The Championship Thread - 2023/24

[SotonianWill]

  On 05/07/2023 at 13:36, CSA96 said:

 

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he’s not wrong

[CSA96]

 

[Badger]

  On 04/07/2023 at 19:38, Gloucester Saint said:

According to their forum Danny Rohl was also in contention.

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Wonder if he was ever on our shortlist. 

[SuperSAINT]

 

[SambaMaverick]

  On 06/07/2023 at 19:56, SuperSAINT said:

 

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Crazy money for a very average striker

[CB Fry]

Coventry are spending eight million pounds on one player? 

They haven't spent that much since the days of Craig Bellamy.

[CSA96]

  On 06/07/2023 at 22:09, CB Fry said:

Coventry are spending eight million pounds on one player? 

They haven't spent that much since the days of Craig Bellamy.

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Very true, different times at Coventry now. Just about to cash in by selling Gyokeres to Sporting for £20.5m with a sell-on clause, I think. Tidy sale for them.

[SuperSAINT]

 

[hypochondriac]

Willy has gone to Leicester? Hmm not sure this is a good thing. 

[revolution saint]

  On 09/07/2023 at 09:02, hypochondriac said:

Willy has gone to Leicester? Hmm not sure this is a good thing. 

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Seemed quite well liked and by all accounts played a big part in helping Alcaraz settle.  Hopefully Alcaraz is well integrated now - he looks to be from the pre-season videos.

Hard to tell what other impact it'll make but good luck to him.

[SotonianWill]

  On 09/07/2023 at 09:02, hypochondriac said:

Willy has gone to Leicester? Hmm not sure this is a good thing. 

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as assistant manager as well. A bit out of no where. 

[hypochondriac]

  On 09/07/2023 at 09:18, revolution saint said:

Seemed quite well liked and by all accounts played a big part in helping Alcaraz settle.  Hopefully Alcaraz is well integrated now - he looks to be from the pre-season videos.

Hard to tell what other impact it'll make but good luck to him.

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I just think losing very experienced and well liked players from our already young and inexperienced squad is not necessarily positive. 

[Maggie May]

  On 09/07/2023 at 09:31, hypochondriac said:

I just think losing very experienced and well liked players from our already young and inexperienced squad is not necessarily positive. 

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Didn’t work last year, did it? The team couldn’t have looked more disjointed and, if reports are to be believed, there were divides in the camp. We need an entirely fresh start.

[JRM]

  On 09/07/2023 at 09:34, Maggie May said:

Didn’t work last year, did it? The team couldn’t have looked more disjointed and, if reports are to be believed, there were divides in the camp. We need an entirely fresh start.

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Exactly, if Willy wasn't going to be used we're better off with his wages being spent elsewhere 

[CB Fry]

We finished stone bottom last year with less than 30 points so whatever Callebero did was negligible to irrelevant. 

Good luck to him in the Kelvin Davis role at Leicester.

[revolution saint]

  On 09/07/2023 at 09:31, hypochondriac said:

I just think losing very experienced and well liked players from our already young and inexperienced squad is not necessarily positive. 

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Yeah, seems like we tried to keep him so from that perspective it's obviously not positive but in terms of factors that determine how successful we'll be then I'd put the quality of the squad and ability of the manager far higher than an individual coach. 

Ideal opportunity to bring back Dennis Rofe though - I'm still standing for Stoneham after all these years.

[HarvSFC]

Ah well, our goalkeepers were shocking last season and he was only selected to play in the 2-1 win over Blackpool. Might be a good influence off the pitch, but again the results we saw were that our goalkeepers and the rest of the team were shocking.

Argentine Stuart Taylor these days.

[hypochondriac]

  On 09/07/2023 at 09:34, Maggie May said:

Didn’t work last year, did it? The team couldn’t have looked more disjointed and, if reports are to be believed, there were divides in the camp. We need an entirely fresh start.

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It's whether we can completely replace everything in a handful of weeks and still be as successful as we need to be. 

[Saint Garrett]

  On 09/07/2023 at 09:31, hypochondriac said:

I just think losing very experienced and well liked players from our already young and inexperienced squad is not necessarily positive. 

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Yup agree, and lost Theo and Caballero. Another reason why I’d be signing Fonte. 

[Badger]

  On 09/07/2023 at 09:53, HarvSFC said:

Ah well, our goalkeepers were shocking last season and he was only selected to play in the 2-1 win over Blackpool. Might be a good influence off the pitch, but again the results we saw were that our goalkeepers and the rest of the team were shocking.

Argentine Stuart Taylor these days.

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Could he have been worse than Bazunu and McCarthy over the course of the season ? 

[Lighthouse]

  On 09/07/2023 at 11:26, Saint Garrett said:

Yup agree, and lost Theo and Caballero. Another reason why I’d be signing Fonte. 

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It’s not essential to have a couple of geriatrics in the squad, there are plenty of 25-30 year olds with 200 plus league appearances, who are in the prime of their career. I don’t know how and why people started telling themselves that having a Long/Theo/Willy/Fonte in the squad was necessary but it isn’t. As long as they’re not ALL 21 year olds, there shouldn’t be an issue.

[CSA96]

  On 09/07/2023 at 16:35, Lighthouse said:

It’s not essential to have a couple of geriatrics in the squad, there are plenty of 25-30 year olds with 200 plus league appearances, who are in the prime of their career. I don’t know how and why people started telling themselves that having a Long/Theo/Willy/Fonte in the squad was necessary but it isn’t. As long as they’re not ALL 21 year olds, there shouldn’t be an issue.

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Such as... Matt Grimes - just over 250 Championship games, 27 years old, Martin's former captain so knows the system.

Quite whether we can twist Swansea's arm is another question.

[egg]

  On 09/07/2023 at 16:35, Lighthouse said:

It’s not essential to have a couple of geriatrics in the squad, there are plenty of 25-30 year olds with 200 plus league appearances, who are in the prime of their career. I don’t know how and why people started telling themselves that having a Long/Theo/Willy/Fonte in the squad was necessary but it isn’t. As long as they’re not ALL 21 year olds, there shouldn’t be an issue.

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Yep, there's experience, and then there's past it. 

[saintstowin]

Any idea of ticket sale dates for the Norwich game? Pretty vague on the club site. 

[Dman]

  On 09/07/2023 at 16:35, Lighthouse said:

It’s not essential to have a couple of geriatrics in the squad, there are plenty of 25-30 year olds with 200 plus league appearances, who are in the prime of their career. I don’t know how and why people started telling themselves that having a Long/Theo/Willy/Fonte in the squad was necessary but it isn’t. As long as they’re not ALL 21 year olds, there shouldn’t be an issue.

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Lets not put Fonte and Theo / Long in the same bracket when talking about leadership. Apples and Oranges. 

[Lighthouse]

  On 11/07/2023 at 10:32, Dman said:

Lets not put Fonte and Theo / Long in the same bracket when talking about leadership. Apples and Oranges. 

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We’re making a beef stroganoff, apples and oranges may be different but both are equally unnecessary.

[goodymatt]

 

[The Cat]

[Turkish]

I got a feeling Djenepo might cook in the championship as well

 

[S-Clarke]

  On 11/07/2023 at 20:52, Turkish said:

I got a feeling Djenepo might cook in the championship as well

 

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Once he stops tripping over his own feet, maybe.

Edited 11 July, 2023 by S-Clarke

[The Cat]

Birmingham getting new owners today by the looks of it. 

Pleased for them as the last owners seemed very shady. Not sure if they'll have a load of money to spend or not but will be a boost for them nonetheless.

[Fan The Flames]

  On 11/07/2023 at 20:50, The Cat said:

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My old company did that on a pitch for a school design job, we had The rapist room next door to the girls toilets. We didn't get the gig.

[coalman]

  On 11/07/2023 at 20:50, The Cat said:

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[Convict Colony]

I know being a saints fan comes with ingrained pessimism but imagine for once we have a season where we are absolute ballers and score a tonne of goals but dont let too many in.

It could happen.

 

[Jack]

I’d take a repeat of our last season in the Championship, almost nobody could get close to us at home. We did have the advantage of a winning habit going into it though, which counts for a lot I reckon. 

[Chez]

No blues fan, but good to see their Chinese owners have been bought out and the new guys will hopefully look to put investment in rather than suck every single penny out. 

[SuperSAINT]

  On 13/07/2023 at 12:14, Jack said:

I’d take a repeat of our last season in the Championship, almost nobody could get close to us at home. We did have the advantage of a winning habit going into it though, which counts for a lot I reckon. 

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It really does.  Momentum is so important.

I still remember that opening win against Leeds in the Championship.  Absolute magic.

[Raging Bull]

  On 14/07/2023 at 11:58, SuperSAINT said:

It really does.  Momentum is so important.

I still remember that opening win against Leeds in the Championship.  Absolute magic.

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Didn’t drop out of the top 2 for the entire season. 
 

Always seemed to win 3-1, too 

Edited 14 July, 2023 by Raging Bull

[Marsdinho]

  On 14/07/2023 at 12:02, Raging Bull said:

Didn’t drop out of the top 2 for the entire season. 
 

Always seemed to win 3-1, too 

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The occasional tenner on Dean Hammond to score 1st in a 3-1 win helped fund my drug habit!

Edited 14 July, 2023 by Marsdinho

[Pamplemousse]

For anyone planning to go to certain games, the EFL have published on their website the dates when TV games will be announced

https://www.efl.com/how-to-watch/tv-broadcast/

 

So we should get the next batch of TV games announced next week. I reckon our game v Leicester in September is almost certainly going to be shown

[HarvSFC]

Loved Hammond's goal. Didn't know he had it in him.

[skintsaint]

  On 14/07/2023 at 12:08, Marsdinho said:

The occasional tenner on Dean Hammond to score 1st in a 3-1 win helped fund my drug habit!

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That one goal he got in that championship season must of paid for a small habit! 

[CSA96]

 

[Convict Colony]

  On 15/07/2023 at 19:05, CSA96 said:

 

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I presume the welcome home message is from the Cardiff physio's?

Edited 15 July, 2023 by Convict Colony

[The Kraken]

  On 15/07/2023 at 19:37, Convict Colony said:

I presume the welcome home message is from the Cardiff physio's?

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[coalman]

There's only 20 days left until our first fixture. How close are we to having an idea of our starting eleven for that match? Given the number of potential exits hanging over us it's starting to be a bit concerning that we'll still be in flux for the first month of the season (as the window SLAMS shut on the 1st September.

[SNSUN]

  On 16/07/2023 at 08:27, coalman said:

There's only 20 days left until our first fixture. How close are we to having an idea of our starting eleven for that match? Given the number of potential exits hanging over us it's starting to be a bit concerning that we'll still be in flux for the first month of the season (as the window SLAMS shut on the 1st September.

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Roll with the punches. You'd probably think Lavia will be gone in the next 3 weeks but we already have Charles in place to step in. As long as we don't have to wait for players to leave before bringing in players we should be ok. Charles and Manning are already in ready for Lavia and Perraud leaving. In a summer where we could see a ton of players leave, it makes sense to be proactive and sign their replacements in advance if it is the player we want. The issue would be signing a player to replace, say, JWP then finding nobody comes in for him and we suddenly end up with a bloated squad. Or not signing a replacement for, say, Charley, then finding someone comes in for him late in the window. It's hard to predict. 

I think the fact we've seen a lot of Amo-Ameyaw in pre-season as well as the likes of Dibling, Doyle and Meghoma and of course we have Ballard shows that playing youth is in the forefront of the manager's thinking so even if we sell players without replacements we have the youth that can, hopefully, step up.

[Smirking_Saint]

  On 16/07/2023 at 08:27, coalman said:

There's only 20 days left until our first fixture. How close are we to having an idea of our starting eleven for that match? Given the number of potential exits hanging over us it's starting to be a bit concerning that we'll still be in flux for the first month of the season (as the window SLAMS shut on the 1st September.

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Have you lived through many transfer windows ?

[Smirking_Saint]

…

Edited 16 July, 2023 by Smirking_Saint
Wrong thread

[woodsaint1]

  On 16/07/2023 at 08:27, coalman said:

There's only 20 days left until our first fixture. How close are we to having an idea of our starting eleven for that match? Given the number of potential exits hanging over us it's starting to be a bit concerning that we'll still be in flux for the first month of the season (as the window SLAMS shut on the 1st September.

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Hoping for a few more incomings, but I suppose that will depend on outgoings. Dont think the likes of Lavia, JWP and Tella are any closer to leaving, but we have seen links to the likes of Diallo, ABK  Salisu, Tall Paul and Adams ramping up. Hopefully we can move a few of them on in the next week or so and get some replacements lined up.

Ideally, I would like another keeper to compete with Baz, although starting the season with him isnt the end of the world. Desperately need another CB (or two) but will depend on who leaves, a creative midfielder and at least one striker (maybe two if we move on both Onuachu and Adams)