For me, Blackburn are the hardest one to judge, they had a decent squad already and they've made some good additions, but the SK factor makes them one that could go either way. I think Bolton will be in the top two, Wolves should be, but I've no idea about their new manager, or who they'll be left with come the start of the season. Almost impossible to call this season, over half the league look to have squads capable of a top six finsh.
Unless you'd signed him, in which case, he'd be a top Premier League defender with bags of experience. You don't need to slag off other clubs players to make a point, confidence in your own would suffice.
Watford will offer nothing, wrong manager and wrong signings. Hull are getting better each year - good young improving squad and a good manager.
I think that's a fair summary of the relegated teams. In my experience, you can never write them off. Remember when people said that Newcastle would be more likely to get relegated than promoted? West Ham weren't fancied last season either. We still have the likes of Birmingham, Blackpool, Cardiff and Middlesbrough capable of automatic, and then there's the unknown quantities of the teams promoted from League One - all three are capable of causing a shock, particularly Huddersfield. Add to that Leicester, Forest, Derby, Hull, Ipswich and even Leeds, and it will be another interesting season.
Is been proven over years no one is too good to go down and no one isnt good enough to go up Who would have thought we would have got relegated a few years ago? And who would have thought Blackpool would have got promoted? The league is wide open. No one fancied Reading last season after they lost Shane Long and Matt Mills but they pulled together and went on a superb run of form and they just carried that on and won the league.
In truth this time last year the squad was much better,and I think the league will be even harder. So for me its mid table sorry. Bolton and Charlton auto with Wolves or Blackpool play off.
We may look weaker as a team on paper but we will be alot stronger now. Nigel has built us a proper team
^ I agree. When we had the Yak, Van Aanholt, Bruma, Naughton, (someone in CM too that i cant remember) we were a team of quality players. I now feel we are a good team with the right ethic. Nige always builds quality TEAMS.
Put it this way the team of Weale, Morrison, Hobbs, Brown, Berner, Gallagher, Wellens, King, Dyer, Fryatt, Waghorn That got us play offs, not too exciting put players who did their job and worked well as a team When we filled up on "quality" players like Yakubu, Curtis Davies, Patrick Van Aanholt, Jeff Bruma, Jermaine Beckford, David Nugent, Kasper Schmeichel, Diomansy Kamara, Ricardo, Gelson Fernandes, Matt Mills, Michael Johnson, Sol Bamba, Kyle Naughton etc We couldnt get out of mid table. They may be better players but they arent a better team
Why not put it this way? most of the second list were when Sven took over and we were bottom of the league. He then got us pushing for top six only to fall away at the end 8 points off. The following year Sven was sacked after 13 games, 2 points from the play offs. Nigel then had 30 games a loan window and a transfer window and we finished 9 points from the play offs and the football was crap to watch. Trust me I saw every game.
