I for one think the Welshman will relish the two derby games and am expecting six points from them next season!
Didn’t we say that about Bowyer?
One thing about a Jones team is that we won’t fold like a flower in these games like we’ve seen before. We’ll give them a game regardless
We're also better as a Football club, rather than just being a squad of Footballers like we were under Roland.
We've got Will Abbott who I imagine has been instrumental in ensuring that the squad has had the fitness and been mostly injury free compared to recent seasons, and is something we didn't have for about a decade. Because of that, in 2019 we had an injury crisis that resulted in us fielding our U21s for large periods, and resulted in us losing our most effective loan signing that season.
Not to mention ESI came in, in the January and put us under an Embargo so we couldn't make proper signings to try and go into the second half of the season with a decent shout - In the end it turned out to be a cruel season, as after all the injuries / lack of adequate players, we went down because of a last minute goal.
We'll be so much better prepared this season, currently its only Small we truly have to worry about losing at the moment from this successful squad (and with Chapple signed, I feel like we've got the Recruitment team to find a proper replacement), straight after the Play-Offs in 2019 we knew we were losing Bauer, and Aribo
I think the club as a whole is in a much stronger position than in 2019.
We'll be fine
It will be, if they are prepared to lose £15m+ per season. That’s the test for this ownership. Millwall are even spending £2m+ on players, as Berylson is happy to write off the losses. Altho they are making significant money on transfers now. But you need to start that cycle with promising buys.
Am I right in saying, Chalton only had one shot on target against them after the 23rd minute of the semi final first leg? If I am remembering that right, that is absolutely phenomenal…exceptional.
Orient has a shot on target yesterday. i don't remember it but the match stats i saw showed them with 1.
Also whilst they don't technically get counted as shots on target (which i think is stupid), Ramsay's brilliant two blocks v Wycombe denied them a certain goal in my opinion.
I reckon the majority of the first xi needs improving on for us to stay up. I think Edwards, Jones, Coventry and Ramsay are good enough to start week in week out, but not confident about the rest. Some wingers that can score and assist would really help as 9 goals and 4 assists over 89 games from Small and Campbell is quite poor.
Godden is not getting any younger. Leaburn now unfortunately has serious question marks over his injury record. Aneke will surely be gone, as will Ahadme. Kanu and Mbick can’t be anything other than fourth / fifth choice. We need to bring in two proven Championship strikers not punts. Midfield was completely bossed today and for me barring Coventry needs a total rebuild. Defence has been our strongest area but we’re stepping up in class and will need a lot more than looking for clean sheets next season. I think Jones knows what’s required but he’ll need the owners to step up too.
And the fans to turn up in numbers for vocal and financial support.
I reckon the majority of the first xi needs improving on for us to stay up. I think Edwards, Jones, Coventry and Ramsay are good enough to start week in week out, but not confident about the rest. Some wingers that can score and assist would really help as 9 goals and 4 assists over 89 games from Small and Campbell is quite poor.
Only thing about those stats is we still largely played hoofball for nearly half a season so wouldn’t have been anywhere near as many goal contributions as when the style of play was switched.
I'd take that finishing order all day long. Birmingham up as Champions, with Blackburn. Charlton going up via the playoffs again, and the Welsh clowns going sbd.
Derby, Oxford and Portsmouth all staying up bodes pretty well, seems there's not that same jump as Championship to PL.
There's a lot of decent established teams there but Hull, Preston, Oxford, Derby, Wednesday are there to be beaten with some decent investment and decent signings.
Having watched all of your three play off games, I would say all those three teams who came up last season are better than Charlton to be totally honest. (Oxford just marginally).
You definitely do need some investment. The teams you mentioned in the second paragraph, whilst not the best the championship has to offer, they all managed to stay up last season and will also be looking to strengthen over the summer themselves.
It’s a huge summer for you lot. Your owners really need to step up now.
As it stands, of course they are.
But we've got a summer to improve (and I agree we need to, and that the owners need to step up).
I don't think those 3 teams were any better this time last year than we are now - Leagie One was an easier league last season than this for a start - no Birmingham, Wrexham money etc.
I think that judging us re our games v Wycombe Wanderers is misleading. They are a side that could even stop Millwall playing their 'Brazilian' style football. You pretty much have to go to war with them - and that's what we did - and we won ... Now, had MillwallFan witnessed us sweeping Huddersfield Town aside ...
The thing is every team is going to be looking to improve. My hope is that our rich Americans will have seen the light shining through the hollowed out football club they bought into. The much hyped 'building blocks' have apparently been put into place, we have won promotion and now all we need is a bit more of their financial clout to take us to the next level. Judging by the way they were hugging Nathan Jones on Sunday evening that shouldn't be a problem - I just hope they feel the same way on this Monday morning.
Derby, Oxford and Portsmouth all staying up bodes pretty well, seems there's not that same jump as Championship to PL.
There's a lot of decent established teams there but Hull, Preston, Oxford, Derby, Wednesday are there to be beaten with some decent investment and decent signings.
Having watched all of your three play off games, I would say all those three teams who came up last season are better than Charlton to be totally honest. (Oxford just marginally).
You definitely do need some investment. The teams you mentioned in the second paragraph, whilst not the best the championship has to offer, they all managed to stay up last season and will also be looking to strengthen over the summer themselves.
It’s a huge summer for you lot. Your owners really need to step up now.
As it stands, of course they are.
But we've got a summer to improve (and I agree we need to, and that the owners need to step up).
I don't think those 3 teams were any better this time last year than we are now - Leagie One was an easier league last season than this for a start - no Birmingham, Wrexham money etc.
My hope is that our rich Americans will have seen the light shining through the hollowed out football club they bought into. The much hyped 'building blocks' have apparently been put into place, we have won promotion and now all we need is a bit more of their financial clout to take us to the next level. Judging by the way they were hugging Nathan Jones on Sunday evening that shouldn't be a problem - I just hope they feel the same way on this Monday morning.
A bit? Norwich City & West Brom spunked £40-50m on wages to finish nowhere! I know you get outliers, but make no mistake, they need to be prepared to lose / write off a lot of money just to stand still. Yes, there is the golden ticket on offer, but you still have to gamble big.
Derby, Oxford and Portsmouth all staying up bodes pretty well, seems there's not that same jump as Championship to PL.
There's a lot of decent established teams there but Hull, Preston, Oxford, Derby, Wednesday are there to be beaten with some decent investment and decent signings.
Having watched all of your three play off games, I would say all those three teams who came up last season are better than Charlton to be totally honest. (Oxford just marginally).
You definitely do need some investment. The teams you mentioned in the second paragraph, whilst not the best the championship has to offer, they all managed to stay up last season and will also be looking to strengthen over the summer themselves.
It’s a huge summer for you lot. Your owners really need to step up now.
As it stands, of course they are.
But we've got a summer to improve (and I agree we need to, and that the owners need to step up).
I don't think those 3 teams were any better this time last year than we are now - Leagie One was an easier league last season than this for a start - no Birmingham, Wrexham money etc.
My hope is that our rich Americans will have seen the light shining through the hollowed out football club they bought into. The much hyped 'building blocks' have apparently been put into place, we have won promotion and now all we need is a bit more of their financial clout to take us to the next level. Judging by the way they were hugging Nathan Jones on Sunday evening that shouldn't be a problem - I just hope they feel the same way on this Monday morning.
A bit? Norwich City & West Brom spunked £40-50m on wages to finish nowhere! I know you get outliers, but make no mistake, they need to be prepared to lose / write off a lot of money just to stand still. Yes, there is the golden ticket on offer, but you still have to gamble big.
Or grow incrementally at a sustainable rate and progress slowly. Millwall finished eight and yes they lose a lot of money and to stay in the Championship you have to. Brewer and Friedman arnt stupid. They know the ride they’re on won’t be free.
I think we will be okay - as has been said, 6 years ago, we lost our best players - our loanees- before we started last year plus bauer then had the injuries and the 'downed toolers' - all were a result directly or indirectly of our owners - same with the CP team - just a normal level of help from the owners, along with jones' know-how, our improved fitness / conditioning and we will be fine - people see the money thrown about but just because there is more money in the system than 6 or 12 years ago, the players are the same quality and if you can recruit well, you can beat the trap of overpaying that a lot of the premier league fall outs fall into - millwall for instance - finish top half most years and have one of the smallest budgets - we can survive, definitely. To flourish we will need serious investment . Finishing top half is one thing, getting into the top 6 at the business end of the season and actually getting promoted is another entirely. That's why millwall always fall short - playing at their limits, they don't have another gear to go up, which is credit to them overachieving really. I don't think there's anything to fear and have faith NJ knows what he's doing
One thing that is going to make this much harder than it would have done in any other season is that we're going up with two financial juggernauts in Birmingham and Wrexham.
I don't think we can realistically expect to see either of those in a relegation battle unless something goes unexpectedly wrong there. Therefore we are going to have to perform better over 46 games than 3 other established Championship clubs.
Looking at our current team I think we'll be better than we were in 2019/20, especially defensively, but the midfield/attack needs a complete overhaul IMO.
Derby, Oxford and Portsmouth all staying up bodes pretty well, seems there's not that same jump as Championship to PL.
There's a lot of decent established teams there but Hull, Preston, Oxford, Derby, Wednesday are there to be beaten with some decent investment and decent signings.
Having watched all of your three play off games, I would say all those three teams who came up last season are better than Charlton to be totally honest. (Oxford just marginally).
You definitely do need some investment. The teams you mentioned in the second paragraph, whilst not the best the championship has to offer, they all managed to stay up last season and will also be looking to strengthen over the summer themselves.
It’s a huge summer for you lot. Your owners really need to step up now.
As it stands, of course they are.
But we've got a summer to improve (and I agree we need to, and that the owners need to step up).
I don't think those 3 teams were any better this time last year than we are now - Leagie One was an easier league last season than this for a start - no Birmingham, Wrexham money etc.
My hope is that our rich Americans will have seen the light shining through the hollowed out football club they bought into. The much hyped 'building blocks' have apparently been put into place, we have won promotion and now all we need is a bit more of their financial clout to take us to the next level. Judging by the way they were hugging Nathan Jones on Sunday evening that shouldn't be a problem - I just hope they feel the same way on this Monday morning.
A bit? Norwich City & West Brom spunked £40-50m on wages to finish nowhere! I know you get outliers, but make no mistake, they need to be prepared to lose / write off a lot of money just to stand still. Yes, there is the golden ticket on offer, but you still have to gamble big.
Or grow incrementally at a sustainable rate and progress slowly. Millwall finished eight and yes they lose a lot of money and to stay in the Championship you have to. Brewer and Friedman arnt stupid. They know the ride they’re on won’t be free.
Stoke City have money & Mark Robins will improve them with a preseason. Rowett is Mr Steady and will build a solid lower midtable side at Oxford United. Sheffield Wednesday are always one bad season away from relegation. Hull City need to improve. Portsmouth may have second season syndrome.
My eyes are on Hull, Preston and Oxford. Those are the 3 I'd pick for relegation in favour of us.
Money will be our biggest stumbling block. As an example, Hull finished just above the drop zone. They spent 340k a week on wages/17 million a year. We spent 135k a week/ 7 million a year. Derby spent double our wages, Portsmouth similar to us, Oxford 2 million more.
You'll find the average wage for a top championship player is roughly 20k. I think Pompey had the lowest high earner in the champ with 14k. Our top earners are roughly 7-8k from the information available.
The wage structure from the championship to league 1 is hideous. You basically have to spend to have a chance or risk being a Rotherham/Barnsley/Peterborough.
If you want stability, you need to keep up very quickly and pay the going rate.
That's my biggest concern next season. Will the club pay the wages to match these other big clubs, or will we try and do it cheaply.
We are joint favourites to go down with Oxford looking at the initial odds. It’s going to be tough but if NJ can keep us as solid at the back again I give us a decent chance of staying up. The football will not be pretty but I’ll happily take 21st place
My eyes are on Hull, Preston and Oxford. Those are the 3 I'd pick for relegation in favour of us.
Money will be our biggest stumbling block. As an example, Hull finished just above the drop zone. They spent 340k a week on wages/17 million a year. We spent 135k a week/ 7 million a year. Derby spent double our wages, Portsmouth similar to us, Oxford 2 million more.
You'll find the average wage for a top championship player is roughly 20k. I think Pompey had the lowest high earner in the champ with 14k. Our top earners are roughly 7-8k from the information available.
The wage structure from the championship to league 1 is hideous. You basically have to spend to have a chance or risk being a Rotherham/Barnsley/Peterborough.
If you want stability, you need to keep up very quickly and pay the going rate.
That's my biggest concern next season. Will the club pay the wages to match these other big clubs, or will we try and do it cheaply.
Looking at that list above showing revenue etc. we are in same ballpark as Oxford, Wrexham & Portsmouth. Everyone else have pretty much double our wage spend and then some. Stoke City, some people’s tip to struggle, have triple the wage spend. Wrexham will no doubt increase their budget, as their commercial & sponsor income is significant. I cannot see Oxford going down under Gary Rowett. Now, football isn’t played on a spreadsheet, but the final table is often pretty close to the wage spend.
The owners are going to have to accept writing off quite significant losses just to stabilise. Or hope some good scouting & Jones can work some magic.
QPR, Wednesday, Hull look like the clubs struggling behind the scenes they could be right down there. Oxford and Portsmouth arguably have the weakest squads out of the teams and similar budgets to what we can offer. Derby Stoke and Preston have good managers and look like they’re going to get a complete rebuild doubt they will struggle as much. So realistically we’re probably 1 of 6 relegation candidates next season we definitely will need to invest think the initial transfer window period opening next week gives a clear indication how the rest of the summer will go.
Comments
We've got Will Abbott who I imagine has been instrumental in ensuring that the squad has had the fitness and been mostly injury free compared to recent seasons, and is something we didn't have for about a decade. Because of that, in 2019 we had an injury crisis that resulted in us fielding our U21s for large periods, and resulted in us losing our most effective loan signing that season.
Not to mention ESI came in, in the January and put us under an Embargo so we couldn't make proper signings to try and go into the second half of the season with a decent shout - In the end it turned out to be a cruel season, as after all the injuries / lack of adequate players, we went down because of a last minute goal.
We'll be so much better prepared this season, currently its only Small we truly have to worry about losing at the moment from this successful squad (and with Chapple signed, I feel like we've got the Recruitment team to find a proper replacement), straight after the Play-Offs in 2019 we knew we were losing Bauer, and Aribo
2 defeats to Millwall. 2 wins v Portsmouth.
Also whilst they don't technically get counted as shots on target (which i think is stupid), Ramsay's brilliant two blocks v Wycombe denied them a certain goal in my opinion.
The thing is every team is going to be looking to improve. My hope is that our rich Americans will have seen the light shining through the hollowed out football club they bought into. The much hyped 'building blocks' have apparently been put into place, we have won promotion and now all we need is a bit more of their financial clout to take us to the next level. Judging by the way they were hugging Nathan Jones on Sunday evening that shouldn't be a problem - I just hope they feel the same way on this Monday morning.
I don't think we can realistically expect to see either of those in a relegation battle unless something goes unexpectedly wrong there. Therefore we are going to have to perform better over 46 games than 3 other established Championship clubs.
Looking at our current team I think we'll be better than we were in 2019/20, especially defensively, but the midfield/attack needs a complete overhaul IMO.
stoke
are the 3 I see as us being “better” then
Money will be our biggest stumbling block. As an example, Hull finished just above the drop zone. They spent 340k a week on wages/17 million a year. We spent 135k a week/ 7 million a year. Derby spent double our wages, Portsmouth similar to us, Oxford 2 million more.
You'll find the average wage for a top championship player is roughly 20k. I think Pompey had the lowest high earner in the champ with 14k. Our top earners are roughly 7-8k from the information available.
The wage structure from the championship to league 1 is hideous. You basically have to spend to have a chance or risk being a Rotherham/Barnsley/Peterborough.
If you want stability, you need to keep up very quickly and pay the going rate.
That's my biggest concern next season. Will the club pay the wages to match these other big clubs, or will we try and do it cheaply.
Needs to be like Peterborough or Wrexham games. Support the team even if the result is not what is hoped for.
We're in the playoffs already though, most of the others must be doing worse 😉