It’s upon us, has been for a week from the Championship down.
My club , Ipswich, start tomorrow lunchtime (of course, it’s the Premier League, though at least it’s not 8pm on a Friday.) at home to Liverpool and then away to City in a weeks time…yikes!
I’m hoping that we stay up but even the most blue tinted spectacle wearing fan will recognise that the success of the last two seasons is going to be ever so slightly hard to match though some late arrivals at FPR have certainly bolstered the squad.
Anyone else care to share their thoughts?
Share your thoughts on your club, or the new season not just Suffolk’s Finest…though feel free to do that should you wish. I’ll shut up now.
@freddy-steady
If 8 pm on Friday is good enough for Mark Robbins’ Sky Blue Army against Oxford tonight, it should be good enough for the TBs
Mark R has done amazing things in transforming City who, only a few years back were in League Division 3 and looking like certs to go into the lower leagues. –
The last two season have brought narrow defeats in the Championship Play offs (22/23) and this May’s agonizing defeat against Man U in the FA Cup semi-final. Having been 3-0 down we would have won the match with the last kick of extra time were it not for a ridiculous VAR decision.
Unimaginable to think that we went two seasons without a ground – we remain probably the only team in history to have ever won a league title without playing a home game\
High hopes for the team this season in a league that has a lot more than four teams going for the top there spots is far more competitive than the EPL.
As usual MR has made some very good buys and since we’re no longer reliant on loanees and have Sakamato back fully fit, we should be in with a shot at the play offs at the very least.
@jaygee
Yes, that semi final was incredible. Offside my a**e.
It’s ridiculous, but by the criteria applied by VAR to all offside decisions, he was just off by a toenail.
Used to be that if an attacker was level with the defender, he got the benefit of the doubt and play went on.
The fact that VAR not only makes things worse but sucks the joy out of games by doing so is why so many people hate it so much.
Shall store your comment away and dig it out should you ever tell us how the Toronto Syrups fell foul of a similarly absurd decision in the North American Soccerball World Series
The fire sale at LUFC has gathered pace. Sod this “transfer window stays open for a month after the season starts” malarkey 💩
I have 3 mates who are season ticket holders at Elland Road and they’re already a bit down after the opening home draw on the league and the defeat in the cup against Boro but you’ve surely got the squad to get promoted this season?
As a deluded Leeds fan, it would seem we are already a defeat tomorrow away from a complete crisis – one week into the season.
Ipswich will beat Liverpool tomorrow (hope not though)
Arsenal will win the title after Man City are deducted 25 points.
Wrexham will be promoted
While I doubt it will happen, I hope Man Cheaty get relegated to the lower leagues
Obviously @dai I hope we will but it’s a tall order. I know it’s of no real relevance but our last home game at home in the Premier League was a 5-0 defeat by Liverpool…
We must not concede early doors tomorrow, Brian.
Last game I saw in England was at Portman Rd. Ca. 1999.
@dai
We were ok around then. Had had a couple of glorious playoff failures before beating Barnsley at Wembley in the final the next season. Finished 5th in the Premier League that first season (I can’t see that happening this time!) though the less said about the following season the better!
Aargh. It wasn’t our last home game, it was our last away game. Earlier in the season they beat us 6-0 at FPR…
Massive turnout at Bristol Rovers about 15 in and out. Second season for Matt Taylor at the Gas.
League one is very strong this season but hoping for a top ten finish. Beat Northampton on opening day (first opening day win for 13 years!) then lost to Cardiff in the Rumbelows Cup but we looked good.
This is Taylor’s team so no excuses … tricky trips to Rotherham and Stockport coming up anything from those two would be good.
Up the Gas!
“Do you like football?”
“No, I’m a Reading fan”
1-1 draw to start, followed by dumped out of the EFL Cup – normal service.
Might actually see a change of owner this year (been promised since Easter), and then maybe an end to continual points deductions.
Been punching above our weight for a good few years, so maybe we’re at the right level (or at least the level where we’ve spent about 80% of our existence).
Hopes: might get to the play-offs with a bit luck and a fair wind
What the hell you all talking about? It’s the bloody middle of August – the football season does not begin till the first proper wintry gale blows in from The Atlantic, somewhere around the 22nd of September. Until then we have to make do with cricket and barbecues and village fêtes.
Under other news, Aberdeen have now won six games on the trot under our new manager and we are confident that when the proper season starts the Glory Days of Alex Ferguson will be back.
Great transfer window for West Ham. Time will tell whether that results in a better team. I’m glad Moyes has moved on but I’m yet to be convinced that JLo can deliver better football or results. I predict that we’ll start the season poorly in spite of all the talent in the team.
It’s not the despair that kills, it’s the hope.
@Bamber
While JLo might not deliver the results, the half time entertainment is likely to be top notch
I wish. Today’s performance was Moysian without his knack for getting a result. Hopefully we’ll improve when the new players are all up to speed because a season of that would be hard to endure.
I guess it’s too much to ask for another Leicester?… the only turn-up in 32 years of the Premier League.
Last season, as mentioned above, that lucky semi-final offside robbed the F.A. Cup of a great story, and a potentially interesting final. Is there any chance of either domestic cup final ‘not’ being between two teams who couldn’t give a monkey’s about it! If they don’t care, why should I?
My own plan is see about 100 matches (tomorrow is no. 17, I was at rugby tonight), no F.A. Cup games after Christmas, no all-seater stadia, and no crowd over about 2,500. I do not plan to pay more than £20 for any of them, and my preference is to pay nothing!
Man U top of the table!
Doubt that’ll be happening agin this season.
Portman Road will be fizzing for the opening game. I wish I could be there – even if Liverpool thrash us, it’s still a great day out I’d say.
I think what will happen is that heavy defeats from the big boys away are likely but I think we can certainly pick up points from the other fixtures. It feels like a team that is building momentum rather than having one freakishly lucky season – two promotions on the bounce is very rare. What if they made it 3 by winning the PL? Stranger things have happened. I can’t think of any but I’m sure they have.
Well it happened before when the TBs won back to back D2 and D1 titles under Alf Ramsey in the early 60s.
Clough did the same thing in the late 70s and then went one better by winning successive European Cups
Football was unrecognisably different then. The money behind a club has always been important, but now it is the key fundamental driver and the discrepancies between clubs at the top of the Premier League and the rest are significant.
I’m sure new minority shareholder Ed Sheeran has more than a few bob to pump into Ipswich but even that is peanuts compared to some clubs. It may keep them up, but it won’t turn them into title challengers. The aim of most clubs in the PL is merely to stay there for the income it generates and nothing else.
Know exactly what you mean.
Remember when Cov went up to D1 in 67, every team in the top flight had two or three outstanding players and had a shot at, if not winning the title, then getting into Europe (as Cov did to the Inter Cities Fairs Cup in 1971-72)
While the grounds might have been deathtraps waiting to happen, the atmosphere on the terraces was incredible. Best of all, it was possible to pitch up on the day and get in as I did the night the Sky Blues beat a Bayern Munich side containing Maier, Beckanbauer and Muller in our second and last ever European game.
Happy days
Wow – just two European games! Would have been more if it wasn’t for the Heysel ban of course.
I wonder what the highest ranking team in the league is that have never played a major European tournament? Brentford?
Apols for mix up – they got four games – they played the splendidly named Trakia Plovdiv home and away in the first round before being drawn against Bayern
and Bournemouth
Re: Uncertainty.
A few years ago I picked up the Daily Mail or was it the Daily Express (!!!) guide to the 1956-57 season. Here’s the thing, the team considered the middling one in the top flight was about 12-1 to win the league!
Who’d be 12-1 now? Villa, who finished 4th last season? Not a chance. I’d want at least 66-1, no, 100-1.
And I’d want at least 200-1 on Tottenham to win it. I bet they’re about 33s!
And frankly, though I think they have a reasonable chance, I’d want at least 12-1 on Arsenal.
Whisper it… it’s the least competitive league in the whole pyramid… just don’t tell ’em.
I never knew Coventry beat Bayern…wow!
http://www.ccfpa.co.uk/?p=36433
Unfortunately, they’d got walloped 6-1 in the first leg so
It was all a bit academic
Wonderful memory though
I’ve always liked the elephant on Coventry City’s badge/coat of arms
My team is Hampton & Richmond in the National League South and God only knows what will happen. Uncertainty about ownership, seemingly a significant drop in budget and wholesale player changes has meant that the newly appointed (but with no experience) Manager, former pro keeper Alan Julian has a huge task on his hands. It’s going to be a step into the unknown all round.
Ah, and I was disappointed we didn’t hold on for a point!
Good luck @nick-l
James Milner started his 23rd – a record – premier league season today.
Fabulous footballer.
I remember someone, a while back, observing that you could trace the history of modern English football with just three players because the season Sir Stanley Matthews retired was the same one Peter Shilton made his debut and the season Shilton retired Ryan Giggs made his debut. I always wondered who would be the durable debutante to continue this chain. If Milner had come along ten years later, he could have taken us through to 2035, more than a hundred years after Matthews made his league debut..