Championship - 2023/24

Yep, Rosenior is a bang average manager at best who loves himself. Extremely bad loser as well.

McKenna walks it for me, doing absolutely superb work at Ipswich.

 

Tufan has been alright in the Championship - we were trying to get a tune out of him in the PL, which would be beyond the might of even Rosenior...

 

Yes, though I slightly prefer Kayembe as a player.

 

Kayembe never ate too much to be fair to him

 

Plymouth take the lead to ease their relegation worries and put Rotherham one step closer to the drop

 

They bit off George Reilly's ear.

Fack em. Hope they go down.

 

I still think Sheff Wed might get out of trouble.

 

They should have bagged at least another 1 or 2 tbf, a pretty convincing win really, yeah it was only Rotherham but at home they are a much tougher nut to crack, as Millwall and even we (to a lesser extent) found. Don't follow them closely enough to say really, but I hear Ian Foster had them playing very negatively, in stark contrast to Schumacher who had them playing some very nice stuff, if they play like that they should get enough points to get them over the line, especially as Hull will likely have nothing to play for on the final day. Think the bottom 3 will stay as it is, but the beauty of the Championship is that anything can happen!

 

The ball did swerve to be fair to the keeper

 

I entirely agree, it’s not impossible at all!

 

I don’t disagree.

 

Substitute Rhys Healey with an absolutely critical goal for Huddersfield today, his minutes to goals ratio must be off the charts this season!

 

Southampton must be really frustrated, Ipswich and Leeds both lost, they really could have brought themselves back into the picture for the automatics, but a point was all they deserved against Blackburn, who aren't out of the relegation fight, but certainly don't look the most likely to drop. Norwich, Coventry and Hull all lost on Easter Monday, and all won today to keep the race for 6th interesting. Poor old Brum, a win against Preston and they were looking up, now a late goal for Leicester and a couple in the other games they are in the bottom 3

 

West Brom have been 5th forever, but they are not secure in the playoffs by any means with how they are playing, a third draw in a row against bottom half opposition, and I can't say I've been impressed with them at all this season. Cov have a tricky run-in but are only 6 points behind them with a game in hand, wouldn't shock me if West Brom miss out

 

But had we only drawn at Birmingham (which was certainly a possibility even as the game panned out, their home form is really good for a relegation-threatened side and they had 26 shots against us!) and got no more than two points in the last three as some were fearing, we'd be looking slightly nervously over our shoulders. We would have 48 points and the 22nd place team would be Huddersfield with 43, albeit with a much worse goal difference.

As it stands we already can't get to the play-offs with five games to go. A real shame that a season that had much promise after the win at Blackburn has been reduced to a scrap of getting the necessary number of points for survival, but would anyone (that we could attract) have done much if any better?

 

Are people really still talking about being safe? There is absolutely no chance of getting relegated and hasn't been all season. As for next season, I still think we will be perfectly fine

 

We'll need to do well in the transfer window to be perfectly fine, we were looking over our shoulders uncomfortably at one point this season, and that's with a squad that's likely to be better than what we'll have next season

 

The Championship is strange this season - not long ago I was questioning whether it's as competitive as many people make out, but again it looks like a high number of points (50+) will be needed for survival. In the Premier League you have to go back over 20 years to find out the last time 40 points wasn't enough when West Ham went down with 42 points, and I think the 2010/11 season was the last where you could be relegated with 38 points (1 point per game). You can say the reason for that is that the top teams (Man City, Liverpool, Chelsea in the early Abramovich years, Fergie's Man Utd some seasons) are so strong that the bottom teams for the most part can't compete, but Leicester, Leeds and Ipswich have all been unusually strong and have been pretty consistent against the worst teams IIRC.

I think there are two reasons for the high points total needed to survive compared to the usually low one in the Premier League - both QPR and Sheff Wed had atrocious starts, gifting points to their relegation rivals, and Rotherham have been the whipping boys, and I think teams generally seem to play with less fear in the Championship - so many teams (especially the ones at the bottom) are reliant on their home form to survive, and they get defensive and cautious away from home when PL status and the money that comes with it is at stake.

 

Other than the top 3-4 in this league (inc the 3 relegated from the prem) and Rotherham at the bottom pretty much any team can beat any team. Gain a bit of confidence and momentum and you can go on a run and push for top 6 (as we did for a while). Lose a bit of confidence and direction and you can equally easily go on a terrible run (as we have done, twice). There really is very little between 5th top and 5th bottom in terms of pure quality.

 

Perhaps someone should have told the PNE manager the bit about ‘playing without fear’!

 

Depends on a positive/ negative outlook. At no point was I looking over my shoulder and worried about relegation. Next season, who knows. People talk about Asprilla going, maybe Kone, Louza probably, Lewis going back and no Dennis. If we sold Asprilla that's probably all we have to sell and I'm not convinced he will leave. Louza has barely played anyway and we might get a few quid for him. Don't care about Lewis. We will need to replace Dennis and that's probably the most difficult part. That part is only big concern. Forde may play a part but really need more quality than him, Raj and Bayo

 

Can we not sell Dennis to Udinese for £16m ?

 

We had a gap of only 6 points at one stage, never thought we would go down, but I was nervous for a brief time! We will have to sell a few players with no parachute payments next season, Louza is probably out the door (anything we get for him is a bonus at this stage considering he's hardly featured), and one more sizeable sale (probably Asprilla, maybe Kone but he's not exactly pulled up any trees of late)

 

27 times.

 

Dennis is impossible to replace, sadly. On his day (admittedly that day doesn't come round often) he's unplayable. No player like that in their right mind would join a mid/lower table chumpionship side.

All of our other players are somewhere between mediocre and gash.

What I'm trying to say is, next season we're phucced.

 

This season we have received £35m in parachute payments, next season it will be £0. By hook or by crook we will have a big deficit to cover, so whoever can be sold will be sold. The squad will undoubtedly be a lot weaker, without some sort of miraculous external investment.