ?