I am a 15-year-old Town fan and I am writing about my views on last season and this season to come.

After years of mediocre football and disappointing league finishes achieved by a squad of whom only a selected few had the desire to pull on a Town shirt week in, week out and give 100%, things seem to be changing.

Last season, I felt a change in the team. Mick McCarthy and Terry Connor brought a sense of team spirit and won matches playing as a unit.

A prime example of this unit was the defence who went from being the worst in the league, shipping more goals than anyone else to, in my eyes, one of the best.

Although things didn't initially improve, the hard-fought wins came and players who loved playing for the club in Anthony Wordsworth and Frank Nouble signed.

In the end we managed to pull off the monster task of staying up and even better, kept the men behind it (MM and TC) who revealed that if we had got relegated, they would no longer be at the club.

This summer has given all Town fans a reason to be optimistic ahead of the new season. With the new Financial Fair Play rules in place, we can no longer spend big, but I feel all eight of our Bosman rule signings are better players for a reasonable price than a lot of signings under Roy Keane and Paul Jewell.

Also the £50,000 we spent on Jack Doherty seems a coup and Ryan Tunnicliffe has really got something to offer on loan.

Pre-season has gone brilliantly, unbeaten in seven matches and even better news as we have found a real goalscorers in my opinion with David McGoldrick and Daryl Murphy who has also scored a lot and has been a hand full for defenders.

The return of Paul Taylor is also promising and I for one cannot wait for next week. To finish, I am submitting my predictions of the league top six teams and bottom three.

1.Reading

2.Wigan

3.Forest

4.Watford

5.Leicester

6.Ipswich

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22.Millwall

23. Huddersfield

24. Yeovil

BillBlue added 08:47 - Jul 31 Interesting and well written young fellow, well done. More competition for Phil and Harry, in that order, methinks! I hope, beyond hope, that the Town's future drastically improves so that you can watch them grow and support them right up to the top because, believe me, you will get a great deal of pleasure from a highly successful team.
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ArnieMsBigToe added 11:47 - Jul 31 I concur with Bill Blue. A very well written piece and interesting predictions. I was having a conversation with a friend of mine just this week about the very same thing. The standard of championship teams has just gone up & up. In the end we agreed that it is easier to predict the teams that will not get promoted. This is a significantly smaller list than the teams that stand a chance of promotion. In addition to the top 6 teams listed above :- Bolton, Birmingham, QPR, Leeds, Brighton . . . to name a few. The problem is I could just as easily name another 5!! This season is gonna be very exciting. Lots of twists and turns.

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warktheline added 20:15 - Jul 31 Great minds think alike young man.Totally agree with your points raised.Shame not everyone shows the positive outlook to our club as you do.Keep the faith,in MM we have a top football man.
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GeorgiDoundarov added 14:27 - Aug 1 Agree with all - interesting and truthfully written piece. We all have reasons to be positive and for the first season since the Joe Royal age my desire to see ITFC in the top 6 is close to my belief. But again as many of you pointed out there are potentially so many teams that can get to that top 6 so for me a lot will depend on the good start and the confidence the teams who do that will gain. This may just be the difference at the end...

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GFH added 06:50 - Aug 9 A really well written piece and I wish I could share your optimism, but at the moment I really cant see how we can hope for anything other than a mid table finish. I agree with your thoughts on MM & TC however I think they would walk away from us if a premier league job or even a bigger club in the championship came calling (I really hope they don't). Just my opinion.
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