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So, your thoughts on the Championship?
- Thread starter PL2 3DQ
- Start date
Brutal,brutal league where money is king
46 games & we were never in the bottom 3 all season - that is a marvellous achievement given our finances
What we lack in finance we make up in passion. desire,never say die attitude
We are unique
We are special
We are One Argyle 💚
46 games & we were never in the bottom 3 all season - that is a marvellous achievement given our finances
What we lack in finance we make up in passion. desire,never say die attitude
We are unique
We are special
We are One Argyle 💚
It’s just nice to get another crack at it, didn’t want to be a one season wonder. Also would be handy if we can go the season without a big upheaval, let alone 2, mid season that almost messed up the hard work we put in for the first half of the season. Would’ve been a shame to miss out on that new TV deal money.
The biggest problem about this league is the stupid number of Tuesday/Wednesday games because of International Breaks! Just play the damn games and it would just be tough on teams with international players. I can understand it in the Prem, but not the Championship.
Harder than I envisaged, it's a brutal league for sure and so competitive from top to bottom.
The standard of football and pace of the game with numerous substitutions is higher than last time we were here.
It's been great to see full houses both in the home and away ends, further improvements to the overall match day experience and improvements to the club's infrastructure and facilities continuing off the pitch.
Delighted for the Hallets that we can now benefit from the extra tv money next season and hopefully secure further investment in the club.
One of the few downsides looking forward will be even fewer traditional Saturday afternoon kick offs as TV call the tune.
I feel exhausted after the season and afternoon we have just had. Looking forward now to the summer break, the announcement of our new management team and a new squad of players forming.
The standard of football and pace of the game with numerous substitutions is higher than last time we were here.
It's been great to see full houses both in the home and away ends, further improvements to the overall match day experience and improvements to the club's infrastructure and facilities continuing off the pitch.
Delighted for the Hallets that we can now benefit from the extra tv money next season and hopefully secure further investment in the club.
One of the few downsides looking forward will be even fewer traditional Saturday afternoon kick offs as TV call the tune.
I feel exhausted after the season and afternoon we have just had. Looking forward now to the summer break, the announcement of our new management team and a new squad of players forming.
Nailed it describing it as Premier League 2, it really feels like that. Feels like a ‘proper‘ big time league even in a global context, would have hurt to go back to the ‘lower leagues’ for that reason.
Now it’s over with a happy ending, I can say I loved it. Everything we love and hate about football turned up to 11.
Now it’s over with a happy ending, I can say I loved it. Everything we love and hate about football turned up to 11.
It’s the best league in the world I reckon - we deserve to have another shot at it and will have learnt a lot.
It's incredibly tough, and next season might be tougher as we don't have momentum, or Schumacher, which both contributed to signings like MW and Bali. We will also be behind other teams as we need to sort the management/staff setup first - last season we felt very much on the front foot.
It's also brilliant! Just absolutely brutal. Never a dull moment. In some ways, it's surprising we only went through one really bad run. Think we as fans might need to get a bit tougher when those spells come.
Given we've ended the season on a downward trend of sorts, we might have to aim to finish between 21st and 16th again. Unless Hallett has an investor up his sleeve........
At this moment in time I'm conflicted about to what extent we need a squad overhaul. The last couple of months screamed "MASSIVE OVERHAUL NEEDED!", and yet today.......today..........
Overall, another season in Tier 2, but also feels like the end of a chapter today. Dewsnip out on a high? Dozens of first team ins and outs perhaps? Who knows. COYG 💚
It's also brilliant! Just absolutely brutal. Never a dull moment. In some ways, it's surprising we only went through one really bad run. Think we as fans might need to get a bit tougher when those spells come.
Given we've ended the season on a downward trend of sorts, we might have to aim to finish between 21st and 16th again. Unless Hallett has an investor up his sleeve........
At this moment in time I'm conflicted about to what extent we need a squad overhaul. The last couple of months screamed "MASSIVE OVERHAUL NEEDED!", and yet today.......today..........
Overall, another season in Tier 2, but also feels like the end of a chapter today. Dewsnip out on a high? Dozens of first team ins and outs perhaps? Who knows. COYG 💚
The form guide for the last 6 games is made up of mostly 'lower' position teams with the exception of Middlesbrough. Every result seemed to be against us but 10 points out of the 6 post Foster era games was brilliant. Brum going down with 50 points shows how many teams at the wrong end of the table fought their socks off - happily this included Argyle.
Great first half of the season (until after the Cardiff game) then the lack of investment in the team and leadership showed, wasn't helped by QPR and Weds making good decisions and some crazy results in the last month (Blackburn beating Leeds was a turning point). Lucky today that Hull didn't put up much of a fight but delighted with the end result of survival.
We finished where we deserved. No way were we a mid table side. Apart from today and the Leicester game this year has been too stressful to enjoy. I am delighted we stayed up but fear a repeat fighting off relegation next season
Championship is a monster of a division, really hard every game is like a cup tie.
The Refs were not as good as I thought they would be, and I hate to say it we could have done with VAR a few times.
Money seems to be the over-riding driver in this division.
It was excellent seeing all 3 promoted clubs not getting relegated.
We need investment as a prority otherwise it is a matter of time before we go back down.
The pride at surviving has brought tears to my eyes this afternoon, so very proud.
The Refs were not as good as I thought they would be, and I hate to say it we could have done with VAR a few times.
Money seems to be the over-riding driver in this division.
It was excellent seeing all 3 promoted clubs not getting relegated.
We need investment as a prority otherwise it is a matter of time before we go back down.
The pride at surviving has brought tears to my eyes this afternoon, so very proud.
We weren’t doing so bad under $chuey. We were among the highest scoring teams in the league at one point playing with flair and confidence, sat well above the relegation zone, with teams like Lazio trying to poach from us for huge sums!
We initially struggled to find consistency, not knowing what type of Argyle would turn up. One week we were beating Norwich 6-2 and the next losing to Millwall 2-0. I suppose we were consistently crap under Foster to be fair… but certainly in the first half of the season no one knew what to expect as each match day arrived.
Let’s be honest though - the fact we have survived is nothing short of a miracle.
Why?
Because our manager jumped ship halfway through the season, and took almost all of our entire back room staff, including the bloody fitness coach.
Because we had some quality players poached from us, or recalled, including Azaz, Cundle and KKH. Azaz alone was such a significant loss and look how well he is doing at Boro’ now. This really crippled us.
Because we unfortunately appointed a ‘head coach’ with no managerial experience, who treated the players like children and completely lost the dressing room, and the fan base.
Performances went from confident and fearless to flat and uninspiring.
Because under Foster we went from using a proven, data driven approach for recruitment, to instead relying on inexperienced England U21 players to see out the campaign.
Lessons learnt? In my opinion, there’s a few:
- We need to appoint a manager who has experience of actually managing a football team. Someone who has a track record of proven success. Someone who won’t disrupt the dressing room and tell our most senior players to sod off. Someone who is a leader, and respectful, and knows the game inside out. Someone who can connect with the fan base and get home park rocking again.
- Continue to use a data driven approach to recruitment. Jimmy and his team have been fantastic in identifying players over the last few years that have seen us climb the leagues. Yes we have had some duds, but overall this approach has been massively successful. From players like Scarr, Whittaker, Edwards, Mumba, Ennis, Azaz. We really have made some quality signings over the last few years, and the moment Foster deviated from this to bring in his U21 mates is when our season started to go downhill (although, I appreciate other factors were at play).
- Incentive: how can we incentivise coaches and players to actually want to commit to our club? So many managers seem to want to jump ship as soon at the slightest hint of another club sniffing around. Does it just come down to money? If that is the case, realistically we’ll always find it hard to compete against the ‘bigger’ boys in the division. I suppose I’m just fed up of our club being stripped down and left for scraps when we finally manage to have some success. Surely we have to find a happy medium where we sell players on for a profit but also strive to keep talent so we can sustain ourselves in the championship. Difficult one, and I don’t really know the answer.
Mistakes have been made, as admitted by Hallett, and hopefully lessons will be learnt. This season in the championship has been a massive learning curve and will only prepare us better for what lies ahead next season. Hallett, Parkinson, Dewsnip and the rest of the board will be desperate to get it right going forwards and to try and improve. I’m so glad we haven’t gone back down to league one and we get another shot in this magnificent league though.
COYG!
We initially struggled to find consistency, not knowing what type of Argyle would turn up. One week we were beating Norwich 6-2 and the next losing to Millwall 2-0. I suppose we were consistently crap under Foster to be fair… but certainly in the first half of the season no one knew what to expect as each match day arrived.
Let’s be honest though - the fact we have survived is nothing short of a miracle.
Why?
Because our manager jumped ship halfway through the season, and took almost all of our entire back room staff, including the bloody fitness coach.
Because we had some quality players poached from us, or recalled, including Azaz, Cundle and KKH. Azaz alone was such a significant loss and look how well he is doing at Boro’ now. This really crippled us.
Because we unfortunately appointed a ‘head coach’ with no managerial experience, who treated the players like children and completely lost the dressing room, and the fan base.
Performances went from confident and fearless to flat and uninspiring.
Because under Foster we went from using a proven, data driven approach for recruitment, to instead relying on inexperienced England U21 players to see out the campaign.
Lessons learnt? In my opinion, there’s a few:
- We need to appoint a manager who has experience of actually managing a football team. Someone who has a track record of proven success. Someone who won’t disrupt the dressing room and tell our most senior players to sod off. Someone who is a leader, and respectful, and knows the game inside out. Someone who can connect with the fan base and get home park rocking again.
- Continue to use a data driven approach to recruitment. Jimmy and his team have been fantastic in identifying players over the last few years that have seen us climb the leagues. Yes we have had some duds, but overall this approach has been massively successful. From players like Scarr, Whittaker, Edwards, Mumba, Ennis, Azaz. We really have made some quality signings over the last few years, and the moment Foster deviated from this to bring in his U21 mates is when our season started to go downhill (although, I appreciate other factors were at play).
- Incentive: how can we incentivise coaches and players to actually want to commit to our club? So many managers seem to want to jump ship as soon at the slightest hint of another club sniffing around. Does it just come down to money? If that is the case, realistically we’ll always find it hard to compete against the ‘bigger’ boys in the division. I suppose I’m just fed up of our club being stripped down and left for scraps when we finally manage to have some success. Surely we have to find a happy medium where we sell players on for a profit but also strive to keep talent so we can sustain ourselves in the championship. Difficult one, and I don’t really know the answer.
Mistakes have been made, as admitted by Hallett, and hopefully lessons will be learnt. This season in the championship has been a massive learning curve and will only prepare us better for what lies ahead next season. Hallett, Parkinson, Dewsnip and the rest of the board will be desperate to get it right going forwards and to try and improve. I’m so glad we haven’t gone back down to league one and we get another shot in this magnificent league though.
COYG!
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Every other club has bigger and better infrastructure (stadiums, training grounds etc), bigger squads with more established championship players. Most other teams were also physically bigger than us too.
However we thrived then survived despite all this and now we will have the money to start closing that massive infrastructure and playing squad gap.
Lessons from the Championship are you need more physicality so you can score from set pieces, settled sides who don’t change their manager during the season fare better. You need a bigger squad to rotate and see you through that final third of the season. Goalscorers who can be clinical are essential. Togetherness in a team and desire can still overcome the so called big boys and fat cats on any given day.
It’s a great league but pretty stressful as a fan!
However we thrived then survived despite all this and now we will have the money to start closing that massive infrastructure and playing squad gap.
Lessons from the Championship are you need more physicality so you can score from set pieces, settled sides who don’t change their manager during the season fare better. You need a bigger squad to rotate and see you through that final third of the season. Goalscorers who can be clinical are essential. Togetherness in a team and desire can still overcome the so called big boys and fat cats on any given day.
It’s a great league but pretty stressful as a fan!
It's a hard league but a great one, and a very different league to League One with different approaches required to be successful. Hopefully SH and the management team will have learned a lot and we go again next year with a bunch of lessons learned from this year.
