What Are Your Expectations For The Season?

Yeah but Ipswich once won the FA and UEFA cups, so are clearly massive. That alone is worth 20 extra points

 

As somebody who did follow League One fairly religiously last season, I agree! Their squad is a bit less settled than ours which is why I've put us above them this year, but Schumacher is an intelligent tactician and their recruitment is one of the best in the country so I reckon they'll survive comfortably. That said, the way they press is quite aggressive which leaves gaps so they'll take the occasional hammering, as they did last season.

I'll be hugely surprised if Sheffield Wednesday don't finish the lowest of the promoted sides.

 

Wednesday had a core of players with plenty of experience of the Championship to go up, but it does look like a squad that needs a bit of a refresh if they are to be anything but strugglers, so far they've bought 2 new players from abroad and loaned in Fletcher...

 

Yeah the issue with them is less the quality of player and more the profile. There's not a lot of pace or youth in there, which limits how they can play and at this level they won't be able to get through most games solely because they've got better players than their opponents. Chansiri has said he expects them to finish top six which is completely unrealistic so I can see Munoz being sacked early.

 

Who knows . At a certain level , goalscorers can get you promoted\out of trouble whilst papering over cracks .

 

All three of the promoted sides will do well.
I suspect Cardiff plus some of those with less resources will struggle with so many established and big clubs in the league

6 of our first 9 games are at home, before a flurry of away games. If we don't have at least 15 points on the board by then, then we know just how itchy Gino's finger will get.

Our model has always been to buy good, but injury prone players. If we have half the injury run we did last year we are in trouble, with the current depth and quality of the squad. Realistically we need 4 or 5 more players by the end of August.

I suspect we will end up somewhere between 12th and 16th, if we get a lot of injuries then 16th to 21st.

It's not going to be a pretty season, I suspect a lot of discord and toxicity from the stands.

Let's face it, it can't be worse than last year.........can it?

 

What are my expectations?

My indifference to develop into complete apathy within weeks

 

The clear out has been great. The replacements not so much. The quality of the team will be lower due to the vastly reduced future income. We knew this had to happen. Bottom half but hopefully not bottom 3.

 

I think the problem will be the depth. I suspect come Saturday the starting XI will look decent but the 9 man bench aside from a couple would not look out of place starting in L2. Let’s hope the injuries aren’t as bad as last year!

 

I think the depth and quality will both be an issue. I agree we can no longer afford to have 2 players of similar ish qualities for every position so hopefully see some of our youngest given a sink or swim chance like Andrews was last season, which is what many wanted to see.

 

Can't see where the goals are coming from, so anything above halfway would be a big surprise.

 

I think the relegation slots are very difficult to predict. Plymouth are there as "the smallest promoted club" but I don't think they will go down. Cardiff have signed Ramsey with Moore being linked, Hull picked up towards the end of last season, as did Huddersfield did under Warnock who is staying. QPR, Rotherham, B'ham? but we could get ourselves heavily involved if we don't get ourselves sorted out and all pulling in the same direction very quickly. I think Ipswich will make the playoffs and I think the 3 relegated prem clubs will finish top 3.

 

Far lower expectations will help. Very few people think we will finish top half. I think we will but only just. 10th

 

People should stop their incessant moaning. So what if we go down? I'm sick of the Championship and struggling to get points against the big teams and the heinous inequity of parachute payments. At least division 1 is a proper league and we are going back to our true roots which is surely what most of us want, right? But I tell you one thing, if we do go down, we will have some of the best training facilities in league 1.

 

That money is already gone? - they borrowed against it last season so we could have a big shot at promotion and they managed 11th.

 

Doesn't that rather assume that the team, as a whole, reflected the strength of the squad's individual players? My view of last season was that we had a relatively strong squad, but no team spirit or cohesion. As VI showed at Barnsley, it is possible to take a squad of players who are individually no match for those we had last season, and produce a cohesive team that does much better than the sum of its parts.

Not saying it will happen for us, just that it is possible. I put us down for 10th.

 

Fair point on the cohesion.

Personally I think last season the squad was weak bar a couple of decent attackers.

If we don't get some goal threat going I can't see top half but who knows?

The Championship is a funny old league.

 

HMS P*ss The League getting ready to sail...

 

Between the 19 voting for the play-offs and the 3 absolute lunatics voting for automatic promotion, that's 22 people on here who aren't safe to be walking the streets.

 

I voted 8th-11th. Not as optimistic about reaching the playoffs this time but who knows.

 

A 'supercomputer' thinks we could be in for a 'fun' season.

 

These things are always overly optimistic.

 

Or maybe they are more optimistic type people. It's only opinions and doesn't really matter and although automatic promotion seems a little far fetched a play off spot is possible. There are plenty of team in the past who've made plays offs and gone up who didn't seem to have the best of squads. I give you ours under Boothroyd and the scum last year. Both those sides had a huge will to win and were incredibly well organised. For what it's worth, I went 8th-11th but could easily go either way

 

So AI is yet another type of intelligence Watford FC don't have.

 

Looks about right to me, although Cardiff could finish above us so League One here we come!

 

I think we will finish just above the relegation places as I think we will struggle to score goals. I assume this will be below our esteemed owners expectations so we will have the normal manager merry go round.

I think Ipswich will be strong play off challengers and Plymouth will survive. Sheff Weds may struggle as will QPR. Huddersfield will be fine with Warnock.

I expect automatic promotion for two of the relegated teams with Leicester champions.

 

I'd take that just to see the meltdown at Leeds as they miss the playoffs.

 

Yes that sounds about right.

 

That's my expectation too. I would be very pleasantly suprised if we score more than 50, which would put us anywhere from relegated to about 16th (based on my previously posted analysis).