The Championship 2020-21

Great side to watch Brentford, attacking and exciting, like us in 2012-13.
Felt like Fulham were better equipped as a team though. Knew that they were going to win because of tactical nous and know-how. Brentford's heads dropped because there were several things that "didn't go their way."
Enjoyable game at Wembley with two sides very local to the stadium. Shame the fans weren't there. Would've been a cracker to be there even as a Watford fan. Imagine how the atmosphere would have been in normal circumtances.
Well done Scott Parker and Fulham

 

Poor game, shame, because Brentford are capable of so much more, they just froze with the end in sight. Fulham going up is meh, they'll struggle again, much like the other two promoted teams, I guess they're praying for someone like Villa or Palace being **** and bailing them out. Brentford will no doubt lose a few of their key players (probably not all of them as I'm not sure clubs will all rush to take the risk on players who haven't proven themselves in the Premier League in this climate), will probably pick up a few diamonds in the rough, so I think they'll challenge, but there's no reason to be scared of them at all

 

Championship next season.

Barnsley Birmingham Blackburn Bournemouth Brentford Bristol City Cardiff Coventry Derby Huddersfield Luton Middlesbrough Millwall Norwich Forest Preston QPR Reading Rotherham Wednesday Stoke Swansea Watford Wycombe

It’s all on Gino to make the right decisions.

Right manager and proper recruitment and we should get promoted.

Wrong manager and poor recruitment. Probably finish 16th.

Got to bring in a manger that can get the players up for every game. So many weak teams. With our squads mentality they could easily do the exact same thing as last season, approach every game like they won’t be relegated and not take it seriously.

That’s why I favour Ivic over Struber. He won’t mess around and has a winning mentality.

 

There's just too many variables at the moment to know whether we're likely going to challenge for the top two or fade into Championship obscurity, or worse.

Do we lose all of Sarr, Deulofeu, Capoue, Hughes, Doucoure (not that I care at all if the latter goes, which he will)?

Do any of Suarez, Cucho and Estupinan stay (the latter almost certainly won't)?

Do we delude ourselves into thinking our ageing, supposed "proven" Championship performers in the likes of Deeney, Gray, Dawson, Cathcart etc. will be good enough for a side looking for promotion all these years later?

Will the likes of Quina, Chalobah, Wilmot, Pussetto step up and play a big part?

Will we get the right manager in to get the best out of whatever squad we do have?

Will we manage to make some smart, astute signings for the first time in a long time?

It's all so up in the air right now. I have no idea what we're going to be this coming season.

 

Struber excites me, he's got that little bit of experience in the Championship (most of the foreign managers to have won promotion in recent years had at least half a season to get used to the league), and has connections with the Red Bull teams which could be a useful market to dip into. Still, he might need some time to re-compose himself after such a mad end to the season, and losing your assistant manager is often quite important. Ivic on the other hand definitely didn't have that stress to deal with towards the end of the season, is a winner, and someone to give our squad of shirkers a big kick up the ******** might just be what we need. Obviously Pearson is of that mould too, and it seemed to work for a time, but a) there was stuff going on behind the scenes which hopefully will be dealt with, and b) Ivic sounds as if he's a lot more solid tactically, so will hopefully gain the respect of the players. Seem to be slightly in the minority, but I do lean towards Ivic for next season

 

Watch the Tranmere cup game. There big donkey centre back had him in his pocket all match. He's done for.

 

Disagree that it was a poor game. Interesting I thought.
Very committed and focused on their game plans from both teams but you could see Fulham grinding Brentford out (even though they looked more dangerous)
From our side, we have to at least get realistic. We can't afford to have players that can be over confident or "too good for the Championship"

 

Kevin De Bruyne literally got sold for not being good enough. He’s the best footballer the Prem has seen in years.

Gray’s situation is obviously different but there’s SO many examples of players who looked woefully out of depth at Prem level but fantastic in the Champ. Plenty of examples of players who we’ve seen tear up the Championship and not the Prem.

David Nugent
Tommy Smith (!)
Danny Graham
Dwight Gayle
Cameron Jerome

There’s actually so many of them that it’s silly to think Gray won’t be an asset to somebody in the Championship next season.

If his wages weren’t so high I’d be much more vocal about wanting to keep him however I think his wages could be invested on a better bet, someone who might be able to score the goals to get us up and then be an asset in the Prem too.

We need to find a balance between the short term thinking of going up and long term thinking of building a squad that can better our five seasons in the Prem next time we get there.

I’m not sure what side of that line Gray walks.


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Ellington.

Not exactly that progression. But looked good then became inexplicably awful.

Never got it back.

 

All of those players looked better at one point another than Gray has in the past year or so.

Also, it's not just about whether he's "out of his depth" or not in the Premier League, it's the fact he's clearly regressed. He doesn't have the pace he had a few years ago and when he was last in the Championship, so what does he have now?

 

I understand.

Let’s be in Gino’s shoes for a second.

You have a guy with a proven history of scoring goals at The Championship - FACT.

He’s had a torrid time at a Premier League club and confidence is shot - FACT.

He’s on high wages, one of the highest earners at the club - FACT?

Now, there’s a chance he could be a 15-20 goal striker this season and massively contribute to our ambitions to return to The Premier League where he would again be useless.

The only clubs that would probably take a chance on him right now are our promotion rivals or someone left field like a Rangers.

Say a Stoke comes calling to buy him for what? 7/8 million? He scores 15 goals there and pushes them to promotion.

Is that worth it?

If he scores 15-20 goals for us I’d argue he’s then proven he’s an absolute top tier Championship striker and his selling value actually increases to £10-12 million.

And the final scenario is he could have completely lost all ability and be a total dud for us probably halving his value to £4-6 million or we sell him and he’s a dud somewhere else.

I’d say chances he leaves here for a division rival and only ends up scoring 5 goals and being a total flop is pretty low.

I don’t rate him but for me I’d much rather see him go somewhere safe like Rangers or Europe, Europe is unlikely to unless we can ship him to the SPL I’d take the gamble and keep him.

Sorry for the long post I just think it’s a more complicated decision then say selling Doucoure or even some gash like Femenia.


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I doubt we're basing our plans around keeping our big-name players, IMO we'll let most of them go for a decent price, and try to keep a hold of Capoue (not on massive wages, and is over 30 so might not attract that much interest), and Hughes (can't fault his attitude this season, might stick around to get us back up, though I wouldn't hold it against him if he does want to leave).

I'm sure Estupinan will go, but I doubt we lose all of rest of the young South Americans

Doubt Deeney and Gray are first choice next season, we have a lot of players who can play as a striker, and I doubt we'll lose all of them. You'd hope they both leave altogether, although that might be a tough ask convincing other clubs to take them on

Wilmot IMO is an upgrade on anyone who's been at the club in the past year already (not least because he's good with the ball at his feet), could definitely do with another defender though, with our current average CBs as backup, although I'm not counting on us being able to bring in a prime defender who's also an upgrade on those lot. Will probably be player near his prime, yet pretty average, like Dunkley or Kipre at Wigan, or a young punt like Danso at Southampton

Quina definitely has the ability to be a great Championship player, it's whether he keeps his head screwed on is the biggest factor. Chalobah and Pussetto I'd like to keep as options (not least with the games coming thick and fast), although with their lack of physicality, neither of them are players I'd want to see starting for us regularly. We have players in those positions on our books, it's keeping them, or replacing them that's the problem, and we'll see movement on that front soon I'm sure

Of the two leading candidates, I have a feeling Ivic is more likely, and I think is what we need, a solid tactician who doesn't take any ****

We'll need some new signings of course, although I don't think we'll need to fork out too much given the fringe players who will hopefully come to the fore, and the ones coming back from loan

Certainly there's nothing to be 'scared' about in the Championship, although we'll need to keep our wits about us and keep our egos at the door (Stoke have so much PL calibre talent in their ranks, but they've been nowhere, although they looked better later on in the season and I think they'll be a force next season). You can never bank on going up (especially as it might take a while to adapt to our new surroundings and personnel), but I think a promotion push is more likely than a bottom half finish, I'm cautiously optimistic.

What does worry me is what happens if we don't go up? We'd get raided, but could we bounce back from that with some classic Pozzo rough diamonds? We'd have another year of parachute payments, how healthy will our financial state be by then?

 

Fulham always looked the more comfortable, Brentford struggled to really trouble them. I don't know if it was a tactical gamble knowing that Fulham aren't a counter-attacking team and if they'd have set out differently against a more threatening team on the counter, but Brentford looked so open when their attacks broke down. Something to take advantage of next season? Let's hope so!

 

I’d say that it’s more than conceivable, yes. I’m less sure in Deeneys case. But he’s just scored 10 in the premier league, granted most were penalties but we’ll get those in the championship too.

There are 8 more games in the championship, and as we’ve just seen with a Fulham team who were dreadful last season, they’ve just got promoted at the first attempt so overall the standard is very poor.

46 games (Which are all winnable) to score 20 goals at an inferior level really isn’t anything special, or likely to be difficult.

 

It's the best league in terms of unpredictability. Guarantee no-one will predict the three promoted teams.

 

You did amazingly well to type all that in eight minutes on a mobile, any tips?

 

Categories our players fit into;

Past their best.

Bit part premier league player.

Young and now might get a chance.

Too good (or thinks too good) for Championship and wants out.


There's a question mark over just about every one of them when predicting if they'll do well next year. I think too many question marks to be sure we'll be challenging for automatic places. Possible easily but no way a guarantee.

 

Big donkey centre back and so our defence and midfields intuitive approach was to lump it at Gray's head and watch him get beaten time after time.

Lets not forget part of that midfield in that same game was Quina who was subsequently schooled by the Tranmere midfield yet people were still screeching that he should have been starting premier league games.

 

Well I hope you're right. But to say scoring 20+ in the Championship isn't anything special is crazy. Only three did it last season.
Mitrovic
Watkins
Grabban
So it's more difficult than you think. Two of those are 20+m strikers.
Maybe Gray can, given 46 games. I think not though. I would get any fee, if any. Free up his wages and develop the squad. It's not just about next season, it's about developing too. To me it's not worth the risk. But if he stays and goes on to make me eat my words I can tell you there will be nobody happier than me to eat their words.
When I look at our squad I cant see one 20+ goal scorer presently.
Deeney, currently having an operation. Nobody knows how he'll recover.
Gray, as Nath said regressed and lacks any real footballing intelligence.
Welbeck. Central striker and stays fit, is a maybe.
Success. Injured
Penaranda. Was behind Gray.
Even If GD or Sarr stays. I can't see them hitting those heights.
The young South Americans. Absolutely no idea. They've both scored good figures in the second tier in Spain. Not 20+ though. Plus its impossible to compare the 2 leagues.
We need a solid team, strong in everything we do and in every department.
But it's all guess work from me and everyone until we know who is manager and what squad we have come September and once the window shuts in October.

 

I'd back Welbeck to get 20 in the Championship but with two big caveats. First he would need to stay injury free, and secondly he would actually need some decent service. I'd even back Gray to get 10+ if he had some decent service as well.

It isn't just a personnel change we need, it's a tactical change as well.

 

Ok. So you say it's tactically. He was still up against an inferior defence. He showed nothing. Agree with your Quina statement though. Flashes of quality mean nothing if you have no strength for a battle. That's what every game next season will be.

 

Exactly what I said, minus the Gray fact.
It's impossible to say given with have no manager/coach and no idea on who will even be in the squad.
We can sit and guess all day long. Until we know who's around next season.

 

But I will state yet again that Gray is not the answer. With maybe the South Americans coming in and Cassidy signing a new contract he will be getting pushed further down the pecking order. It's a complete waste of money, far better used on say Toney for instance.

 

Welbeck's not going to be a 20 goal striker, he's not going to stay fit all season. He's a good player and towards the end of the season showed his class but even in the Arsenal game he missed some easy chances.

 

Well let’s look at some data then, let’s look at Graban as an example.

He scored 20 goals in the championship, that’s a goal every 196 minutes:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/championship/top-scorers

Last season (2018/2019 season that is) Gray scored a goal every 194 minutes in the premier league.

So why would he not at least equal Grabban in an inferior league?

Last season (2019/2020) it’s a bit more difficult to make comparisons because Gray only played 744 minutes, the equivalent of 8 full games out of 38.

That said extrapolate that over a full season and its 9 goals. Andre actually has a slightly better penalty conversion rate than Troy on pens (88% vs 86% 7/8 scored) so it’s not unreasonable to say he would’ve scored the 8 penalties Troy scored. So if Andre played the full premier league season and took penalties he would’ve ended up on about 17 goals.

 

Yes agreed. But he got into those goalscoring positions. We didn't have another forward capable of doing that. Take Luther for instance, he hit the positions time and time again and scored bundles, but he also missed loads. It's a percentage game and it pays off. Give Welbeck " if he stays fit" those opportunities he got against Arsenal and he will be our best forward. If he stays of course.

 

Stats are all well and good written like that when you're trying to benefit your opinion!
Are you trying to tell me that Gray could score 17 goals in the Premier?
That would put him on par with:
Jiminez
Martial
Rashford
Bettering:
Aguero
Abraham
Jesus
Wood
Richarlison
Calvert-Lewin
Firmino
Lacazette

Surely you can see where I'm going... all far superior players and quite frankly the list goes on and on.
Yes statistics are extremely helpful in this day and age but when it comes down to it football is played on grass not spreadsheets and fancy graphs.

 

From what I can gather, this is our entire squad, as it stands today:-

GK
Foster, Bachmann, Dahlberg

LB/LWB
Estupinan, Masina

RB/RWB
Femenia, Janmaat, Navarro, Ngakia (maybe), Barrett

CB
Mariappa, Dawson, Kabasele, Cathcart, Wilmot, Spencer-Adams, Perkins, Velasquez

MF
Doucoure, Capoue, Cleverley, Chalobah, Hughes, Quina, Dele-Bashiru, Whealan, Wise, Hungbo,

LW
Pereyra, Penaranda, Sema

RW
Deulofeu, Sarr, Pussetto

FW
Deeney, Welbeck, Gray, Success, Pedro, Sinclair, Suarez, Hernandez, Cassidy, Dalby

Just at a glance, we look extremely strong in the forward areas and on the right flank. Midfield is pretty decent to. First choice keeper is also very good.

Where we are weak, even in the Championship, is right across the line at the back, however, hopefully Ngakia (if we sign him) and Estupinan will help in the full back positions. Central defence is still a big problem for me. I'd say Cathcart and Dawson are ok as your back up solution. I'm hoping Wilmot will be like a new signing and will be first choice. We do need someone else alongside him though. Hopefully we can get much better quality than the two we've been linked to in Dunkley and Danso.

Backup keeper is a problem. Neither Bachmann or Dahlberg are good enough, IMO.

 

Oh god I’m reading this thread and having shudders that Deeney and Gray will be our starting strikers next season.

 

Be under 30

 

Players have been red-carded for fighting after the match has finished, so off-the-ball offences must be cardable.

 

Do you use predictive text a lot then (of course you still have to write some names in full)? I just don't see how it would be physically possible to type all that that quickly with one finger on a touch pad otherwise, unless you have really small and nimble fingers.