Throwing Bad Money After Good - the EFL and Beyond 2017-18

ffs Gary Rowett i want to like you please stop managing terrible clubs

Millwall are currently all over lol Forest by the sound of it

You can see Grayson has reduced the pitch size this season by the old lines.

Fuck me I'd forgotten they'd signed Vaughan, his knees won't last until September!

Jody steps up to the plate

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DGUsWdDUIAAAsCt.jpg:large

xp to calz

yeah it's a pretty ragtag bunch of desperadoes and chancers they've brought in from League One / on loan this season

been quite consistently embarrassed by the way Villa have comported themselves since we got relegated, ito just throwing money around in a desperate attempt to buy ourselves back up to the Premier League, but hadn't realised until tonight quite how grateful i am for the largesse of Dr Xia - yea, even for John fucking Terry and his presumably extortionate wages.

oh shit penno, that seems a bit harsh

Brucey really aggravates me more often than not but i wd expect him to bring a steady, efficient promotion challenge this season unless key members of your squad go down with arthritis

idk our 15 game losing streak (or whatever the fuck it was) occurred after we'd already spent the better part of £40 million buying up all of the supposed best Championship players. obviously the hope is that everyone settles down nicely now and we move forwards from here but all these cunts going on like signing John Terry automatically makes us favourites for automatic promotion UGHH FUCK OFF have these cunts still not realised that Villa Park is built on an ancient Indian burial ground

keeping sentiment off my betting slip, I think the 2/1 on Brum is a good price today. I would love them to fail, but don't think they will and I think Ipswich will finish rock bottom this season.

"Learning from their mistakes or chasing their losses? After a chastening first year owning a football club, Fosun, the Chinese custodians of Wolves, took time to diagnose the reasons that the club lurched around the lower mid-table for most of the season and decided not to change the medicine but to double the dose.

"This is bold. Even allowing for football’s spiralling [sic] inflation, the outlay for the young Portuguese midfielder Ruben Neves was breathtaking by Championship standards. He is part of another group of fresh faces, several with Portuguese backgrounds.

"Does Nuno Espirito Santo have the experience to handle the Championship? Will he know what you need to know? Who knows? Wolves new owners could be very wrong or very right. What they have got right, at least, is to get the fans talking and mostly excited - excited enough to sell the ground out for the opening day, which is no small achievement.

"It will be a fascinating story either way. Wolves appear determined to prove most of the accepted conventions of how to tackle the Championship need not apply. If they succeed - and they certainly could - it will be on their terms.

"The owners are taking a huge gamble. If you bet on Wolves, you're taking a huge gamble too."

BBC teeing up Wolves nicely in a saying-a-lot-but-not-saying-anything-really kind of way.

Stoked for the madness. Sorely miss the heroic Wolves drawings though :(

it's Jody Craddock paintings this season tho!

i agree with Calz about Ipswich tho you'd think Mick would have enough dogged organization to perhaps tough it out when some of the flakier sides struggle. they look like a club in absolute malaise tho.

two thirds of the reason i want us to have a good season is so i can laugh in the faces of the "you don't get promoted playing football" section of our own fans

I really wish I was going to a game today, getting strong nostalgia pangs for supping cans on a train on away sorties back in the day.

Will be interested to see if Stuart Webber's Norwich project are going to do well. Even though he did some very good work for us, I have a suspicion he is a bit of an overrated travelling bullshit merchant, who got lucky. And also just because Norwich have a better infrastructure than ours was, it doesn't necessarily mean he can go one better. Away at Fulham for them is probably about as tough an opening fixture you could ask for in the current champo.

it's Jody Craddock paintings this season tho!

― put your hands on the car and get ready to die (Noodle Vague), Saturday, August 5, 2017 11:22 AM (fifteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ha!

I'm looking forward to seeing how Martin Braithwaite gets on at Boro. He has never really scored a lot of goals but can be completely outstanding at times. He was phenomenal when Toulouse beat Monaco last year.

They definitely got more vfm there than £15m worth of injury plagued Assombalonga.

A bruising start for Orient in the National League, 2 nil down to Sutton after 30 odd mins, ouch! I can't find the old Videprinter live score thing on the beeb website. I see what LBI was saying on the other thread now.

Actually the new BBC Football Scores & Fixtures page isn't bad actually. At least you can scroll down the whole league as it happens and see which of your accs are completely doomed. I used to use the live videprinter page and then a latest scores tab for each division, which was pretty a ridiculous way of doing it really.

Yeah the live scores page looks like it's improved quite a bit.

FFS Novak! That'll be my acc with Charlton going down already!

first red card of the season btw

omg! Leon Clarke is a Blade now, that be 17 clubs he's turned out for now.

Been a fun first 20 mins between Fulham and Norwich. Marley Watkins could have had a couple already

I totally misheard that on 5 live and thought Norwich had signed Ollie Watkins

Bonatini Lohner Maia has to be contender for best name in the league

Nathaniel Percival Knight is another cool name.

i dunno this Brazilian lad he's not all that if he was any good he wouldn't of been playing in Saudi we shd spunk 20 mill on Andre Gray

Wycombe vs Lincoln City shouldn't be a football match, it should be a feight to the death between Adebayo Akinfenwa + Matt Rhead!

omg didn't realise Akinfenwa was still playing

Blues losing :) very happy with how these games are going right now.

I would be if hadn't put the bastards on one of my accs where all the other 3 are winning, but on reflection - fuck 'em!

Burnley "friendly" abandoned after Reports of some Hannover fans with knives in the away end!

given the number of chances we seem to be spurning maybe i was unfair on Mr Ward

am gonna do my best not to make kneejerk negative comments about Dave Edwards this season

fuck me i'd've took a battling defeat at 2.59pm

yeah that's a great start to the season. more of this please. Boro winning the division would be so tedious.

i think today, Charlton might have learned they can cope without Lee Novak in the team.

My fave blunt quote on Mick from one of our lot is "he knows how to make a bunch of turds play ok"

I could imagine Mick saying that at his job interview.

winning with ten men for 84 minutes is pretty good

i was playing cricket alas, scoring 31 not out in a total of 76 all out and generally getting to feel right narked off about my teammates (except the one i ran out)

OH FUCK THEY FOUND A WAY TO MAKE THE CHANNEL 5 HIGHLIGHTS WORSE

Talking about cricket?

Grimsby - Derby in the Malibu Cup has been abandoned cos of torrential rain, which judging by how bad it is here i can totally understand

I thought there was something missing in my life that was previously an ever-present. Yeah it has been pouring down hard all day here as well.

that new bbc latest scores page is good enough in theory, but as soon as you click Show Scorers it reverts to earlier and doesn't update.

i have a superstitious fear of following the BBC text when we're playing so i've not looked at it much but i noticed the other day that the live league table wasn't functioning either

We don't start until this weekend, so I forgot to look for the thread.

Final friendly was last weekend, comfortably beat Stourbridge but the first half was pretty woeful tbh. We've kept about 30% of the squad so who knows how we're going to line up any given week - we've got West Brom's 4th choice keeper training with us and filling in for injuries and you can see why he's 4th choice.

I'd take playoffs now, but I can see us finishing mid-table.

PSA: Aston Villa are playing Colchester in the Curaçao Cup tonight and it's gonna be on the telly. kick-off in just under an hour.

been drinking for free since about midday today after my trial got knocked off early and the barristers insisted, so if apologies in advance if i clog up the thread a bit tonight with inane and foul-mouthed minute-by-minute get-involvery as I watch what is sure to be a truly dire football match

Big Chris Samba flying in on the Colchester striker to give away a penalty after 7 mins, how much is this moron gettin paid?

Saved! Naww I feel pretty bad for that guy actually

In the pub watching it as far as I can focus Windsor :D

Micheal Collins, new Bradford City manager was a garbage player and not much of a thorn in the side of the British government either - but he did once score an injury time winner against Leeds Utd, so much goodwill to him.

Marcelo Bielsa: New Leeds United boss has 'watched all 51 games' from last season. <This seemed mightily impressive until he also confessed that in the same month he happily binge-watched all the Marvel TV series as well.

It's still mightily impressive if it included Inhumans

Perfect prep for managing Leeds

One of the Champo summer transfer rumours doing the rounds is VLP to Leeds. VLP recently said he was using Town as a stepping stone to a bigger club - he might need some of that Revie Ecstasy to convince him of how fucking truly massive the "Champions Of Europe" are though!

Much handwringing as we fail to hang on to John Mills over an alleged £30 a week increase and he moves to Bath. Much less handwringing this week as the FA charge him with 166 gambling offences and the club reveal Mills' leaked increase was huge misinformation.

Friendlies going well, routine wins with a few goals.

Much less welcome was club captain and first choice RB Jimmy Oates turning out for Exeter as A. Trialist. He was there on loan a few years ago and the new Exeter manager knows him from Harptbury College. I'm on the fence because there were times last year when he looked like he'd reached his level but if it all comes off then I'm pleased for him.

I should be going Saturday and Tuesday. Just don't tell Mrs aldo because I only get back in the country Friday and leave again the following Saturday.

I don’t recall Oates’s loan, Aldo - where does he play / what kind of player is he?

I am a liar, I was confusing him with someone else

Anyway he played 70 minutes last night apparently. Good signing imo, an overlapping RB with a decent cross on him (if a particularly weak throw). I always thought he had higher level football in him even if this season was a challenge at times.

Thanks - Captain Oates well known for heroic sorties outside.

Our forum is full of divided opinions - as you'd expect - but I'd never grudge someone the chance to go pro when we're only offering him pay-per-play.

The first season was kind of hilarious because we got to three games to go and he was the only squad player who hadn't scored so was being teed up for shots and given dead balls that he just wasn't ready for. Missed a penalty even in the last home game.

Finally scored his first about 5 games into the second season together during a home game. We had a pitch invasion to celebrate. The fine was worth it.

Player of the year unanimously between players management and both fan groups in the second year and made library captain as a result.

Mixed third season if I'm absolutely honest but missed a couple of weeks with a minor injury and we were glad to have him back.

A solid 7/10, play a system where he can overlap successfully - an outside right that always cuts in for example - and you'll get an 8+ out of him.

Might have been our best player across the past 3 years.

Sounds interesting - we had a fellow called Kane Wilson in from West Brom last year, who was very good and very quick; he's gone back to the Baggy mothership and rumour has it he'll be in contention for their first team squad. He wasn't starting every game, though, because we have a right back called Pierce Sweeney who's much more in the mould of yr trad lower-league full back - gets up and down, hard as nails, liable to drift from time to time; I like him.

Strange times for us, having had the same manager for more than a decade, it's so weird to see the squad being re-shaped. So far franchise have taken our manager, assistant manager, first-team coach, club captain and most experienced midfielder, plus a centre forward we'd released. I hope they all fail utterly, not because they left us but because franchise.

Weirdly, I'm quite pleased. It was definitely time for a change and the new manager seems to be saying (and doing) roughly the right things. Liable to be a bumpy season though.

As I said, manager knows him from Harptbury College so not surprising. Trialling Sid Grant from Westfields and looking to secure Mustafa Bundu from Aarhus are the other logical steps.

The West Brom thing is interesting because we had Dara O'Shea on loan last year and they haven't been answering calls on him either.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Diu7__BW0AELJ-4.jpg

In light of Jimmy Oates signing for Exeter I propose "Finally big enough to be considered a feeder team" for this year's title.

I am on the other side of the world so have only seen two psfs but I fear for next year.

It must be fitting for some players (yes you Johnny Mills) seeing someone else from the side go to a football league team when you went to Bath.

*gutting*

That would suit me - we feel a bit like a feeder team right now also, we've sold five or six players on to higher leagues over the last two years, which is utterly unheard-of for us (this also means we're more or less financially stable for the first time in my lifetime, which is nice). And I wouldn't be surprised to see someone coming in for our main striker and our keeper in the next fortnight either.

I am looking forward to the football starting again, though I suspect it's going to be a bumpy season. More progress expected for the Bulls this year?

I suspect no progress at all. As I said, I have only got to two psfs (although listened to the rest over the internet) and we sound weak at CB (although apparently we are announcing a Bristol City loanee over the weekend) and definitely up front (where an aging lump who has passed the age/talent threshold in the close season) is now out for 10 weeks and was our main goal threat. Losing to FGR, divisions above or not, does not make me confident.

I feel like we're less prepared than season 1, when we started the first game of the season with only 14 players, 5 of which had played together before.

FGR aren't bad in L2, FWIW. Last season started as a struggle for them but they got a lot better IIRC.

They bought (!) a couple of decent players from us, including Reuben Reid who can be absolutely brilliant at L2 level. So don't feel too bad about that.

I quite enjoyed watching them on Goal Rush but there final league position wasn't a fluke.

Sure, but I don't think it tells the whole story either - when I saw them they weren't by any means terrible, though they seemed a bit soft in midfield. Anyway I hope the season goes better than you expect!

Beginning to feel really weird being away for the start of the season on Saturday but not as weird as listening to a radio commentary on a non-league game at 2am.

Scraping the playoffs, calling it. Team changes in September when it isn't working, Beadle goes in the spring.

When you said "no progress at all" up there I thought you were feeling doomy about your prospects for the season, rather than reckoning you were play-off bound.

I think we might well get to the play-offs this year again, with the caveat that I don't think changing a manager after twelve years is a recipe for a smooth season. But I think our squad looks pretty good. People have been saying nice things about Oates's showings in PSFs, it'll be interesting to see whether he goes straight into the first team. We could still do with another centre back, I think (though not necessarily in week 1, more for when one of our current ones breaks).

We've the local derby against Carlisle on Saturday, and due to ground redevelopments we'll have even less than the half-a-ground we played with last season: the capacity on our big* standing terrace is reduced as a result of work being done on one of the exits.

*It's simultaneously not very big and the biggest in the football league.

We're on the telly this Saturday, breathing fresh life into Sunderland

I'm being bold, mainly because I saw that the bottom team making the playoffs last year lost 15 and scraped 63 points together. More a case of reduced expectations for the league rather than thinking we were better.

We have the local derby against Blyth on Saturday so it's clearly the season for it.

we've just signed jordy hiwula from huddersfield - wikipedia has informed me (a) his goalscoring record looks p good and (b) his school nickname is 'deckchair'

in fact i think his goalscoring record looks completely made up

i hope we didn't sign him based on this haha

Oh god yeah the walk along the canal on Kraanlei was super-atmos, lots of likely-looking places to eat round there in Patershooi also IIRC.

EASY, DEVIN: English Football League and beyond, 2018/19

Ahaha that post was for a different thread on a different board, I wondered where it had gone.

See you on the other thread, thanks for giving me a year-long reminder of my personal autocorrect pain, LJ.