https://www.betvictor.com/blog/gab-suttons-league-one-24-25-season-preview/ Can’t disagree to be honest.
Agree with a lot on there but we won’t finish as low as 17th. Clarke might not be the one best placed to develop players - but we have an extended coaching team under him with that in mind. Stead, Whitehead, Hourihane and Disco can take the lead in long term development, whilst he oversees, and prioritises the first team game that’s upcoming. We will also bring in more players than we have currently. I’d suggest he has Wigan a little bit high, us and Rotherham a bit low. I don’t necessarily expect to be top six this season currently, though hope to be. I’d be surprised to finish bottom half though - and amazed if it’s as low as suggested in that article.
He's put Birmingham and Bolton top 2 as solid picks then thrown 22 pieces of paper in the air for the rest Piffle
Yeah I agree with some of his assessment but he I can only assume he accidentally put a 1 in front of the final place. We'll be around 7th. Which will still be an underwhelming and disappointing season for us. Unless we make some signings anyway.
I don’t see us troubling the top 6 with the squad we have but no way will we be as low as 17th. Somewhere around 8th to 12th I’d say. Think Rotherham will be higher than 10th and same with Peterborough at 13th. Also surprised he has Wrexham at 15th.
This guy also predicted to finish second in the league under Marcus Schopp, so he wouldn't be the first person I'd be looking to for predictions. But in honesty if we don't get a move on with additions to the squad I think I might not be a million miles off with this one. I'd be disappointed if we finished below 14th (which is itself a sad statement).
Some of his arguments make sense - but we’ll still be better than more of the teams he has us below- somewhere between 7th and 10th for me
I don't agree with most of that. He starts off by saying that we finished as high as we did last season, despite the poor football under Collins, because it was a poor division. That's fair enough. But then doesn't acknowledge that removing Collins should improve us. He makes a lot out of the high player turnover, but doesn't acknowledge that it didn't affect us too much last season when we did something similar. Then he says Clarke is a poor managerial appointment because his visions won't align with the board; how does he know that? Why would the board appoint a coach who prefers experienced players, and allow him to sign a couple of experienced heads if they didn't share the same vision. He's talking as though Phillips and Connell will leave. That's an assumption and uses Connell's fitness struggles from last season as a negative, which again, doesn't have any bearing on this season. He's got Reading finishing 7th, who were struggling towards the end of last season, and they're yet to sign a single player (I'm not aware of a transfer embargo). I believe he's also the bloke who had us finishing top 2 the last season we were in the Championship, so I'd take his opinions with a pinch of salt. At the minute, with how the squad stands, I think we're just outside of the play-off places. Relying on the loan market to make improvements again doesn't fill me with much confidence, but to have us finishing 17th, largely based on last season, doesn't seem warranted.
I like Gab, often chat to him on X and he is a really nice bloke. But he is way off it here. Some of his points a somewhat valid but no way do we end up 17th. The squad we have now is better than a 17th place finish, and that is without us adding another attacker or two and a LWB. We also could add a new GK before the end of the window too. As we are right now, I would have us between 7th and 11th as we wont score enough to break the top 6. Once we add an attacker or two, we will be top 6 again imo.
He won't be anywhere near right apart from maybe his predictable Brimingham for champs prediction. Have we pissed him off he's wrong on so many levels with our assessment.
He is way off it here. He also uses us losing Roberts etc. as a reason for us to drop so much, yet Lincoln he has flying up the table, who have also lost as many key players (arguably better players too) in Jensen, the RWB, Joe Taylor and the CB they had on loan. Plus others that have turned down new deals.
He makes some interesting points, but as always, making predictions before squads are finalised is just a pre season folly. I can't speak for other teams in our league, but I'd expect that we still have most of our business to do. It's probably fair to say we'll struggle if Cosgrove and Watters are our up front pairing and we're yet to bring a left wing back in. But if we finish 17th after we've had 2 transfer windows, that should lead to the mother of all inquests.
These so-called experts make me laugh. Us to finish below the likes of Wycombe, Orient, Bristol and the rest? Pure tripe! He talks at great length about every club giving the impression that he knows all about them. Utter rubbish but it’s nice to read about squad content at different clubs. I don’t for one minute think we will find it easy this season but to predict that we will be flirting with relegation is just speculative nonsense
Exactly. Lost the best GK from the division in Jensen, Sorenson who was best RWB in the league last season as well as Taylor who is a top young striker who was top scorer at both sides he was at least season. They have replaced them with nothing that special either and he has them moving up but us dropping 11 places.