How optimistic are we about this season?

Think we will be safe, but also expect us to be inconsistent. They're still a young side.

 

i went for hopeful. i believe we are better than at least 5 or 6 teams. good start is necessary and im going to go for a 15th place finish

 

Just pour some more in at the top then mate

 

I'm the same, but the last time I was this optimistic was August 2013, just after the great escape under Flicker.

That bubble burst though on the first game of the season home defeat to Wigan....

But this season will be different.....

 

Sorry to go against the main grain of the opinions in the thread but I'm not optimistic at all. We have, as yet, made only one addition and none to the spine of the team.

Moreover, we are riddled with the crippling and at times last season embarrassing imbalance of a group of defenders who are exclusively right-footed and (central particularly) midfielders who are even more left-footed. It reminded me at times of that old seaside amusement arcade game with those ice hockey players that you can only spin round one way to hit the puck!

The second issue for me is the lack of strength and height in the team. We did okay, often well, against the better, footballing sides and to some extent it worked out and suited us that we played a bunch of these who needed to beat us in the last few games of last season but it doesn't mask the fact that we were awful and struggled terribly in games against the bigger, physical sides who just bypass the press and bully us - Birmingham, Reading, Stoke, Charlton etc. Wycombe and Rotherham will add to the number of teams that have those characteristics. And all of these are the teams we need to be beating if we are to do better this year - we can't rely on being able to beat good sides like Fulham twice this time round.

Don't get me wrong I think it's even more to Struber's credit that he was able to fashion survival with such a physically weak, inexperienced and unbalanced squad. However, to me and its just my opinion, this feels to have created a complacency in the higher echelons of the club about the desperate need to strengthen and to be fully complete in that for the opening day - it seems to me looking at the fixtures that we need to be ready, recruited and flying out of the blocks and maximising our return from the September matches - it gets much tougher from October onwards.

Again, just my view but left back, left central defender, right-footed centre midfielder and strong, powerful striker needed pdq, plus replacements for any of the key players we are foolish enough to let leave. We have let a number of peripheral players go and the financial position can continue to be strengthened by doing the same with Bahre, Miller, Victor etc too, our own youngsters like Wolfe seem more than capable of stepping in to support a smaller, better quality core group.

As I say the heart as always has optimism but the head is worried!

 

We'll stay up, in fact well finish at least 16th

 

My thoughts exactly.

 

10th, not sure whether that is optimistic or not, don't see us getting promoted or relegated but I think we will do ok.