I will miss the Leeds board, very active and decent lads to talk to (feel sick and tainted now) Didn't spend much time on the Southampton board this season but in the past always found it lively and pretty much family orientated. Leicester board never attracted me at all, was probably worried it was a board full of Fosses
Libby coming up to Newcastle caused one of the funniest moments of the season. Will live long in the memory. He basically text saying he was at pub and what he was wearing, he then went out for a smoke and bumped into me and Schlem. As we walk back into the pub one of our lot was desperately trying to explain to some bloke how he was mistaken, how he'd arranged to meet some bloke off the internet and that he didn't mean to call him libby. Probably one of those ones you had to be there for, but we were howling
Leeds posters are sound. There's a few racist ones on there that I don't bother with but that's their business and they keep it to their threads. I'm banned from the Southampton board, don't remember why, but they're generally sound. I think there's only a handful of Leicester posters. The Championship team boards will be far more active than the Prem.
Championship is going to be a decent watch next year. Could be a dozen teams could easily be in the mix if they get their **** together and keep their managers and players. You lot, Boro, Leeds, Leicester, Southampton all likely to be in the mix, and down there you can never discount Norwich, Swansea, West Brom, Stoke, Watford and Blackburn look like they're improving.
I think we are possibly another 2 seasons away from being genuine automatic promotion contenders. It's hard to make predictions at this stage until you see what transfers are being done but my gut feeling is Southampton will be the ones most likely to bounce back. Leicester are going to lose a lot of players and their manager was sacked by Norwich in the Championship last season. No idea about Leeds but it doesn't look good according to their supporters.
If Boro keep their players and add to them they would be my favourites to win the Championship next season, some great players and well worth watching as a team. After that maybe Southampton if they can keep the majority of the squad then 3rd who the **** knows.
Think most fans feel the same when they go down, still suffering from the previous season too much to look forward to it.
I think the fact that Leeds and Leicester are both bigger stories could benefit us as there'll be less national interest/pressure on us and we should be able to go under the radar a bit. Especially as we've already picked our manager (though remains to be seen if he's good enough). We should definitely have a good enough squad with the financial advantage we hold over others (plus some saleable assets and some decent young players too) so if the manager is decent I'd expect us to be there or thereabouts. Albeit we spent about £150m this season and got worse so who knows what will happen
Funnily enough, I'm already looking forward to next season too ... this one was truly shambolic for us ... an all round, unbelievable, farce ... need a complete 'spring clean' throughout the club ...
Gotta keep Carrick too, huge factor in why they were so good to watch in my opinion. If he starts next season playing as well/ better than he got them doing last season then he might be someone on Prem club’s lists to replace any sacked managers during the campaign.
He really could do with two or three seasons in the Championship learning his trade before jumping into a Premier league job. As has been proven by Potter, Lampard, Gerrard, they aren't ready for it at all, get sacked and are set back a few years. Unless he actually gets promoted of course, like Steve Cooper.
Weird teams Brighton and Brentford. Not many people playing or not playing seem to do well when they leave. Both very analytics-based in their recruitment and maybe getting the most from mediocre players rather than having genuinely great ones.
This is very true and look at the players who make up the backbone of the team ie Joelinton(just got called into the Brazilian squad),Almiron,Wilson,Schar,Willock,Murphy,Saint-Maximin and Longstaff all there before the takeover and managed by Benitez/Bruce plus the gibes of "the richest club in the world" and look at the ****e they are buying in Trippier(£12m),Pope(£10m),Burn(£13m) and Wood(£25m now gone) but yeah ...
