Quality of League One

From what I’ve seen of it, it’s shit.

Thought Oxford actually played some decent football, especially when they got the ball into their number 10. We are just very good at defending.

I'd say the ref probably made tonights game look worse than it was, because he gave a foul for everything. Compare that to the Northampton ref, who I think if was in charge if this game it would have been quiet good to watch.

Disagree on the whole. About the same I'd say. I think there are a lot of fouls and hurried play because the commitment in L1 is higher than you see in the Prem where it seems like a training match sometimes.

I was disappointed we went down as every game is against quality in Champ however because of all the shit we have been thru it was probably good for us to rebuild in League 1 and then take the Champ by storm next season

AFKABartram said:

from the handful of games I’ve seen so far seems to have slipped massively since two years ago.

I’d have thought with no crowds there it would have encouraged less pressurised better passing football, but the opposite seems to be the case so far. 

Everything seems to be hurried, squeezed, niggerly fouls, playing to win fouls, no flow to games whatsoever. 

Agree / disagree ?

We've beat 5 of the bottom 7 sides

We have played well in patches but improving dramatically since Sunderland.

Still a lot of teams coming together late because of covid and the disruption of last season. 

I think you'll see improvement in games after chrimbo. 

Definitely feel it's a weaker league this time out. 

It is worse than both our other promotion seasons.

ForeverAddickted said:

Gonna reserve comment until we've seen some of the true big guns

Doncaster and Sunderland are both dropping into that inconsistent tag whilst we're copying Lincoln by grinding out results, just with a bit more style

Saturday against Portsmouth will be the first true big test if we've got what it takes to be in that top two

I was thinking that before tonight - but minus Inniss, Watson, Doughty, Gilbey and Maddison not fit to start (players who probably would be in everyone’s starting 11) - I don’t think we can read too much into it if we lose, ahead of the rest of the season.

Feels a bit harsh to create this thread after playing Oxford who looked like a decent footballing side.

It looks worse than the standard of that Palace v Charlton match from 1973 or 74 that was on BBC4  a week or so ago.

The reason being that referees blow the whistle for every little knock and the players 'draw the foul' and fall over at every opportunity. The only thing I don't like about our commentators is that they seem to find this behaviour ordinary.

I actually replayed a part of that match on BBC4 to my ten year old son and went through what would have happened if it were today. Killer went for the ball against the goalie who got a bit hurt with his challenge. Killer looked first at the ref to say sorry then he apologised to the keeper. A Palace defender was a bit irate but Killer apologised to him aswell obviously saying that he was going for the ball. The goalie said that he was OK, the Palace defender and Killer shook hands and the ref was satisfied with that, and the game continued. 
If that were today, the goalie would be writhing away on the ground, the Palace defender would have pushed the attacker in the chest who would have fallen on the ground too, the ref would have run over and given a yellow card to the defender. They would be arguing about it for ages, forced by the ref to shake hands but would all still have a bee in their bonnet about it for ages. And so it would go on. 

Ironically, after the match, Allison was talking about a league managers' meeting in which they would discuss referees unneccessarily stopping the match, and players faking fouls. It was like listening to someone I spoke to here in La Roche sur Yon moaning about traffic jams and wondering what they'd think of living in London.

The only thing wrong with League One is the players (and even the referees) acting like spoilt brats who think that they are always right, and wanting to get everyone else into trouble. That's why the quality becomes bad.

I don't even think the 'big guns' in the league can salvage the level of tinpot this division is.

The game at home to Sunderland was the most tedious match I've sat through in years. 

It is & always has been a shit league. Always has 6 or 7 decent teams, a few that have come up & are trying to find their way/better themselves and then the remaining 12-15 teams that just like to kick lumps out of everyone. 

Also mainly full of Northern teams who have proper local derbies which mean that most if the time they don't have to travel anywhere. Whereas there are never any London sides & never any derbies that you can call "local". Also have to travel to Plymouth & Sunderland in the last month of  the season. So so pissed off that we went down instead of Sheff Wed last season. 

It's too early to say really but, from what I've seen so far, the standard does look pretty poor and the gap between League 1 and the Championship will only get wider with the I introduction of the League 1 salary cap. It really does feel like the drawbridge is being pulled up.

With lower league clubs usually only able to commit to one or two year contracts, the better players will be cherry picked even more swiftly than normal, whilst the lack of continuity in most club's squads can't help in trying to establish a coherent style of play.