Anticipation....

I'm sort of in the middle here, I do think that we are a couple of quality signings from being a safely mid-table team as opposed to a team that will be looking over our shoulders. The tough starting fixtures won't help matters either but if we do secure those signings then I won't worry about whether we are in the bottom 3 after 5 games whereas I would otherwise.

 

I like optimism, but I the QPR game I saw we got pretty battered and it could've been 4 or 5 !

 

That was just work-rate, they're a week or so ahead of us (maybe two in fitness terms). QPR will start the season well but they will be shot by October if they continue like that.

 

Speaking of rusty defenses, Man City's looked awful last night. Can see them shipping a goal or 2 a game early on.

 

As this seems the most up to date thread..

We're on Sky Sports News in 2 mins after this ad break

 

Did we win?

 

Really? We haven't got any AMC left to sell.

 

A lot of fans have lost interest.
Watford are the media outlets favourites to go down this season.
The threads on this site has many fans feeling the same.

 

This was always my fear about top flight football - that we'll hit our ceiling and be stuck in obscurity for ages.

Beyond the financial incentives and occasionally making an Arsenal/Liverpool look stupid, you wonder if the Premier League is really worth it. Being in the uber competitive football league is arguably a better fan experience for clubs like us. After all, success is relative. Hammering Leeds is the Championship is just as much fun as beating Liverpool in the Prem.

 

Your point about the Football League being much more competitive and fun than the Premier might have had some validity in past seasons, but an unfashionable medium sized yo-yo club finishing ten points clear at the top whilst the multi-billion backed defending champions scrape a top half finish, a side that were playing in League 1 this decade qualify for Europe two seasons running, and clubs as small as us, not to mention Bournemouth and Swansea hold their own in the top league suggest that may no longer be the case.

 

So far this summer I think we have done some decent business in the transfer market. We have kept our prized assets, added players in positions we needed to, and will more than likely add more. Players deemed surplus to requirements by the club have been moved on, in Abdi's case for decent money. However I have a feeling of meh at looking forwards to another season of random kick off times, spoken about in an ever increasingly condacending manner, and all of the incesent spin jib surrounding Paul fricking Pogba. Also seeing Bournemouth spending £15 million on Jordan Ibe grates somewhat. I know he isn't worth it, or will ever be worth it but where is our marquee signing. All in all mixed emotions I guess, but come saturday afternoon I will be a complete nervous wreck, and will be completely hooked on the mighty WFC for the season!

 

on the lawn m8

 

Isaac Success, £12.5m.

 

The league is definitely more competitive than it once was, but I feel last season was somewhat of an anomaly. The big clubs have reloaded in a meaningful way over the summer, and I expect some kind of order will be restored at the top of the league. No doubt that the Leicester thing has inspired a lot of clubs, but does it mean that everyone will fancy their chances at winning the league? Or even getting Champions League football for that matter? Not likely.

The difference is that almost every team in the Championship will believe promotion is a possibility. The disparity in resources isn't as massive as the top flight, and the incentive to go up is huge. Top to bottom, it's still a much more competitive league for me.

 

Doug the disparity in the PL really is much less since the sky deal and there are now more top quality players outside the traditional top six than ever. The real disparity is in infrastructure but that too is balanced on a knife edge for some pretty big clubs. One thing I'm certain about is that normal service will not be resumed this season.

In the Championship for once I think the 3 relegated PL clubs will deserve their spot among the favourites because for the most part they have kept the quality or even improved it in Villa's case. Naarch still have the look of a yoyo club about them. All three will finish top six whereas in the PL it's not so clear IMO.

 

Some bold statements there. I can't see the usuals - Man City, United, Chelsea, Arsenal - not being involved up the top of the table.

The sky deal just means that the rich clubs are even richer. And that price of players is hugely inflated. We simply can't acquire players of the same calibre as the top 6 teams.

 

Leicester? Southampton? ... are you sure we can't?

For heaven's sake the pre season favourites finished 10th and a rank outsider actually won it, just how much more convincing will you need?


The 25 man squad and Sky's bumper cash means the bubbling under clubs are now within touching distance. The traditionally big clubs can hardly afford to lose a single one of their expensive stars to injury nowadays knowing these 2nd row teams have bought the next best available players from almost the same shops. This was unthinkable just a couple of years back when the Citys and Chelseas of this world had whole 2nd strings that practically matched their 1sts while the rest of the league were reduced to playing their kids.

 

I think we are 2 to 3 enormous-tent-in-the-garden signings away from being a decent top half side

 

Kante - 5.6 million Caen
Mahrez - 400k Le Harve
Payet - 10.7 mill Marseille
Kane - Youth product
Vardy - Non League

If you look in the right places then there's always the chance you can compete with the top 6.

 

I think we are 2 to 3 rapper/actor known for the song 'Good Vibrations' and the movie 'Ted' signings away from being a decent top half side

 

I need more convincing than a single season, that's for sure.

It's not as if any club in the league can build a team that is capable of challenging for the title, or a top 4 finish. We can find some gems, but not in multiples like the big clubs. Leicester did this, but they are an anomaly. Can we compete for the title? Burnley, Hull, Boro? How about a top eight that includes all four of us?

And that's the thing with the Championship, a completely random and unexpected outcome is more conceivable. The playing field is more level, and success goes beyond just how deep your pockets are.

 

I agree with you in that I find the Championship is a very exciting league, but part of that excitement is that you get to the Premier League if you do well. Otherwise, what is the point?

I also think Godfather has a point that the big TV deal does level the playing field a little bit in two ways. Firstly clubs like us feel very little financial pressure to sell our star players. Secondly all clubs can buy £15 million pound players without blinking an eye. Yes we are still out of the market in terms of top players but we can take risks on high potential players or star players who have had bad seasons without it breaking the bank.

I agree we can never really compete with a well run top club who make good purchases like Arsenal or Man City (at the current time), but it's not inconceivable we have a shot of finishing above a big club if they have a bad couple of seasons of recruitment (Liverpool springs to mind at present). Posting a top 8 finish in the premier league ultimately must be more satisfying than romping all over the Championship and getting 100 points.

 

From my personal experience (seen 4 promotions in my life), most of the excitement comes from the battle for promotion itself. What happens later on, barely even registers until you're there. Can't say I ever really dreamed about us playing Premier League football when we came up, I only cared about us getting out of the Championship.

The excitement. or competitiveness of the Championship is that everyone is realistically in with a shot of going up. The reward is huge and the objective is achievable. In the Premier League on the other hand, it's easy to just get stuck in limbo. Too competent to go down, but not good enough to challenge up the top. I mean, what is our goal this season? Fans can't get excited about the pursuit of 10th place.

This is where I'll probably get accused of being ungrateful, wanting us to go down blah blah blah - I don't. I'm just saying that the Championship is a more competitive league, and thus more exciting for clubs on our level.

The TV deal has just inflated the market. It makes 29 year old Ross McCormack a £12 million player. And it makes every player we're after twice as expensive. In an market that has no regulation, having more money invariably just means you have to spend more money that you otherwise would have done.

12th.

 

Personally I think 10th would be amazing. Happy with 17th based on the end of last year,
our summer activity and activity of other clubs. Rotherham aren't ever going to win the Championship over 46 games (famous last words) but they won't be dreaming of being back in L1 so they can beat Oldham.

 

I don't have any excitement brewing purely for the fact I have to watch Nyom for the next 4 years (let's face it, who's stupid enough to buy him)

 

Does anyone know when official squad numbers are announced?

 

And I hesitate to say relegation battles too are exciting. Those few years from 1997ish to 2006 I think we went down up up down up in about 9 years, and the other years we were flirting with one or the other.

I think I may have said at the end of last season, what is the challenge when you're aiming for mid table obscurity? What do the other teams around us really hope for? A couple of positions higher? Just good football? When you finish 9-13 every year, what are you really going to games for? Where is the thrill? The odd big scalp? a 4-0 win? The flirtation with a cup semi final?

For last season we had survival. This season the same with so many changes and with everything so unknown. But if we survive and survive comfortably again, what is the challenge then? To push on or settle?

For us at least we are at the start of our time in the premier league. We may go down. We may indeed push on. But if the owners just seek to consolidate our position each year and take the money for mid table finishes year after year, then it would start to get a bit stale.

I hope it never comes to that.

 

They're not, numbers have all been changed to the sh1t emoticon.

 

2pm Saturday at this rate. The club aren't really doing a good job at all are building up to the new season.

 

I tend to agree with you. I wonder how charlton fans feel now though. They had mid table mediocrity for years. Then got cocky, sacked the manager and fell through the leagues. I wonder how many of them yearn for the premier league days again?

Though I suppose their off-field problems have skewed things. At least being a boring midtable premier league club means you have no fear of the club going bust. Remember those days? They were dark times.

 

I think I said something similar last summer. It's all so predictable. At the moment we're lucky - we still have decent milestones to aim for, such as European qualification and progress towards winning a cup competition. But achieve both of those and we're probably at the limit. Then everything will go very stale indeed. And of course by January of any given season all avenues to those things could be over.

 

I would agree with this, I know it's not every ones cup of tea but I really think our social media presence is pretty poor. Some clubs go way over board of course and it looks very cringey but some I've seen give just the right balance of behind the scenes information/snapshots of the club, fan interaction and generally building the club up & in turn excitement toward the club/season.

I would agree with the general 'meh' feeling leading up but I think that's just me in general that until it gets going I don't really get too excited and carried away. I couldn't give a hoot about pre-season matches either. This combined with not knowing too much about the new signings and having to get to 'know' them all again it's hard to get too carried away just yet. I would also suggest the same is the case for the new manager too, I understand he may prefer to stay away from the media and his English may not be too fluent just yet so is perhaps wary of being misinterpreted at this early stage but I think it would have been nice to see a bit more of him in the lull (for the fans atleast) of pre-season.

It usually takes me a couple of weeks to get completely back in to the swing of the season but I imagine it'll all fully kick in once back at the vic for the Chelsea game until they smash their 4th in and we sit rock bottom.

 

Forgive quoting myself, but I have to add to this.

Last year: being written off by pundits and newspapers, predicted to finish 20th with Flores first casualty.
This year: being written off by pundits and newspapers, predicted to finish in bottom 6/3 with Mazzari first casualty.

Still questioning why I'm thinking so differently.

 

No one is forcing you to "have to" do anything, you could always take up another weekend hobby, like darts or rugby.

 

Whilst I agree that there is a definite lack of immediacy in terms of excitement when you look at our position at face value, I think there's something that you can easily overlook, and that's the 'excitement' of being in the Premier League at all.

Let's face it, we didn't actually hunger to get promoted so much because we all thought that that meant we could finally have a crack at qualifying for the Champions League and winning the Prem. The very fact of being at the top table is something that is incredibly exciting, and something that we absolutely shouldn't ever be taking for granted. In our current position, we get to play against the 19 other best teams in the country, and we are considered internationally to be one of the 20 best teams in one of the joint 'best leagues in the world'.

Twice this coming season, Pep Guardiola, demi-god of football and the new Jesus of poorer parts of Manchester, will have to prepare for and then give press conferences about, before and after, playing Watford. Us. He will come to The Vic, and stand on the touchline and order his team about in order to try and win points off us. Seriously, how insane a thought is that?! Pep Guardiola will be at Vicarage ****ing Road, and so will Klopp, again, and Mourinho, and all the other luminaries of football gone by who are now managers and club officials and what have you. If you stop to think about that for a second, it is amazing, and something that really puts where we are into perspective, for me, at least.

There are actually relatively few teams who are ever challenging for a title, even in the Football League, and that is really the only thing to be jealous of when we look back with rose tinted spectacles at the Championship. No one's ****ing dreaming of going back to be involved in the playoffs, either, are they?

We might not have a specific defined 'target' now, but isn't achieving as much as we possibly can season to season enough? Perhaps Deeney can score more goals; perhaps we can finish a place, or two, or 5, higher up the table; perhaps we can have a cup run that goes even further than last season, and also hold our own in the league.

The fact that we are here at all is far more exciting than what is, in reality, predominantly the desperate scrabble to make it up here in the division below.