Championship - 2023/24

Their owners are really motivated by the property development and BCFC is just really a Trojan horse to build an events company. With a big events based development opposite the HS2 station. I am sure relegation was not contemplated, but it won’t impact the owners principle focus.

 

Rosenior and the Preston guy both deserve the sack for being in with a shout of the play offs with a few games to go and then pitching up at the Vic and playing for 0-0s.

 

Preston definitely parked the bus in an embarrassing way but I thought Hull had a go. They just seemed to run out of ideas and once big Raj is lining up freekicks outside the box against you, you know the opposition are taking the piss.

 

Wouldn't say they destroyed us, but they did miss a penalty and Bachmann had one of his best games for us

 

Welcome back Burnley. Luton are coming up to the door- turn the lights out and pretend we're not in.

 

Really not sure that was offside, the near-side defender looked to be playing Rutter on. Leeds should have been 1-0 up.

 

Reckless challenge from Duffy, but still not the most dangerous thing he's done this week after his drink-driving charge...

 

What a dire game.

 

One of the following…

Norwich
WBA
Southampton

 

Preferably Weeds lose in the final, for extra dissappointment.

 

Surprising that there have been 0-0s in both games considering the number of goals all four of them have scored (and conceded in the case of Southampton and Norwich). Perhaps there’ll be a reverse of the usual in that the semi-finals will be tight, cagey affairs before a cracker of a final with both teams really coming into life (I think the last really decent play-off final was Swansea vs Reading in 2011).

 

As long as any "tight, cagey" semi-final or "cracker of a final" involves defeat for Weeds, I'll be happy.

 

At least both 2nd legs have everything to play for. The palace 2nd leg was done after we won away 3-0 (what a performance that was). The scoreline allowed us to just "manage the game" from minute one.

 

I've been reflecting on the final league table.

We're all focused on getting some better strikers in, which seems obvious.

However we scored more goals than any team below 9th.

Even Blackburn with their very good striker.

Of course that was with a few goals from Dennis on loan.

Perhaps this suggests, unless we realistically want to get in the playoffs, we might want to focus as much on improving defence and defensive midfield if we want to improve (and avoid relegation).

 

We scored about 20 goals from outside the box though, largely from our midfielders, at least one of whom almost certainly won't be here next season. Even if players like Kayembe and Kone have a lovely ping on them, you have to say we're unlikely to score that many again next season, but even if we do somehow, figures of 10 and 6 for our current strikers can definitely be improved upon

 

Cleverley recognised the same thing, which was a major reason why he switched to 3 at the back. This did result in us improving our defensive performances. However, on the flip-side the goals then dried up.

Having 3 at the back meant 1 fewer player at the top end of the pitch and Bajovic aren't really able to fashion chances for themselves. Plus, our wing-backs were not dynamic enough and did not have a good enough end product in the final third to help compensate for the creativity deficit.

One way or another we do need to improve our strikers, but if we play 352 then having wing-backs with better attacking output to either create opportunities for the forwards or score themselves is as important as upgrading the CFs to ones who can also provide more of an all-round threat.

On the other hand, if we go back to 433, then while a better lead the line striker would be required, the wide-forward areas will be just as deficient from an attacking point of view. Having full-backs with little attacking guile would be less of a problem though if they can do their jobs defensively. We'd then need to somehow find a way to be more compact and defensively solid with likely the same CBs and perhaps just 1 change in central midfield. This would then seem as much of a coaching issue as a personnel one. I'm not sure Cleverley has shown he has the answer yet tactically to making us more solid in a 433 without a dramatic overhaul in our defensive players which seems unlikely to happen.

 

Agree with all that.

It was a bit of a surprise to me however and made me think.

If Clevs keeps it tight like at the end of last season then we'd need far more quality and creativity up front. Goals really dried up last 8-10 games as our defence improved somewhat.

 

QPR on the opening day and Rotherham at home helped to inflate the goal difference, they were two of the worst teams we've seen at the Vic in a long, long time, whereas we were often shaky at the back, but were never battered, IIRC the most we conceded in a game was 4 up at Norwich, and the biggest defeat we had was by 3 up at Leeds (and then in the cup replay vs Southampton)

 

Angus Gunn is supposed to be one of the best keepers in the Champ. Imagine the meltdown on here if Bachmann had conceded both those goals!

 

Also Bristol City at home

 

In the words of the Spartans, in response to Philip of Macedon: 'If'.

 

Sounds like he's the canary in the coarse-grinds.

 

There will be no rupturing of the space-time continuum, we will be playing Norwich City next season

 

Garbage

 

Norwich still in this.

 

Talk about no shows. Norwich have been awful.