The Championship 2020-21

much can be attributed to the lack of atmosphere maybe? (No crowd)

 

You are Scott Duxbury and I claim my £5.

 

The championship has always been ****. The bottom of the premier league is generally rubbish, so by extension the 24 teams below that were never that good in the first place. We’ve been playing in the premier league for five years so our perceptions are likely to be skewed.

 

Watching players kick the ball to someone in the same colour shirt as them has spoiled us, it's true.

 

Freddie Ladapo though. As good as Suarez that fella.

 

All the best players have been bought up/promoted. The relegated sides coming down have had to shed a decent chunk of their squads (well, except for Norwich), the Covid situation means clubs are hestitant to splash out, I can't seem to find the graphic I saw the other day that Championship clubs have spent 3 times less than last summers transfer window. All equates to a weaker than normal league.

 

Also considered weaker as a lot of the "sleeping giants" have moved up (Villa, Leeds, Wolves) - only really Forest and Derby left from the clubs who would consider themselves big clubs, however justified or otherwise. The teams that have come down (us, Norwich, Muff, Stoke, Boro, Swansea, Cardiff, etc) have never really been established as big clubs.

A lot of this perception comes from the press whose thoughts are based on a playfair annual from the late 70s

 

Have our set of relegated clubs shed more players than normal? I mean that's a pretty normal thing to happen, except if not for the pandemic, there's absolutely zero chance we keep Sarr (likewise for Brooks, Cantwell, Buendia, King and a few others)

 

Much less money being spent this close-season and good players shipped out.
Lack of atmosphere in the empty grounds is affecting the players. Too often it is like watching a dress rehearsal training game. I really didn't think this would happen, but it looks very much like it is.
All the coaches are more or less copying each other and cancelling each other out (Derby v Watford?). It's the same old stuff, every game - pass backwards and forwards at the back, waiting for the oppo to be pulled out of position - which doesn't happen as everybody knows what's going on.
Allied to that is a shortage of stand-out players who can short-circuit these plans and make stuff happen. Everybody is pretty good, but nobody is very good.

 

I know a team who might be.

 

Approaching HT in 7 championship games. No goals in 6 of 'em and the other is 1-1.

 

Correction Millwall score against Scum town on 45+4.

 

Oh terrible time to concede, that.

Heart break for the scum.

 

Scum losing is always nice to see

When will Wycombe get a point, let alone win. It'll be against us won't it..

 

Could this season be a a battle between two Serbian 1-0 master tacticians.

 

"For now" maybe, but not in the long run IMHO. Ignoring Sheff Wed who are out of position, 9 of their points have come from playing the three teams currently in the RZ (Derby, Barnsley and Wycombe), plus they had the 1-o win over us at the Madstad where they weren't particularly impressive. The only thing in their favour is momentum - but we know how quickly a fast start in the Champoionship can be derailed.

By contrast I don't think we have played anyone yet who will be in the relegation battle (DCFC will be OK once they change manager).

 

Reading have a strong starting XI but very little squad depth. Would be impressed if they get through the hectic period between now and January without a few injuries, and that will hurt them more than some of the other sides competing at the top. I know we're no entirely satisfied with our squad depth (left back especially) but it's crazy compared to Reading.

We really should have more than them over the course of the season, but I think they'll be up there, especially as their manager seems pretty decent.

 

True, but Norwich have dominated all their games and have been playing lovely one-touch football. If we could keeping winning 1-0 playing similar football I'd be delighted.

 

The next 2 months will sort out the teams who have good squads or just good XIs.

People criticise our squad , because they re still in the EPL mentality . Very few teams have a second XI compared to ours.

Bachmann
Navarro Cathcart Wikmot Massina
Chalobah Garner Quina
Deeney Gray Sema

First XI

Foster
NGakia Troost Kaba Kiko
Capoue Hughes Cleverley
Sarr Pericia Pedro

If we continued playing 352 there is even more depth .

RB/RWB NGakia, Kiko , Navarro,
LB/LWB Sema , Kiko , Massina , Stevenson
CB Troost, Kaba , Cath, Wilmot, Sierra, Massina

CM Capoue , Hughes , Cleverly, Chalobah, Garner,TDB (injured) , Quina , Phillips

CF Gray, Perica , Deeney, Success

Winger - Pedro, Sarr , Sema, Success , Penaranda .

Just in the wingers we look light , but with a compact 352 you can compensate for that with strong WBs which we have good cover for .

Can amyone name a stronger championship squad than that .

 

Sounds great, until you factor in that only eight of them are ‘fit’ to start tomorrow...

 

Already seeing a lot of season-ending injuries due to a poor pre-season.

This midweek-weekend schedule will decimate squads. Add into that the possibility of Covid forcing players to miss 3 or 4 games.

Just have to hope we are lucky enough to get through relatively unscathed.

 

Penaranda is out on loan by the way.

 

I agree that we probably have more good players than anyone else, which will be important in a tightly packed season like this. However, where my concern lies is that I think we are lacking genuine quality in certain important positions.

I think there are a lot of hard working players in that midfield, but very little creativity. I think we will struggle against teams that sit deep - which it seems is going to be the fashion this season.

I think the same could be said for our strikers - there are four players there who all fit into that category of "busy" strikers rather than clinical goalscorers.

I think we do need a natural left back other than Masina, and Ivic has repeated it over and over again, but it seems there is not the money or the desire from the board to back him on that.

 

Ah yes true...not that I ever envisioned him playing.

 

Reading will fall away, I thought they looked crap against us despite winning and looked horrid against Wycombe last night. We won't be talking about them in a couple of months i'm confident about that.

Norwich look ******* good, as they should with their team - so do Bournemouth!

Those two and Brentford will be the big problems. Millwall, Blackburn, Cardiff and Swansea dangerous but not as much quality or squad depth.

Our squad on paper has immense talent but XG will come for us soon if we don't start making more chances - next couple of home games will be very telling for us.

 

I don’t think I entirely buy the theory about all the good players having been bought, the same thing happens every season.

Benrahma has been bought, but replaced with Toney who looks equally good.

Last season West Ham bought Bowen.

The stars in the championship don’t stay long, they’re either promoted or bought at the end of each season.

More talent will emerge this year and the same thing will happen.

 

Watkins was replaced by Toney, and the early signs indicate that he's every bit as good. Benrahma was replaced by Ghoddos who seems a good buy, even if he'll have to really go some to be as good as Benrahma

 

Beauty of this midweek is that Bournemouth and Swansea (still considering them among our main challengers despite the players they've sold and lost through injury) dropped points and we go ahead of them. Brentford and Norwich both won, and I'm sure they'll be there or thereabouts, but at least we have a little mini cushion over them at the moment. If we can win against Bournemouth (a draw also wouldn't be the end of the world), what a platform that would give us for our next few games which are very winnable

 

The table is meaningless 6 games in. All that matters is we get some consistency and we carry on racking up points week after week, if we win ugly it doesn’t matter.

 

Of course, everyone (especially us, who had a particularly chaotic pre-season) is only getting started, but it's nice to have points on the teams we'd expect to be our main challengers this season. This game and Bournemouth at the weekend are the first times in a long time where we'll be able to name anything like a 'proper' first XI, so you have to say things are looking decent so far