Championship - 2023/24

Discussion in 'The Hornets' Nest - Watford Chat' started by Steel City Gold, Mar 11, 2023.

  1. SkylaRose

    SkylaRose Administrator Staff Member

    Deserved it on the balance on play. That playoff second leg comeback was enough for promotion on it's own. Barnsley played well and were hard to break down. Well done to Darren Moore too - had to take a lot of abuse from his own team's fans but he proved them wrong.

    So that confirms:

    Southampton
    Leeds United
    Leicester City
    Plymouth Argyle
    Ipswich Town
    Sheffield Wednesday
     
  2. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    I wouldn't say scary but certainly one of the biggest swings I can remember from one season to another in the stature of clubs in the league.
     
  3. hornetboy1

    hornetboy1 First Team Captain

    It’s going to be a tough league next year
     
    SkylaRose likes this.
  4. Hogg-DEENEY!!!

    Hogg-DEENEY!!! Squad Player

    Are Sheffield Wednesday going to be that tough though? They were in League 1 for a reason, I think we need to worry about ourselves more than the teams coming up
     
  5. wfc4ever

    wfc4ever Administrator Staff Member

    Guess Sheffield W deserve it for their season but made it hard for themselves in the play offs !
     
  6. Hogg-DEENEY!!!

    Hogg-DEENEY!!! Squad Player

    The League 1 clubs must be glad to be rid of those three, they put up some unbelievable numbers
     
  7. a19tgg

    a19tgg First Team

    People seem to say the championship is poor and weaker than ever every single season, but next year we have no promoted teams coming down, only one relegated team going up, three established teams coming down (well, at least two well established) and then 2, arguably 3 championship mainstays from the past coming up. On paper at least I don’t think the makeup of clubs next season could be much worse for anyone hoping to go up.
     
  8. LondonOrn

    LondonOrn Squad Player

    They're going to need to spend quite a bit even to get in the top half on the basis on what I saw in their second leg vs Peterborough, the nature of the comeback was impressive but the quality of their football was less so - they were pretty average first half despite going two goals up and Peterborough had a spell between the first and second goals when they were the better side and had most of the ball, and while you have to credit them for the way they kept on going the build up to the last gasp goal in normal time was pretty frantic. Of course it's easy to forget amongst the drama that it was still League 1 and the quality even from the better sides is usually going to be inferior to that of many sides in the Championship, but there must have been a lot of poor sides in that division for Wednesday to get 96 points. Luton won League 1 with 94 points and nearly went down the following season, but Wednesday must have a considerably bigger budget.
     
  9. Hogg-DEENEY!!!

    Hogg-DEENEY!!! Squad Player

    The teams that have entered the Championship this season certainly are big clubs historically for the second tier, but, in late May, it's always hard to say how the relegated teams with fare (some on here would have seen us struggling this season, but I certainly didn't think Norwich would be so far off the pace too a year ago). Wednesday have had a great season in League 1, but they weren't good enough to get out of the league last season, and then went and added players like the two lads from Rotherham (Smith and Ihiekwe) who are too good for League 1 but not good enough for the Championship, so I'm not sure why people are scared of them. Ipswich might be good, I've heard good things especially about their manager, and Plymouth are a bit of an unknown quantity too (although did get promoted in impressive fashion)

    Basically, I don't think the division will be MASSIVELY harder next season, whether our season will be a success will be down to us
     
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  10. Hogg-DEENEY!!!

    Hogg-DEENEY!!! Squad Player

    Exactly, and I wonder how much they spent on the likes of Mallik Wilks, Michael Smith and Ihiekwe, because they're three players who are great at L1 level, who probably cost a not insignificant fee, but who aren't going to fire you towards the upper reaches of the Championship. If you're a Wednesday fan, surely you'd take 21st if it's offered to you now
     
  11. WatfordTalk

    WatfordTalk First Team

    Yeah, we missed our chance this year. We only needed to be not-crap to get top 6 at least. Next season will be much tougher and we'll likely be mid table at best, unless we have a close to flawless transfer window.
     
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  12. LondonOrn

    LondonOrn Squad Player

    It's strange that I should be feeling this way after the season we've had, but it's a funny feeling knowing that today's play-off final was the last game of the league season and there are no evening fixtures, with just the FA Cup final (which I won't be watching) and European finals to look forward to. I guess it's because this weekend was quite an exciting one of football, even though there were no major surprises and some of the games didn't go the way we wanted them to.

    Does anyone else feel the same way?
     
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  13. wfcSinatra

    wfcSinatra Predictor Choker 14/15

    Ipswich, Sheffield Wednesday, Leicester, Leeds. Some huge teams coming into our league. We are heading towards our natural average.
     
  14. EB Hornet

    EB Hornet Reservist

    The reason I like the Championship is because anything can happen and it’s not all down to money (way less so than the Prem).

    As gutting as it is to say it - Lu*on are a prime example of that.

    The only thing that really matters is what we do.

    We won’t have as much of a financially packed squad advantage, but we can still get promoted if we get our act together.

    Which teams we are up against does matter to a degree, but less so than trying to say break into Europe in the Prem
     
  15. Hogg-DEENEY!!!

    Hogg-DEENEY!!! Squad Player

    Agreed that we've missed our chance, but that's because of our own financial situation, we face an uphill battle to even be as 'good' as we were this season given that we've already lost our best player and will probably lose more, I'm not sure the teams coming up or down will alter the picture too much
     
  16. SkylaRose

    SkylaRose Administrator Staff Member

    Which is the exact thing that scares me the most.
     
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  17. Steel City Gold

    Steel City Gold Reservist

    Logistically much better HD, but I was praying for a Barnsley win.

    I'll save my vitriol about the Pigs getting promoted for the pre-match preview next season, and focus on something much more important, already alluded to by an earlier poster.

    Congratulations to Darren Moore on your achievement today. Fcuk the racists,whoever they 'support'.
     
  18. The undeniable truth

    The undeniable truth First Team Captain

    Ah so you’re criticising how obvious my top 6 prediction is and then pointing out that the one wild card amongst them is very unlikely ;).
    I just happen to think the 3 relegated “big” clubs are more likely than in prior seasons and that Sunderland and Middlesbrough are sleeping giants(ish) that have now reawakened. I can see much to get in their way and think Ipswich’s momentum after all these years could work for them.
     
    Last edited: May 30, 2023
  19. WillisWasTheWorst

    WillisWasTheWorst Its making less grammar mistake's thats important

    OK, fair enough.
     
  20. SkylaRose

    SkylaRose Administrator Staff Member

    Since scum town got promoted, we need a new motivating "enemy" for this season. QPR sounds good. Their fans' think we are bitter rivals and they did the double over us last season (our own fault esp. the away game). On top of that, we just cannot seem to beat them in the league right now. We beat them in the Cup and in a pre season friendly, but when points are at stake, we always lose.
     
  21. The undeniable truth

    The undeniable truth First Team Captain

    Bear in mind, if we make them our stand-in rivals, they will be promoted in May with Ismael at the helm.
     
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  22. hemelhorn88

    hemelhorn88 Academy Graduate

    My Dad has always disliked them. He was a steward in the QPR end at Wembley in 86 when they lost 3-0 to Oxford in the Milk cup. He was the only one with a big smile on his face in that end.

    They have always seemed to not like us for a strange reason loads of them here in Hemel and Berko all not very nice people, same when they put their Chelsea scarfs on.
     
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  23. Keighley

    Keighley First Team

    No.
     
  24. WillisWasTheWorst

    WillisWasTheWorst Its making less grammar mistake's thats important

    I’ve said this before, but for those of us who hail from south of Watford (Eastcote in my case, originally) QPR are very much second in line in the rivalry stakes, due to overlapping catchment areas.
     
  25. BeersThen

    BeersThen Reservist

    It's a good shout, but don't forget Plymouth. Still fuming after 1984 from I hear.
     
    Hogg-DEENEY!!! likes this.
  26. WatfordTalk

    WatfordTalk First Team

    @Filbert how do things look financially? Do you think most players have relegation clauses in their contracts?
     
  27. Filbert

    Filbert Leicester supporting bloke

    No idea. To be honest the financial state of the club isn’t something I’m really up on. I know a lot of people are bang into going into clubs’ financial statements and following Kieran Maguire and that but personally I find that dead boring.

    I do know that we built a massive training complex, King Power lost a lot of money during Covid and we have (had lolz) the 7th or 8th largest wage bill in the Prem. The owner also wrote off a load of debt recently.

    I don’t know…. It never works out that when a club gets unexpectedly relegated every single one of their players leave anyway. Some people are going on like it’ll be Iversen and Souttar plus 20 new lads next season. I think we’ll get good money for Maddison and then we have Tielemans, Evans, Perez and a few others are off the wage bill.
     
    WatfordTalk likes this.
  28. Hogg-DEENEY!!!

    Hogg-DEENEY!!! Squad Player

    Yeah, growing up I never really encountered QPR fans, I remember once at school a kid turned up in a QPR hat (not even an Rs fan lol) and everyone took the piss out of him for the rest of the term!
     
  29. Hogg-DEENEY!!!

    Hogg-DEENEY!!! Squad Player

    Do you think Perez is considering re-signing?
    https://twitter.com/AyozePG/status/1662910883712974849
     
  30. VR94

    VR94 Academy Graduate

    We're already a quarter of the way through the off-season.
     
  31. SkylaRose

    SkylaRose Administrator Staff Member

    Don't worry, Manga, Costa, Gino and Bayat have everything under control.
     
  32. Sting

    Sting Squad Player

    A close friend was QPR fan and how he hated Watford (even though he chose to live there). I could never understand it really as I never considered them our local rivals.
     
  33. LeedsOrn

    LeedsOrn Reservist

    https://www.wba.co.uk/news/club-statement-ron-gourlay-depart-ceo-role

    Another club (that more egregiously) doesn’t comment on staffing matters. CEO Ron Gourlay resigned in March and it was only disclosed now. I’ve spoken on here about how WBA are incredibly screwed; I reckon he has resigned as part of the overall governance issues at the club. Will be interesting to see how this plays out.
     
    SkylaRose likes this.
  34. I Blame Pozzo

    I Blame Pozzo First Team

    I preferred him as Evonne Goolagong.
     
  35. hornetmaster

    hornetmaster Reservist

    I see the bookmakers are projecting an eighth place finish for us next season, if correct is it likely the fans will `Give Gino Another Break`?
     

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