Let’s be honest last season was a very different season. Normally you wouldn’t need 80 points to gain a playoff spot. It showed the difference between the top 8 to the bottom half. We had our chances to get enough points to get a playoff birth, but we can’t dwell on that now.
This season will be just as tough, and a few teams down the bottom half have strengthened ie Shrewsbury have done good business, and I think the teams coming up are probably better than a few Lge 1 clubs going in to this season.
I think of the promoted clubs, I can see perhaps Exeter, and Forest Green struggling. They haven’t really done much business, and Forest Green have lost a few of there key players, and appointed a relatively unknown manager. I expect Bristol Rovers and Port Vale to stay up, and scrap a bit more for vital points. The league 1 clubs I can see struggling are Cheltenham, Lincoln, and Burton Albion, along with Morecambe.
The top end of League one will be a real grind all season, and I don’t see anyone running away with the title. Sheffield Wednesday and Ipswich have spent big, but others I expect to challenge are Plymouth, Ourselves, and MK Do a, then you have Peterborough, Barnsley, and Bolton who I expect to do a lot better than last season. You have Portsmouth, Derby, and Charlton if the latter can pull there fingers out. Then you have Wycombe, who know how to get results and win ugly. It’s going to be tough, and we need to be able to be up for the fight. In the past we’ve let ourselves down against promotion/playoff rivals, and that needs to change. We need to start taking more points from them. If we can do that then we will be in great shape. The first 8 games look quite decent for a good points haul, and we need to make that count. The better we start the better shape we will be in to mount a serious challenge, especially as other clubs I expect to be up there, start playing eachother early on.
It will be an exciting season, and we should be a top six club come next May. If we don’t make the top six, then The board will have a big decision to make.
I’m hopeful we will do it, because I said before if we make a couple of quality signings we would be where we need to be. We just need to bring in two solid full backs, a pacey winger, and a striker, a couple of loan signings and we are all set.