In no particular order Plymouth/Cardiff/Luton/Derby/Hull/Oxford Wrexham/Wycombe Charlton/Stockport/Leyton Orient/Reading Huddersfield Bolton Rotherham Wigan Lincoln Peterborough Blackpool Doncaster/Bradford/Port Vale/Walsall Notts County/Grimsby/Wimbledon Massive summer ahead, can't afford to be signing half a team of punts. Head coach in place now so no excuses for 11th hour poor signings on deadline day.
Long hard season ahead. There is an excuse - we're brassic and the club is in turmoil, so we'll be left with the players no-one else wants.
I wonder who will be super club to be scared of and use as a barometer for not competing next season? There doesn't look at all to be a stand out there. Recruitment will be key. Looks a great opportunity on paper.
There's no excuse but there is a reason the DoF, he's past scrapping the bottom of the barrel from the inside for signings and has now turned it over and is scrapping the **** off the underneath of the barrel to see what footballing gems he can turn up from there.
I wouldn't bother considering next season yet. You can't judge the strength of a league on name alone, and certainly not before transfer business has been done. Birmingham aside, this has been a bang average league this year. And that's being kind.
Never had any momentum this season. Had moments in games but never capitalised on them. A few draws should have been wins. I knows its arrogant but you don't have to be anything special in this division. Just organised.
Correct Stephen. Turmoil upstairs, poor managers and general unrest within the club. Now Conner has arrived, give him the summer to get rid of the dead wood and hopefully he will be given a budget to rebuild the side. Surely next year can’t be as bad and uninspiring as what we have just had.
I agree mate, a solid organised team with players like DKD, Phillips, Connell and Russell in it should be challenging for playoffs. Even in the last month or so alone we've thrown away enough silly points that could have still had us challenging.
The championship looks interesting all the way upto Preston in 18th could go down. Preston play Plymouth on Saturday in a massive game lose and it will be a nervous finish for them
That not an excuse in my opinion... Getting some higher earners off the books and slimming the squad down should give Hourihane some funds to work with. I think we can expect to get fees for DKD Connell and Phillips that will further support this, though I am hopeful DKD will stay and we build around him. It's no good languishing at this level if the board want to stop losing money they need to invest and put us on a stronger footing.
It is difficult to avoid last minute deals. Good players will play clubs against one another to get the best deal for them and their agent. Rotherham signed nearly afull team very early and it did them no good.
And as this season has showed, you only need to be good for 3/4 of the season to be in with a substantial shout of the playoffs
No, just other clubs get organised way ahead, Stockport had brought in 11 permanent signings by 8th July, 2 futher loan signings by 26th July they then added Oliver Norwood in August and 2 other loan signings by 9th August. Steve Evans was a major contributer to Rotherham's poor season, their results since show just how they had under performed, if they add just a few to that this year they'll be much better. We'll be down the back of the sofa 10pm on 31st August.
Only guarantee is we'll all mostly be venting our spleens again. There is a massive job to do. I've faith in Conor, but less in Stormaz. January was a disaster. I do hope he leaves TBH. We need to be focused, not scattergun. We'll need to be better, just to hold mid table next season, with a few better performers leaving, along with under performers, for which there are many. COYRs
