Or at least as good as Mike Calvin (who?) thinks we think we are. http://sport.bt.com/sportfootball/f...ion-time-S11363925637281?s_intcid=con_BTcomHP
I'd question the position of Bunley more than any, even ourselves, the guys knows nothing like everyone who tries to predict at this time. Trying to predict exact positions of 20 clubs is stupid and is be surprised if he got 5 of them wrote by the season end
I pay no attention to such predictions ... they are normally coloured by all sorts of bias plus a general dollop of wishful thinking ... where did he predict Liverpool, Man United and Palace would finish last season I wonder? ... Reasons to be cheerful: 1) We had a cracking season in the Championship ... yes it is the Championship ... but what more could we do than we did? ... have either Burnley or QPR really strengthened that much since? ... not enough to cause me any worry I have to say ... will our fairly big group of promising young players not have got even better? .. so they are two teams I hope to finish above with, I think, as much confidence / justification as anyone else might have about them fairing better than us ... that said I'd love it if Burnley survived too ... 2) The Palace myth ... 'Pulis will engineer another Stoke' ... could happen, he will have them organised for sure ... but I'll take flair and pace against organisation ... and those that have cited being a yo-yo club as a reason for our demise should look at Palace's history ... 3) Second season syndrome ... established Premier teams are less likely to be caught by surprise by Hull City or Palace this season than by any of the 3 that have just come up .. 4) Disputes, disaray and dismantling ... Villa, West Brom, Southampton West Ham (and to a lesser extent perhaps Swansea)... suspect our fans are looking forward to the season with far more optimism than tha fans of most if not any of these ... 5) Sunderland - great escape last season ... but they looked pants for a long long time and O'Shea, Brown and Bardsley are not getting any younger ... could you say they will do better than us with any confidence? ... I'd still have us ... 6) Our manager has 'no Premeirship experinece' ... which might just substitute for 'he's not foreign' cos, after all, Mourinho, Pochettino, Pellegrini, Laudrup, Poyet, Wenger and Mancini didn't do that badly when they first took on the Premier League, did they? 7) Finances - our owners are 'probably' richer than the owners of all those teams I've mentioned above - so they might just decide to help out if we are struggling by January ... 8) Fan-base - expect sell-outs home and away (end) - it won't be for lack of raucous support that the boys flounder ... ... so predict away Mystic Megs of the world ... my money is on us surviving with something to spare ... only time will tell of course - but one thing I can say with some confidence ... is that my 'prediction' of how we'll fare is based on far more knowledge of OUR squad and infra-structure than any of the predictions we've encountered so far, either in press articles or from the fans of other boards...
Well said that man! As I mentioned before, look at Rodgers with Swansea and Lambert at Norwich for two young British managers who got their side promoted and stayed up with easy not to mention foreign managers like Pochetino. Anyone convincing themselves we are doomed before a ball is kicked is doing so out of desperation as there seem no solid reasons to assume as such
He's a Millwall fan. And unlike most on here , he knows his stuff!! I'd recommend his books, if any of you read books!!
Hardly makes his predictions any more accurate than anyone else's. I'd like to see his predictions for last season.
.... oh bugger, my bad ... now that's cleared up, I'll look at his predictions in a whole new light ... ... and I suspect I've read many more books than you ... although yours will probably have necessitated more crayon usage
The margin between the top of the championship and the bottom of the Premier League isn't as big as people make out. We basically had a Premier League squad playing in the championship last season hence why we completely ran away with it and why Nigel doesn't think we need massive changes to the team.
