Will We Achieve Promotion This Season?

With eight games gone and the transfer window shut, it is time to nail your flag to the mast.

Will we get promoted this season?

You can only vote once and the thread will close in a few days. I'll then repeat it in a few months' time.

 

Yes. And Ken Sema will win the Ballon d'or

 

Can't see it unfortunately. As has been said, we really need to improve and get rid of this sodding 3-5-2. Ivic has been really screwed over with the left back issue, but the teams lack of cohesion and individual mistakes are really worrying, as is the potential lack of unity in the camp. I know Sarr looks fairly grumpy at the best of times, but his reaction to scoring was not great, a real "why the **** am I still here?" expression.

I hope we can turn this around, but last night felt like a rude awakening in the mould of the Yeovil game back in 13/14 or the West Brom game of 2007/08. Maybe not quite so bad (inasmuch as a loss would have been a catastrophe), but whenever we as a club start a season with big expectations, it always goes wrong.

We can't 1-0 our way to promotion, and our defence always has a mistake in it. I also doubt we have the strength of character to get back into games after going 1-0 down, Reading being a stark view of that. It feels like QSF at the moment, whereby as soon as we concede, it's game over.

I was really hoping our younger team and our offloading of certain players would help renew our squad and team spirit, but it feels we've come up short in that regard- there feels like a real fear and lack of confidence (and last night, a lack of being bothered), that seems like a hangover from last season.

Short version, I'd say at the moment, a finish of about 8th looks most likely, play offs at best, though there's no way we'd win them- our players don't respond well to big occasions.

Hope to be proved wrong though.

 

I can’t see us getting rid of 352 until we get a striker who can play alone up front and can bring others into play.

We’d probably have to play Deeney/ Murray up front until Perica is back, although maybe Gray could manage it.

 

I think we will make the playoffs but we need promotion.

Having no strikers since pre-season has forced us into a formation that isn't working to our strengths. Having no left-back is also obviously a problem and a failing.

If we continue this style when all players are fit then no.

 

And Perica will win the Fallon d'floor.

 

Let's look at the facts:

• We have the best squad
• We have lost 1 game all season to the runaway leaders
• We have players to come back
• Our coach is learning the league and his players
• We are currently third and can only get better

Well better than third would mean automatic promotion. I would be surprised if we don't come top two.

 

I think we have a great chance. It is easy to forget in the aftermath of the Wycombe game the summer that the club had and how this has impacted us, some of our most important players did not have a pre season and were not even with the squad at the start of the season. We have had to play a formation that is probably not our favoured system and we have not been able to play a centre forward for 90 minutes yet. But somehow we are still in the play off places and have only lost one game, so far we have been heavy reliant on kids but once we have a few key players back our squad will look a bit more balanced. We are in desperate need of a striker, luckily we have 3 to come back and the addition of Hughes who is one of the best players in the league, Capoue is not yet fully fit and I imagine he will look better along side Will Hughes, I also think we will see better things from Sarr and Pedro playing off a proper centre forward.

 

Ivic did say he wants to play a more attacking 4-3-3 'when everyone is fit', so even though we don't have a proper left-back, I'm hoping we'll give it a try when Hughes and Gray are back (weekend against Barnsley? Surely given the vibes from him they'll play some part at Oakwell?). Granted that formation will still not be perfect given Kiko isn't a left-back, but hopefully we will be so strong elsewhere on the field that it doesn't matter so much

 

Did Ken Sema not play almost an entire season at left back in Serie A for Udinese last year? This talk of us not having a left back is a myth. There is not a better left back in English football at the moment than 'cuddly' Ken

 

I'm still not getting carried away after one game, granted it was an abject performance against a team who will struggle all season, but I'm hoping that was a one-off against a pretty unique style of football, hopefully our defence never look so **** scared against anyone else. Besides, despite the poor performances, realistically only this and probably the Reading game were ones in which we really deserved to lose, we've been at least equal to the opposition in every other game despite so many players out and despite not playing well (which does go to show the difference in levels between the PL and the Champo). Praying that all is well once we get everyone back, still think we're on for the play-offs, the likes of Hughes could be the difference between that and automatics

 

On paper there aren't 3 better teams, but... Ivic didn't have a full squad to work with pre season, and with the frequency of games, injuries, and international breaks he may still have to wait a long time for the chance.

Give Ivic 2 - 3 years and he'll smash this league. I'm not totally convinced that will be this season... although anything can happen.

 

He was a left wing-back for most of last season (he didn't spend every game there, but I don't think he spent any games further back as an out and out full-back)

 

NO! NO! NO!

 

Thanks for clearing that up

 

Yep left wing back or on the left side of a central three in midfield. Can see from watching him play that he's not very aware defensively. Rarely knows where the winger is. So I suppose in that sense, he's not much different to Masina!

 

Or Kiko for that matter! I really don't know what will happen, until we sign a left-back, literally any formation we try out will have some pretty significant flaws, I suppose it's all about using the one with the least flaws

 

We have 4 absolutely crap strikers
We have no left back
We have a wafer thin squad with teenagers waiting in the wings behind our 20 year old starters

We will finish 10th or so.

 

We've played badly every game, don't have a proper centre forward available and yet we are 3rd. It just shows the standard of this league, if we start linking up better I can't see us finishing outside the top 2.

 

Voted no.

I think we have as good a chance of any of automatic promotion, and will likely be in the playoffs.

But I don't see how anyone can be confident that we'd get promoted out of that lottery

 

Think we'll come top 2 if we're lucky with injuries. Top 6 if not, then anything can happen in the play-offs.

We're only 8 games in and we've already had to do without Sarr, Hughes, Capoue, Gray, Deeney, Masina, Perica and Success for extended periods, for one reason or another, but we're still 3rd without playing all that well.

Norwich and Bournemouth have both made good starts but are still showing they're capable of a crap result like ours last night. Norwich losing at home to Derby, Bournemouth having 0 shots on target in a 0-0 against QPR. They'll both still be up there at the end of the season though.

I would like Ivic to show a bit more flexibility though. I'd also like to see this free agent LB arrive if Vlad is flat out refusing to play Kiko as a full back.

 

Side note, I'm so pleased there's darts on this weekend, gives me something to take my mind off football in the not unlikely event of us dropping more points against Barnsley

 

Is Success still a Watford player? He never seems to be mentioned in the list of those recovering from injury.

 

Judging by his Instagram he's either a Watford player recovering from injury or an aspiring model for ASOS, so your guess is as good as mine

 

The main question mark for me is around defending set pieces.

We don't have the tallest, strongest or most aggressive players, but seem to mark man-to-man and lose our respective battles every time. Sort that out, get our players back from injury and reinforce well in January, and I think we'll finish top 2.

 

Not sure why people are getting carried away about Reading, their form is not sustainable with this Covid format. It’s extremely rare for a team to romp it, they did it once before, but otherwise it normally only happens when you get a team like Wolves. Leeds never romped it and faltered the season before, yet look how good they actually are. Conversely, with half the season gone last season Brentford were mid table and lost almost half their games (10), and won less than half, yet got to the point of having three games they could’ve won to get automatic promotion. We know with our attempted bounce back season under Aidy, it can all unravel every quickly.

It’s a long arduous season and every team will suddenly hit a bad patch at least once, likewise the top contenders will have the odd spell where they win 5/6 in a row as well.

 

Yes.

See you at the promotion party on HMS PTL

 

Well it's only two months to the next desperation window so we need to pick up lots of points as we're bound to cash in on our remaining asset(s?)
If we don't we will finish in the top two.
Ivic and the team will only improve on the pretty good results so there is no reason,at this stage,not to be optimistic.

 

Everyone is saying we are rubbish at defending against set pieces, but I would argue that we are just as bad, if not worse, at taking advantage of set pieces when we are are at the other end of the pitch.

 

Could do it, could be miles short.

For the poll I'll assume we're really lucky and one or two of our strikers stay fit and hit some form - and we'll finish second.

 

This place is going to be utterly poisonous if we don't go up, isn't it? (Mind you, it's probably going to be quite venomous even if we do go up too lol)

 

Depends. If performances improve over time and we fail in playoffs just losing say Sarr and Hughes in the summer then I think people would accept the reality of that. If we remain toothless, drift down to mid table, sack Ivic and sell Sarr in January then yes I think forum will explode!

 

I still think yes. Once we see a proper Centre forward in place I'm hoping he will be able to link the play better up top. But first of all need to show a whole lot more desire and actually start a match with the I tent of winning it.