Right then - where will we end up?

[Fonda]

11th. I think the squad looks good now. The only slight concern for me is up front. Our strikers have all looked reasonable in pre-season, with Howe particularly catching the eye. But i don't see any of them as being prolific. For this reason there is a a reliance on all (3) of them to weigh in with between 10 and 15. If they can do that, we'll be fine. The League looks stronger this season, so i don't see us challenging up near the summit, but my earlier fears that we might struggle have been put to bed. It's a rare mid-table finish for me.

[SuperNickyWroe]

gone for 8th-12th. but id take 22nd! =D

[ferrarilover]

I expect the league to be harder this year. Let’s be honest it was poor last season. We were lucky to make the play offs on the back of the generosity of others.

That being said I am persuaded by the hairdresser’s argument that we might just be a better team. I am also hopeful that we are under a proper = better manager.

So my conclusion is upper mid table 8-12th.

Bring it on. And roll on 13/08/2011.

I'd disagree with this entirely.

Not once last season did I leave a game and wonder how we'd manage to be rubbish and come away with a point/three. I did, however, come away from quite a number wondering how on earth we had managed to batter the opposition into the middle of next week and come away with nothing/a point at best.
Add to this our, frankly farcical, record of hitting the woodwork 3,000,000,000,000,000 times AND the fact that we were deducted a point which we didn't actually win, and you come up with the idea that we might just have defeated not just 17 other teams, but lady luck as well.

One look at some of the teams who missed out on the playoffs tells you that it was a tough old league at the top. Gillingham, with the help of Premier League class striker Cody McDonald and their 40 game winning streak. Oxford and their spending power. AC Northampton and their £1,000,000 squad. Crewe with their 100 goals scored and we bested the lot. Ok, some of that is exaggerated for effect, but you get the point. Make no mistake, we finished above some decent teams last year.

I think L2 is split right down the middle this year. There are going to be good teams and terrible teams, I'm not sure there is a great deal of mid-table mediocrity this year, much like last year when, with 2 games to go, there was not a team in the division who could not either go down, or make the play-offs.

Anyway, must go, I have Mrs Smith in for a blue rinse in 5 minutes and Mr Simpson has been reading a 14 year old copy of National Geographic and scowling at me since 1900. =D

Matt.

[Fonda]

I think the point is, whilst we performed well last year, lots of the other 'fancied' teams didn't. If those teams had performed somewhere near their potential, we likely wouldn't have been in the Play-Offs. I think there are even more teams with realistic promotion ambitions this season.

[Gulliball]

I went with 13-16th. I'd be happy with that too, as it was an awful summer and Ling has done a very good job to assemble this squad of players.

It is a harder division this year, and we're weaker than we were last year, though not by as much as we could have been. The loss of the loanees is a blow, even though they were never our players they were the reason we made the play-offs last year.

I haven't seen any pre-season games, or indeed any games since last September.

[AustrianAndyGull]

I went for 17th position because there are a hell of a lot of bigger clubs expected to do well, Bristol Rovers, Rotherham, Bradford, Swindon, Wycombe, Gillingham, Crawley (small club but loads of cash - wankers), Vale, Oxford and although not all of them will do as well as they expect, i don't expect us to be finishing higher than many clubs in league 2. We are a small club with a small squad with some players still to prove they have the guts and quality to succeed so to finish above 14th place for example would be a massive overachievement with other clubs experienceing a massive underachievement. We should be better than Barnet and Macclesfield who i think both will drop and they we are battling with the likes of Dagenham, Hereford, Aldershot, Cheltenham et al. So i think if we finish 5 or 6 teams above bottom then we will have done well. Those who go for a top 10 spot are seriously deluded. Yes we've done well in friendlies but they mean nothing.Lets not carried away and put extra pressure on Ling and the lads by having unrealistic expectations of the season ahead.

[Fonda]

I don't think we've got too much to fear from Wycombe.

[Colorado Gull]

I don't think we've got too much to fear from Wycombe.

[ferrarilover]

Just had a look at the teams in L2 next year. We ought, without any doubt, be finishing above: AFC Wimbledon, Accrington, Aldershot, Barnet, Burton, Cheltenham, Dagenham, Hereford, Macclesfield, Morecambe and Plymouth.

That is to say nothing of the unknown quantities with the potential to fail completely, Bradford and the Cobblers top that list. Crawley could well be bust by Christmas. There is very little stopping Swindon going into freefall and nosediving into the Conference. Suddenly, we're ninth and that's without any of the big boys having a bad year.

Matt.

[usagullmichigan]

I see Brucie has voted =D

[exilegull]

Ferrari - I agree with your list of teams we should better. Add in vale, southend and crewe who are probably on a par with us, Rotherham who finished in free fall and have lost Taylor and gillingham who have just lost birchall for 6 months.

If Howe fires, o'kane shows he can influence week in week out and macklin finds his feet I think playoffs are more than possible.

[Trojan 67]

I see Brucie has voted =D

[HRG]

I see Brucie has voted =D

Hee hee, I thought the same.

[Bigman]

As Matt has said, there are some teams in this league that are virtually guaranteed to be awful - they're poor every year and have no money to spend so won't have improved. The trouble is there are also quite a few that do have money, should have done better than they did last year, and might just have one year where they get all the pieces of the puzzle together and storm the division (could also be done by a surprise package with no money, you never know). There's no guarantee that will be this year for Bradford or the Cobblers (for example), they may be just as bad as last year and we'll fly by them, but given the squad turnover for a lot of teams in this division (ourselves included) it's very difficult to predict how everyone will perform year on year.

I've not seen any PSFs, but going on reports it seems as though we have a squad of a similar standard to last year, and with a more definitie formation and players playing where they're supposed to (including strikers as strikers) I think we may have more goals in us than last year. The difficulty will come when we have suspensions or injuries, and with our small squad I think we'll struggle to sustain a promotion push all season, so gone for just missing out on playoffs.

To be honest, I think until everyone's played a few games and worked out how good their players actually are it's nigh on impossible to work out who should be where in the division, so reserve the right to rejudge a couple of weeks into the season.

[cambgull]

In terms of a squad, I think what we have this year is better than the squad that Buckle had last year. Buckle then brought in loanees which boosted us but in terms of players owned by the club, I think we are in a better shape than the one that won the first 4 games last year. I'd be interested to see the difference in the budget spent between the two squads, I wouldn't mind betting Ling has amassed it with a smaller budget than Buckle.