I’ve got very fond memories of our last promotion to the Championship and the opening day at Leicester is one that will live long in the memory. The anticipation of seeing the club in the second tier for the first time in my life was such a buzz. The journey to the King Power Stadium (or I guess it still the Walkers Stadium back then?) will be remembered for the “Will Wes Hoolahan be able to play?” saga and the lift that gave everyone when it was confirmed he could surely played its part in the 1-0 win.
It doesn’t quite feel the same this time around, at least for me. Part of it is because we’ve been here before obviously, but part of it is probably because of the slightly underwhelming transfer business. Of course, the first week of August is not the ideal time to judge whether we’ve done enough and it’s likely more players will arrive by the end of the month but it’s difficult to get too excited about the newcomers.
If you had to rate the new signings a lot of them would come into the “worth a punt” category. Shayne Lavery coming from the Northern Irish league? Might work. Sonny Carey ripping it up in the Conference? Why not. Josh Bowler with Premier League academy pedigree and hopefully injury free? You never know. The old head of Richard Keogh to give some Championship experience despite ageing legs for at least a season? Erm…maybe.
Callum Connolly, Reece James and Oliver Casey all feel like a bit more considered and reasonable signings but again how they will cope remains to be seen and we have to be patient. It’s unlikely Tyreece John-Jules will be the last loanee through the door and what he did at Doncaster gives some hope of not solely relying on Jerry Yates for goals. But overall it’s not yet clear if the squad as it is will be capable of anything more than a relegation battle.
There’s a lack of certainty over how we’ll line up at Ashton Gate, obviously not helped by a pre-season disrupted by Covid and other injuries. You always felt like the squad might be building towards being set up for a 3-5-2 given the number of centre backs in the squad, but the lack of an out and out right back or right wing back rather scuppers that and it’s also harder to fit in Demetri Mitchell or CJ Hamilton into that system.
So a 4-4-2 seems likeliest given that’s what we’ve done virtually all pre-season. Does a back four with Connolly at right back and a middle two of Keogh and James Husband inspire you with confidence? And the potential for both Kenny Dougall and Kevin Stewart to also be missing in midfield? It’s a little concerning to me at least, although it’s vital to remember a season is 46 games long.
We’re going to have to show a little more patience and acceptance of defeats than our fanbase did at times last season. We will probably lose more games than we win and we all have to be ready for that. Some early points and wins will help everyone settle down though and the way we ended last season shows that at the very least the team should be organised and well-drilled. Let’s hope that will continue to give us solid foundations.
Season previews are out everywhere and I enjoyed the Not The Top 20 podcast 1-24 Championship episode.
Unlike a lot of other places, they fancy us to stay up relatively comfortably (18th) and have confidence in Neil Critchley to build on last year. They have our opening day opponents ranked one place below us which suggests Bristol City are a team we should be looking to take points off. Dare I say “six pointer”? Not at this stage naturally but it’s a fairly generous fixture to kick us off.
Somewhat enjoyably they have PNE also beneath us, but not quite relegated in 20th. NTT20 will be a must-listen again this season with coverage that is more in-depth than nearly everything else out there in terms of non-club specific content. Well worth adding to your podcast rotation if you’re not already on board.
Another podcast I’ll be listening to this season is the Second Tier Podcast but they clearly do not rate us as much as the NTT20 boys.
It’s hard for me to whinge too much because I’ve said much the same about our signings, but whereas I would like to think our existing squad has just enough about it to step up and finish above the dotted line, they’re not so sure. It’s fine though, no need to get the hump or talk about pinning it up on the dressing room wall. We’re a newly promoted team via the play-offs, so getting tipped to go straight back down is just what happens.
Content-plugging mode: activated. I helped out the QPR site Loft For Words with their season preview, you can read that here. I enjoyed the Derby section which referred to Richard Keogh as “permanently startled”, which anyone who has ever seen a photo of him will know is a perfect description.
For anyone who still likes to read things on paper then you can find my season preview contributions in the latest issues of both When Saturday Comes and Four Four Two. I’ve managed to survive another year without either publication trying to replace me with Mitch Cook’s Left Foot or any of the Lee Charles TV crew, so that’s got to go down as a win.
WSC have the nominated fan from each team submit their own 1-24 prediction and they then compile a predicted league table based on that. They have us 3rd bottom and relegated sadly, above Derby and Peterborough. I’m not sure how FFT do their predictions, but it’s a much more complimentary 17th on their verdict.
Over the coming weeks I’m hoping to share some snippets on the club’s finances and how we might look to build from here. Before deciding to go with a newsletter I had a two part blogpost half-written so that will get recycled into something a bit more digestible. Watch this space.