Championship Thread 26/27 (4 Viewers)

[Ipad Boro]

Give it another week and Boro fans will be singing "we are premier league" again.

The frig we will, we don't like getting our fingers burned

Plus the league feels different this year. For a lot of the first two thirds of last season, there was only really you guys consistently up there as a threat to us and only having one rival for the autos isn't a problem at all as there's two slots available. Essentially it was us that chucked it, between an ever growing injury list, poor performances and sheer bad luck too, rather than the rest of the runners performing out of their boots.

This time, instead of playing like the keystone cops to start with, 3 of the 4 parachute sides have started like they mean business so it's a different beast altogether. Though they're certainly not an immediate threat, even Burnley had their Blades-esque wake the fuck up moment today.

We knew this in summer though, which is why money-wise we had to chuck the kitchen sink at it.

Plus Swansea aren't going anywhere right now. Personally I think they'll tale off during winter when most clubs sides getting battered by injuries which they'll feel more in defence, but you have to take them seriously and I feel it's playoffs at least for those lads.

 

[Hybridtheory]

Not watched a single champ game this season

 

[Tommo1993]

Silly second yellow. He’s beaten you so just let him go.

 

[stupot07]

Loving this, proper local derby. Lucky that's not a red.

 

[AOM]

Thought this was a great goal

 

[alexccfc99]

Watford will be recruiting another manager come tomorrow morning I think

 

[alexccfc99]

It would appear that Brum may have cracked it this season

 

[Ccfcisparks]

It would appear that Brum may have cracked it this season

We are 10 games in

 

[alexccfc99]

We are 10 games in

And?

I’ve been impressed with them whenever I’ve watched them this season - extended play offs will do them a good turn

 

[Ipad Boro]

And?

I’ve been impressed with them whenever I’ve watched them this season - extended play offs will do them a good turn

They're 100% playoffs minimum for me. Had possibly the hardest first set of fixtures of any side too.

Ours were harder than average, with plenty of form teams in the mix, but that start of theirs takes it to a new level.

 

[no_loyalty]

We are 10 games in

If they don’t make the playoffs this season then it’s massive failure. It will be interesting to see if they hit their normal mid season slump.

 

[alexccfc99]

If they don’t make the playoffs this season then it’s massive failure. It will be interesting to see if they hit their normal mid season slump.

Fair play to the Yanks - thought they’d have canned Davies ages ago, stuck by their man and paying dividends

 

[David O'Day]

Fair play to the Yanks - thought they’d have canned Davies ages ago, stuck by their man and paying dividends

oh beating a 10 man preston at home

 

[fernandopartridge]

Fair play to the Yanks - thought they’d have canned Davies ages ago, stuck by their man and paying dividends

Preston are absolutely dreadful and Graham Alexander must have had some ridiculous offer or completely lost the plot to leave Bradford to go there

 

[David O'Day]

Preston are absolutely dreadful and Graham Alexander must have had some ridiculous offer or completely lost the plot to leave Bradford to go there

4 points this season

 

[Skybluekyle]

Preston are absolutely dreadful and Graham Alexander must have had some ridiculous offer or completely lost the plot to leave Bradford to go there

I presume he has an affinity for Preston, he played their for a large portion of his playing career, didn’t he?

 

[Evo1883]

Nobody can tell me the championship is stronger this season than last

Swansea 6 clear of 3rd

 

[Gynnsthetonic]

I presume he has an affinity for Preston, he played their for a large portion of his playing career, didn’t he?

I dont know why managers do that, does it ever work out or just tarnish their reputation?

 

[Gynnsthetonic]

Boro score a 3rd

 

[David O'Day]

I presume he has an affinity for Preston, he played their for a large portion of his playing career, didn’t he?

he talked about how he and his wife like living in that area

 

[fernandopartridge]

he talked about how he and his wife like living in that area

TBF it's not as if it's a million miles away from Bradford

 

[Ipad Boro]

I presume he has an affinity for Preston, he played their for a large portion of his playing career, didn’t he?

It's like Rat Edwards leaving us for Wolves, only a league lower down.

 

[San Francisco]

We are 10 games in

Weren't you and the doom crew writing us off after 4 games?

 

[Ipad Boro]

Nobody can tell me the championship is stronger this season than last

Swansea 6 clear of 3rd

Swansea are like a version of us last year in a lot of respects, they were generally fancied to finish just outside the playoffs, but they've been a breath of fresh air. Amd they're certainly not going away just yet either.

That lead to 3rd will probably be shrunk tomorrow when the Hammers play obviously (though I'd be happy if it wasn't!) but either way they've been brilliant.

They have depth upfront too, but if and when they drop it will likely be in winter when from experience sides normally get 6 or 7 injuries to their first teams and their lack of depth in defence may be exposed.

As for our result, I'm over the moon with it and beating a Robbins side is HUGE for us. Gifted them two goals due to an unlucky OG and of course Luke Ayling being on the pitch, but other than that pretty much controlled the game at least.

 

[Ccfcisparks]

Weren't you and the doom crew writing us off after 4 games?

No?

 

[Ccfcisparks]

Swansea are like a version of us last year in a lot of respects, they were generally fancied to finish just outside the playoffs, but they've been a breath of fresh air. Amd they're certainly not going away just yet either.

That lead to 3rd will probably be shrunk tomorrow when the Hammers play obviously (though I'd be happy if it wasn't!) but either way they've been brilliant.

They have depth upfront too, but if and when they drop it will likely be in winter when from experience sides normally get 6 or 7 injuries to their first teams and their lack of depth in defence may be exposed.

As for our result, I'm over the moon with it and beating a Robbins side is HUGE for us. Gifted them two goals due to an unlucky OG and of course Luke Ayling being on the pitch, but other than that pretty much controlled the game at least.

Surely Swansea are similar to us as they are top?

 

[Ipad Boro]

Surely Swansea are similar to us as they are top?

No, because you were already fancied to be in the top 6 last season before a ball was kicked.

We weren't, a lot thought we'd finish 9th or so like Swansea were thought to this time out by a lot. Also Swansea being the New Cov would imply that they're going to win the league by a good margin. My suspicions are at this early stage that they'll stay in the frame for a while, then fall away to playoff level, which would make them the New Boro.

In any case, we were early leaders until you took over. While we're not banking on it, the same could happen with Swansea and whilst it's more likely to be West Ham that do it, if it's us (and that's a big IF) then as this time we ARE tipped to be in the mix and also not a parachute club, we'd become by default "The New Cov." A playoff side who it clicked for, resulting in going up.

 

[Ccfcisparks]

No, because you were already fancied to be in the top 6 last season before a ball was kicked.

We weren't, a lot thought we'd finish 9th or so like Swansea were thought to this time out by a lot.

In any case, we were early leaders until you took over. While we're not banking on it, the same could happen with Swansea and whilst it's more likely to be West Ham that do it, if it's us then as this time we ARE tipped to be in the mix and also not a parachute club, we'd become by default "The New Cov."

No offence but I think we were much better than you last year.

 

[wingy]

No offence but I think we were much better than you last year.

I think it's a ride we're on and last year we made the peak of it
I can see some parts of it returning this season.

 

[Ipad Boro]

No offence but I think we were much better than you last year.

It's certainly quite possible.

If you look at our campaign so far, we're tracking for 97 points, however we have a point less than you did after 10 games, so any limited data is inconclusive as you'd expect.

It's too early to say with any surety tbf. We could go on to set a personal points record for us, or we could implode with a barrage of injuries to boot, it's impossible to calculate at the moment.

But that's not what's important to us in any case as your relative strength last season has no bearing on our season this time as you're not in the championship. In fact your not being in the championship is actually a plus to us as it's 6 more points we can get right off the bat.

In our favour for this season at least, we have on paper had the second hardest start to the fixture list of any team after Brum with regard to playing early form sides, thus far out of the sides in the top 10 besides ourselves we've actually already played 7 of those 9? Swansea by contrast have played sides with an avrrage position of around 16th.


What's more important is that we're a stronger side than WE were last season, as we'll need to be due to in the main stronger parachute sides on average (as well as other sides improving markedly, such as Swansea and thus far at least, Brum.)

 

[Sick Boy]

No offence but I think we were much better than you last year.

It's certainly quite possible.

Brilliant - haha!

 

[TomRad85]

I think West Ham and Wolves getting relegated just lazily lead people to their stronger than last season bollocks. Top of the league looks full of mid-table fodder atm. West Ham I'm sure will be up there but have hardly been unstoppable. Wolves were shite last season and got worse over the summer. Burnley not even worth mentioning.

 

[Sky Blue Pete]

I think West Ham and Wolves getting relegated just lazily lead people to their stronger than last season bollocks. Top of the league looks full of mid-table fodder atm. West Ham I'm sure will be up there but have hardly been unstoppable. Wolves were shite last season and got worse over the summer. Burnley not even worth mentioning.

West Ham the only team of the 3 who are guaranteed to finish top 2 but Swans and Boro aren’t going to make it easy for them

 

[Ipad Boro]

I think West Ham and Wolves getting relegated just lazily lead people to their stronger than last season bollocks. Top of the league looks full of mid-table fodder atm. West Ham I'm sure will be up there but have hardly been unstoppable. Wolves were shite last season and got worse over the summer. Burnley not even worth mentioning.

Burnley are this season's Blades to me. Their data suggests they should have more points on the board by now, but finally it seems someone has kicked them out of their mire.

Looking at the other parachute sides with the limited data we have so far begs the questions that;

Will West Ham surpass Ipswich's 25/26 season? With an 84 point ceiling, it's probably more likely than not.

Will Wolves surpass Saints' season last time? The jury is still out on that one tbh as when they have their best strikers playing they look a force, without them they're good to middling.

Will Saints of this year surpass Leicester last? Even with their 4 point deduction you'd still overwhelmingly fancy them to do so.

Other than that Brum seem to be benefitting from their experience of the league last time out and look stronger, obviously Swansea have toughened their defence and are far less of a 1-striker team. And the glaringly obvious difference is that there's no one quite at the ineptitude of Sheff Wed, handing out points vouchers to all and sundry. They were comfortably the worst side in championship history.

 

[Skybluefaz]

we'd become by default "The New Cov."

You need to do your round trip to League Two first.

Our clubs will have been on pretty different journeys to get there, but I fancy Boro to make it up this year.

You have a proper striker, which will help.