| Are we good enough to finish top 2? 13:17 - Feb 17 with 2548 views | Chrisd |
Forget who we have in our squad, do we feel confident that we can genuinely finish in the automatic places? I like to think we can, but I’m also not wholly convinced by us either. In one way, I think great we aren’t playing well and getting results, that’s something to be encouraged about there’s more to come. Then, there are times we make it bloody hard work, look pedestrian in the way we play, we can be excruciatingly painful to watch at times. I appreciate that the club is under enormous pressure to get promoted due to the potential funds we will miss out on if we fail to get back to the EPL and everyone must be feeling that from the management down to the players. It must have an impact? I feel I’m quite 50/50 about our chances. Thoughts? |  |
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| Are we good enough to finish top 2? on 16:14 - Feb 17 with 293 views | NthQldITFC |
| Are we good enough to finish top 2? on 14:51 - Feb 17 by _CliveBaker_ |
Quite. Remarkable group, sum greater than its parts, togetherness, momentum, call it what you like, but at least half of that squad had no right to be there and we desperately lacked depth.
We'll add a lot in the summer if we go up, its not unthinkable that Greaves, Matusiwa and Philogene are bench options 12 months from now, rather than Edmundson, Luongo and Al-Hamadi. Therein lies the difference. |
Completely agree with your point in general, but if we have a better DCM than Matusiwa next season, I'll eat my hat. |  |
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| Are we good enough to finish top 2? on 16:19 - Feb 17 with 276 views | Wright1 |
| Are we good enough to finish top 2? on 14:05 - Feb 17 by blueoutlook |
We have also had a ridiculous amount of money to throw at it unlike Coventry and Middlesbrough. So we should be walking this division. We aren’t though,because we are too predictable. Teams no exactly what to expect,just watch Wrexham this weekend. I fully see us bottling it there. |
There's a lot of this sentiment around and i'm not sure I fully agree with it.
Yes on the surface this is an expensively assembled squad for the level... but Coventry and Borough will have spent more in the seasons prior to our promotion to the PL and over a prolonged period of time to build up Championship squads. In 23/24 and 22/23 our net spend was about £6m. So we were playing catch up big time.
Of course we invested heavily last season but come this summer we lost our 2 best attackers and 2 of our biggest outlays from the previous summer in Delap and Hutchinson. We also lost key players on free transfers (a PL right back in Tuanzebe, our captain in Morsy and a reliable CB in Burgess). After all of that Transfermarkt still has us making a £30m net profit in the summer. | | | |
| Are we good enough to finish top 2? on 16:26 - Feb 17 with 261 views | _CliveBaker_ |
| Are we good enough to finish top 2? on 16:14 - Feb 17 by NthQldITFC |
Completely agree with your point in general, but if we have a better DCM than Matusiwa next season, I'll eat my hat. |
I did say 12 months from now :)
You have to remember the Matusiwa & Hackney partnership does pretty well in the first half of the season, but the £70m we drop in January '27 to help with the top 4 push might put a bit of pressure on the boy Azor. |  | | |
| Are we good enough to finish top 2? on 16:27 - Feb 17 with 258 views | ElderGrizzly |
| Are we good enough to finish top 2? on 13:31 - Feb 17 by Herbivore |
This. And for all the talk that we move it too slowly and don't create enough, all the attacking stats suggest that's not really the case. And for all that people say we're winning without playing well, we dominate most of our games across most metrics. If anything we should have more points on the board than we do based off performances and underlying metrics. The fact we've been the best side in the division since the end of the summer window speaks for itself but people have a narrative about this season that they're reluctant to let go of for some reason. I think we'll go up as champions personally as I think we're the best team in the division and there's signs it's starting to click. If that continues I can see us ending the season in not dissimilar fashion to how we ended the League 1 promotion season. |
I don't think anyone (with any knowledge) thinks we don't create enough. It's more that we aren't finishing some of those very good chances.
Yet, that's still good enough to have us within touching distance of the top 2 with 2 games in hand. |  | | |
| Are we good enough to finish top 2? on 17:39 - Feb 17 with 206 views | Smoresy |
| Are we good enough to finish top 2? on 16:19 - Feb 17 by Wright1 |
There's a lot of this sentiment around and i'm not sure I fully agree with it.
Yes on the surface this is an expensively assembled squad for the level... but Coventry and Borough will have spent more in the seasons prior to our promotion to the PL and over a prolonged period of time to build up Championship squads. In 23/24 and 22/23 our net spend was about £6m. So we were playing catch up big time.
Of course we invested heavily last season but come this summer we lost our 2 best attackers and 2 of our biggest outlays from the previous summer in Delap and Hutchinson. We also lost key players on free transfers (a PL right back in Tuanzebe, our captain in Morsy and a reliable CB in Burgess). After all of that Transfermarkt still has us making a £30m net profit in the summer. |
If blueoutlook's a Town fan then he isn't a very cheery one.
Surface or deep dive, I don't think it's viable to frame our outlay as more akin to "catch-up" on those two, honestly. Higher or lower, where would you set the figure to make the following a difficult guess: how much more did our current squad cost to assemble, transfer fees only? I'd plump for £100m over Coventry, including players we've elected to send on loan. And the deeper dive, often overlooked when people speak of spending or available funds, our wage bill will be much higher. We earned the right to spend what we have of course, climbing out of this division in the heaviest of conditions.
It's totally viable to compare our spending and performance favourably with Southampton. Or Leicester, whose wage bill likely still brings tears to their owners' eyes. And to remember Norwich, Watford, West Brom, nay most of the league, who have been in our position themselves and not stuck the landing. Some ballsed it right up, landed on their head. We have every chance to land on our feet at the first attempt. | | | |
| Are we good enough to finish top 2? on 18:50 - Feb 17 with 166 views | blueoutlook |
| Are we good enough to finish top 2? on 16:11 - Feb 17 by NthQldITFC |
Binner! |
You really are a strange one. This site is for discussion,if you don’t agree have a decent answer,not the usual claptrap. Forums are for opinions. The guy that runs it wouldn’t have the site if we didn’t have discussions about topics. One word stupid answers does no one any favours,in fact you look a bit of a fool for it more often than not. |  | | |
| Are we good enough to finish top 2? on 19:06 - Feb 17 with 152 views | Kieran_Knows |
| Are we good enough to finish top 2? on 13:47 - Feb 17 by tractorboy1978 |
This squad needs to earn its corn over the next 16 games now. Last 16 games of 23/24 we W11, D3, L2. Lets see how the class of 25/26 do under pressure. |
Do you know what our form was in the 16 previous games to that? We’re currently at won 9, drawn 4 and lost 3. |  |
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| Are we good enough to finish top 2? on 19:08 - Feb 17 with 147 views | BlueBadger |
| Are we good enough to finish top 2? on 18:50 - Feb 17 by blueoutlook |
You really are a strange one. This site is for discussion,if you don’t agree have a decent answer,not the usual claptrap. Forums are for opinions. The guy that runs it wouldn’t have the site if we didn’t have discussions about topics. One word stupid answers does no one any favours,in fact you look a bit of a fool for it more often than not. |
Interesting that you only want to offer a negative opinion on 'your' team and only show up here after a poor result. |  |
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| Are we good enough to finish top 2? on 19:15 - Feb 17 with 136 views | armchaircritic59 |
Home games left to play against Middlesborough, Millwall and Hull, might play a big part, along with our very inconsistent away performances, Right this minute I'm about 50/50 too. If one or two players get back to the performance levels they should be at, I'd be quite a lot more confident. | | | |
| Are we good enough to finish top 2? on 20:17 - Feb 17 with 107 views | WinchBlue |
“Forget who we have in our squad, do we feel confident that we can genuinely finish in the automatic places?”
No idea, but I’m utterly engaged and enjoying every minute. Final 1/3 coming up!!! |  | | |
| Are we good enough to finish top 2? on 00:34 - Feb 18 with 38 views | armchaircritic59 |
| Are we good enough to finish top 2? on 14:42 - Feb 17 by TRUE_BLUE123 |
3-0 Town
Hirst, Azon, Mcateer. |
Hell, that would shut a large number of people up, for a few days at least. But if they failed to score in the next one. Then it would be back to usual! | | | |
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