They did indeed. I listen to most of them throughout the season. George Elek is quite fickle with his opinion of us. I’d argue he comes across fairly biased at times, as he’s an Oxford fan, but I’m sure he’d probably say the same about me.
This is a very sensible post. Ultimately, when you think of the sheer number of teams who have serious expectations of challenging, a 10th this season would be better than our 10th last season.
I personally think anywhere from 8th-15th, with an extraordinarily good season exceeding that, and an extraordinarily bad season falling short of that.
I would be shocked if we had a 17 match run without a win again. Horrible though that was, and by christ that was horrible, I think that changed everything for Matt. He learned so much in that period, I certainly wanted it to be ended but am hugely grateful that Rob saw things differently.
I spent a good chunk of my time this afternoon not cleaning or doing any household chores.... much to Mrs Alexos annoyance 🙄
I instead spent my time on YouTube watching every league 1 prediction video I could find.... well ... I personally felt it was an interesting and well spent afternoon, even if she didn't!!
If my memory serves me well.... after many many videos watched and regarded.... I think the lowest I saw anyone predict our finish was 15th and the highest finish was 11th.
I was a little disappointed at the time, but now on reflection I think they are probably reasonable predictions based on everything being considered.
However we are known for punching above expectations and I would love to see us nick a playoff spot this season.
Boring, I know, but after a season in which relegation looked a distinct possibility for longer than was comfortable it would be lovely to be able to enjoy entertaining football with a few more goals than last season and with the playoffs within touching distance for the best part of it.
And yes, I know, if ultimately a playoff place slipped out of reach for the first time with only a couple of games to play, that would be very frustrating.
On paper, we haven’t made any ‘big name signings’ (for our level) where as others have. I can completely understand why a lot of these prediction videos have us finishing in the bottom half. There will be other teams (Charlton for example) who might be in a similar situation - like @Alexo said, it’s better to be a surprise package than to fail to live up to expectations.
We haven't signed any big time players but I think we have fixed problems. Butcher was a massive signing for us in January and that helped massively. We have now got a left back allowing Leahy to play further forward. And we have added goal threat to the squad. We didn't need a massive overhaul of the squad to improve, just some tweaking. And I think we have tweaked.
Despite some of the obvious misses in the loan market last season we certainly sent Potts and Taylor back better players and this will not harm us when we knock on doors again looking for a bit more to boost the squad before the end of the month.
I’m looking forward to The Birmingham Meltdown and The Wrexham Realisation.
The first documentary highlights the notion that money can’t guarantee success and the latter highlighting that having so many competitors with equal if not more income, reserves and quality on the pitch may lead to the stark reality that wealthy owners might not be keen to throw more and more cash into the flames as the dream of promotion dwindles.
Given the choice, I would rather we signed players who many haven’t heard of. I’ll be honest, I didn’t really know much about JJ before he joined and look how that turned out. I think we’ve made some great summer signings (on paper) and am optimistic for the season ahead.
I went for 13-16, although there are a few significant positives over the summer which could well see us as play-off contenders, equally there are loads of good sides, for me it is going to be an extremely competitive division with little separating 6th from 16th.
In our favour, the move from the worst training facility in the league to possibly one of the very best. Also some improvements to the depth of the squad, possibly a few new first teamers and Richard Kone getting a full pre-season with us ahead of a full campaign.
Demerits include the loss of Potts and Longjwik and some senior players are another year older. Whilst I expect that Scowan will feature almost every game that he is available for, perhaps McClearly will have to be used a little more sparingly, maybe off the bench a little more and I think that Vokes will not see many 90minute stints.
Jury is still out on the manager, an impressive second half to the season but a terrible run of games from Oct->Jan. He introduced me to a new experience at Exeter where the highlight of the trip was my halftime slash.
In all, I feel that this year is going to be very entertaining wherever we end up.
When I heard a rumour from a pal that we were signing Freddie Potts I laughed and mocked him. Not a chance. And then 48 hours later he was announced. Who's to say there is not another Freddie Potts being lined up?
It is an incredibly competitive division this year, with the Champ teams coming down being strong and in a good position to go straight back up.
I can see us getting anywhere from 16th - 6th. I feel we've built a good team, with canny signings, but we look light in attack. GMac isn't getting younger and his form is patchy... we just seem to forget the 4 games he does little in, when he scores in the 5th. We all want Kone to be a runaway force, and he's started well, but there's a lot of hope to pin on him. I've never really been convinced by Sadlier or Lubala, and although Shrews fans have been full of praise for Udoh, they're been dreadful going forward for ages. I love Sam Vokes but can't see him being a starting striker going forward. As I've mentioned before, many around here think a rejuvinated Hanlan will make the difference, but it's hard to look past his best return for us being 1 in 6.
The rest of the team looks strong and mobile though, so if we can get someone else in to play wide, and a strong goalscoring option, we could push for the playoffs.
Not sure I buy in to all the hype about Birmingham, Wrexham etc.
Last season, the three relegated teams from the Championship (Blackpool, Wigan and Reading) finished 8th, 10th and 15th. The four promoted sides from L2 (Stevenage, Leyton Orient, Northampton and Carlisle) finished 9th, 12th, 14th and 24th).
So none of that lot made the top 7, and previous 'big' clubs such as Portsmouth, Derby and Ipswich took a while to get out of L1. It's likely to be the same story this season.
Comments
They did indeed. I listen to most of them throughout the season. George Elek is quite fickle with his opinion of us. I’d argue he comes across fairly biased at times, as he’s an Oxford fan, but I’m sure he’d probably say the same about me.
Had a quick dive into our squad on that website. Squad values made me laugh out loud.
Champions by Pancake Day
We entertain Burton on Pancake day.
This is a very sensible post. Ultimately, when you think of the sheer number of teams who have serious expectations of challenging, a 10th this season would be better than our 10th last season.
I personally think anywhere from 8th-15th, with an extraordinarily good season exceeding that, and an extraordinarily bad season falling short of that.
I would be shocked if we had a 17 match run without a win again. Horrible though that was, and by christ that was horrible, I think that changed everything for Matt. He learned so much in that period, I certainly wanted it to be ended but am hugely grateful that Rob saw things differently.
Was it really 17 games?
Goodness me
I can't imagine many clubs would have stayed loyal to their manager.
Very few fans stayed loyal, and the Couhigs doing so might be the most impressive thing about their entire ownership tenure.
I genuinely think Blooms is ready to really kick on as a manager now.
(though to be pedantic, it was 1 win in 17 rather than no wins in 17).
I pretty much fully agree with this, although a little hyperbolic on ‘extraordinarily’.
(16th below par, 18th not good, 20th bad, 21st to 24th extraordinarily bad)
In that lot were 2 of the worst performances I can recall in many a year. Fleetwood and Morecambe were haunting.
I remember becoming a temporary turncoat at half time against Morecambe, only to switch back to fully supporting Matt a month or two later.
That Morecambe game was about as bad as I’ve ever seen a Wycombe side.
The Conference Wycombe teams would have run through walls to play in the FA Cup first round and we looked like we couldn’t be bothered.
I spent a good chunk of my time this afternoon not cleaning or doing any household chores.... much to Mrs Alexos annoyance 🙄
I instead spent my time on YouTube watching every league 1 prediction video I could find.... well ... I personally felt it was an interesting and well spent afternoon, even if she didn't!!
If my memory serves me well.... after many many videos watched and regarded.... I think the lowest I saw anyone predict our finish was 15th and the highest finish was 11th.
I was a little disappointed at the time, but now on reflection I think they are probably reasonable predictions based on everything being considered.
However we are known for punching above expectations and I would love to see us nick a playoff spot this season.
Boring, I know, but after a season in which relegation looked a distinct possibility for longer than was comfortable it would be lovely to be able to enjoy entertaining football with a few more goals than last season and with the playoffs within touching distance for the best part of it.
And yes, I know, if ultimately a playoff place slipped out of reach for the first time with only a couple of games to play, that would be very frustrating.
I guess it's nicer to be underestimated and hopefully do a little better than expected than to be overestimated and finish 18th...
On paper, we haven’t made any ‘big name signings’ (for our level) where as others have. I can completely understand why a lot of these prediction videos have us finishing in the bottom half. There will be other teams (Charlton for example) who might be in a similar situation - like @Alexo said, it’s better to be a surprise package than to fail to live up to expectations.
We haven't signed any big time players but I think we have fixed problems. Butcher was a massive signing for us in January and that helped massively. We have now got a left back allowing Leahy to play further forward. And we have added goal threat to the squad. We didn't need a massive overhaul of the squad to improve, just some tweaking. And I think we have tweaked.
Despite some of the obvious misses in the loan market last season we certainly sent Potts and Taylor back better players and this will not harm us when we knock on doors again looking for a bit more to boost the squad before the end of the month.
I’m looking forward to The Birmingham Meltdown and The Wrexham Realisation.
The first documentary highlights the notion that money can’t guarantee success and the latter highlighting that having so many competitors with equal if not more income, reserves and quality on the pitch may lead to the stark reality that wealthy owners might not be keen to throw more and more cash into the flames as the dream of promotion dwindles.
Given the choice, I would rather we signed players who many haven’t heard of. I’ll be honest, I didn’t really know much about JJ before he joined and look how that turned out. I think we’ve made some great summer signings (on paper) and am optimistic for the season ahead.
I'm surprised @micra isn't on your for overuse of the word massive there 😁
I went for 13-16, although there are a few significant positives over the summer which could well see us as play-off contenders, equally there are loads of good sides, for me it is going to be an extremely competitive division with little separating 6th from 16th.
In our favour, the move from the worst training facility in the league to possibly one of the very best. Also some improvements to the depth of the squad, possibly a few new first teamers and Richard Kone getting a full pre-season with us ahead of a full campaign.
Demerits include the loss of Potts and Longjwik and some senior players are another year older. Whilst I expect that Scowan will feature almost every game that he is available for, perhaps McClearly will have to be used a little more sparingly, maybe off the bench a little more and I think that Vokes will not see many 90minute stints.
Jury is still out on the manager, an impressive second half to the season but a terrible run of games from Oct->Jan. He introduced me to a new experience at Exeter where the highlight of the trip was my halftime slash.
In all, I feel that this year is going to be very entertaining wherever we end up.
When I heard a rumour from a pal that we were signing Freddie Potts I laughed and mocked him. Not a chance. And then 48 hours later he was announced. Who's to say there is not another Freddie Potts being lined up?
It is an incredibly competitive division this year, with the Champ teams coming down being strong and in a good position to go straight back up.
I can see us getting anywhere from 16th - 6th. I feel we've built a good team, with canny signings, but we look light in attack. GMac isn't getting younger and his form is patchy... we just seem to forget the 4 games he does little in, when he scores in the 5th. We all want Kone to be a runaway force, and he's started well, but there's a lot of hope to pin on him. I've never really been convinced by Sadlier or Lubala, and although Shrews fans have been full of praise for Udoh, they're been dreadful going forward for ages. I love Sam Vokes but can't see him being a starting striker going forward. As I've mentioned before, many around here think a rejuvinated Hanlan will make the difference, but it's hard to look past his best return for us being 1 in 6.
The rest of the team looks strong and mobile though, so if we can get someone else in to play wide, and a strong goalscoring option, we could push for the playoffs.
If we can not be 3-0 down by 3:15 on Saturday it will be an improvement.
Potd
Don't forget it was 3-0 with a penalty awarded.
Blooms said in his recent interview that we were 4th in the entire second half of the season table, which is impressive if true.
It would definitely seem to indicate we can be up there if everything goes well. It is just such a brutal division, though.
Sixth but still decent.
Not sure I buy in to all the hype about Birmingham, Wrexham etc.
Last season, the three relegated teams from the Championship (Blackpool, Wigan and Reading) finished 8th, 10th and 15th. The four promoted sides from L2 (Stevenage, Leyton Orient, Northampton and Carlisle) finished 9th, 12th, 14th and 24th).
So none of that lot made the top 7, and previous 'big' clubs such as Portsmouth, Derby and Ipswich took a while to get out of L1. It's likely to be the same story this season.