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Team of the season

Foley

Well-known member
Joined
7 Dec 2017
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12,510
I can't disagree too much with the League 1 team.

4 Wigan players and 4 from Blackburn. Oztumer and Marriot looked good against us.

I guess that I am a little surprised that Shrewsbury have just their keeper in the team which shows maybe how well as a team they have done to compete with Wigan and Blackburn (and they have conceded very few but have not scored that many)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/43810017
 
No Tiendalli? Travesty!
Hylts in the L2 team I see...wonder if he'll stay if they go up or look for a move to a L2 club again.

Can’t see why he’d leave to be honest. Presumably he is on good money (and may be able to renegotiate or might even have a promotion bonus in his contract). Feel he would want to test himself at a club which values him and will, I imagine, be looking for a double promotion next season.
 
While I really missed the cheek, skill and hard work that Hylton brought to the team when he left, I think his future lies with Luton for another year at least.
 
Both Blackburn & Wigan have continued to run things in League One like a Championship side (as Bolton also did last season).
Meaning paying big money to players who wouldn't normally be playing in this tier. That's reflected in this team of the year and reflected in the table.

Will be the same with Sunderland next year, and Birmingham/Bolton as well if they come down.

It seems to me that the Championship/League One financial gap is getting significantly bigger. And whilst it's not impossible to cross - you do need to be managed extremely well on the field and/or bankrolled extremely well off it, because as a League One club you're going to have tiny resources compared to some of the clubs that have been relegated into the division that you're competing with.
(or sometimes the team coming down from the Championship may just be terribly managed, as Sheffield United were pre-Wilder)
 
Both Blackburn & Wigan have continued to run things in League One like a Championship side (as Bolton also did last season).
Meaning paying big money to players who wouldn't normally be playing in this tier. That's reflected in this team of the year and reflected in the table.

Will be the same with Sunderland next year, and Birmingham/Bolton as well if they come down.

It seems to me that the Championship/League One financial gap is getting significantly bigger. And whilst it's not impossible to cross - you do need to be managed extremely well on the field and/or bankrolled extremely well off it, because as a League One club you're going to have tiny resources compared to some of the clubs that have been relegated into the division that you're competing with.
(or sometimes the team coming down from the Championship may just be terribly managed, as Sheffield United were pre-Wilder)

I read somewhere that Sunderland's wage bill is £50M pa (not sure how true that is- it seems ridiculous)

So the suggestion was that Sunderland will have to have a huge clear out. I am not sure that they are in a position to do a Wigan/ Bolton/ Blackburn who managed to keep most of their players.

Bolton still seem to have huge debts. So I agree with your overall assessment but a couple of those who come down could be 'terribly managed' as you suggested above.
 
Sunderland's wage bill and squad size are ridiculous, and a lot of it is spent on marginal players like Lee Cattermole and John O'Shea. They need to clear house in the worst possible way. Look at what they spent on James Vaughan!!
 
Sunderland may need to clean house - but they are also going to be playing next season with Premier League parachute payments of around 38 million pounds........or more than five times our club's turnover.

Unless they are stuck with a truly massive number of hefty contracts for incompetent players that they can't escape from, they're going to have frankly laughable spending power compared to the rest of League One.
 
Sunderland may need to clean house - but they are also going to be playing next season with Premier League parachute payments of around 38 million pounds........or more than five times our club's turnover.

Unless they are stuck with a truly massive number of hefty contracts for incompetent players that they can't escape from, they're going to have frankly laughable spending power compared to the rest of League One.

That’s the crux of it. Even if they rebuild the entire squad, they can cherry pick the best of league 1 plus bring players down from the championship with the promise of immediate promotion.
 
That’s the crux of it. Even if they rebuild the entire squad, they can cherry pick the best of league 1 plus bring players down from the championship with the promise of immediate promotion.

And immediate relegation again probably, it is Sunderland after all ?
 
WIth that kind of huge financial muscle, you would expect that Sunderland (barring complete incompetence) will occupy one of the automatic promotion spots.
Makes the task of getting up that little bit more harder. Especially as our budget will be that much smaller than thiers.
 
Sunderland may need to clean house - but they are also going to be playing next season with Premier League parachute payments of around 38 million pounds........or more than five times our club's turnover.

Unless they are stuck with a truly massive number of hefty contracts for incompetent players that they can't escape from, they're going to have frankly laughable spending power compared to the rest of League One.

Fair point.
I guess that my point is that Sunderland have been very poorly managed for the past 4-5 years. They will have to have a massive clear out.
So whilst they will have by far the biggest budget in all likelihood in League 1, they will have to build a team. Unlike Blackburn and Wigan who had decent Championship players and added to the team that they already had.

Interestingly one of the papers today showed teams who had been in the Premiership and came down to League one (since 1998/99). ALL of them went straight back at the first attempt (although Man City were very lucky in the play off final from memory). Those teams? Leeds, Norwich, Forest, Leicester, Southampton, Man City and Sheffield Wednesday (twice). So two of those teams have won the Premiership in the past 3 years!
 
Interestingly one of the papers today showed teams who had been in the Premiership and came down to League one (since 1998/99). ALL of them went straight back at the first attempt (although Man City were very lucky in the play off final from memory). Those teams? Leeds, Norwich, Forest, Leicester, Southampton, Man City and Sheffield Wednesday (twice). So two of those teams have won the Premiership in the past 3 years!

So to continue the other side of the argument switcheroo, I'm not sure that statistic's quite right - Leeds spent three seasons in League One, and so did Forest; Southampton had two as did Sheffield Wednesday on both occasions.

So it's certainly possible for the big club coming down to **** it up.
However the parachute payments, and therefore the financial discrepancy with the other teams in the division, have massively increased in only the past few years.
Sunderland and Coleman (assuming they don't fire him in favour of someone else) have either got to be supremely incompetent next season, or two other clubs have got to have miracle seasons performing well above their budget, if the Mackems aren't to go straight back up in the autos.
 
If Sunderland don’t go up next season then that will be truly staggering incompetence, they will be the richest ever club to play at this level, have some good youngsters and even some of the dross will be competent because if the drop in standard, add in the fact that they will have the pick of the players willing to play at this level then it should be simple enough.

It will be interesting to see where the balance lies, an incompetently run club but with huge advantages over the rest of the league. I am pretty certain we will see this as the level where a certain sized club with huge parachute payments can succeed despite being run by pissed up chimps, even if they win the league it won’t exac be Leicester winning the premier league style achievement, more of a Celtic winning the Jockball title.
 
There’s been a fair few rich clubs in the the third tier. Manchester City not too long ago. Southampton, Aston Villa, Wolves, Derby.
It’s a shame they’ve gone down as they are bound to be nailed on champions next season leaving only promotion place available.
If Birmingham or Barnsley went down they would be expected to do well.
Getting out of this league will be more difficult by the direct route.
I hope our rebuild is a good one. Several will leave but we are bound to need two new strikers that can hit the back of the net on a fairly regular basis
 
Sunderland will be the most dysfunctional to get to League One so far. Which is saying something considering Blackburn's owners.
 
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