The Championship Thread 2023/2024

[Lillehamring]

59 minutes ago, CosbehFox said:

Because the form of last season 6th isn’t very good at all. Particularly in the context it was the lowest achieving points tally for the playoffs in ten years. Normally it’s mid 70s. 
 

You’ve used Leeds as a comparison and highlighted their superb form to say it’s rather their success rather than our own failure. 
 

In very simple terms if we look at the table from GW26. 
 

Leeds have made up 17 points 

Ipswich 9 

Southampton 5 

West Brom 7 

 

These are fairly sizeable point gaps being dropped here - helped in a couple of examples of this weekend but still not a good trend. 
 

So at one point we start admitting it’s our poor form or everyone just getting better? 

Our form is not 'poor' - even isolating it to just 2024 results - for a team in the mess we were in, with a rookie manager in a notoriously tough league, to be playing on form to get 69 points is not 'poor'.

 

And realistically, it's only the most recent games where we've struggled, due to a combination of factors (injuries, referees, poor shooting) - and those recent games have been the difference.  before that, from the end of november to the middle of february we took 39 points frpm a possible 48 - that's not 'poor'.  That run has cost us for sure, but over a season, these things even out.  

 

If you look at the 17 game period before the 3 defeats, we have an almost identical record to leeds:  

 

LCFC W12 D3 L2 GD+24 P39

LUFC W12 D2 L3 GD+23 P38

 

So the difference between the two sides is that in the first 15 games we were significantly better than them, whilst in recent games they've been significantly better than us.

 

You can't simply equate the change in points as us dropping points.  It is also about the other teams improving significantly.  The form we had upto game week 26 was so good that it would have been nigh on impossible to keep it up, even if we hadn't lost two of our best players.

 

So, yes our form has dipped, others has peaked - this happens in every league, in every season - and is reason neither to slate the team/club or to panic.

[Lillehamring]

1 hour ago, CosbehFox said:

I’d say points achieved is probably the most sure fire way of indicating how a team plays. 
 

You can create all the xG you like and defend to keep all the xG you like but if you finish poorly and defend on the break like idiots, then you lose points. Although the expected points model has had us at 2nd since Xmas 
 

Comments like you said we were the sort of stuff Spurs and Arsenal fans were coming out with in 2016 to give themselves a coping mechanism when we were not being reeled in. 

I think this season has proved that it absolutely isn't.

 

Our best run of results came at the start of the season where we played some of our worst football.

The games we've lost, have not generally been games where we've been outplayed, but where we've simply not taken our chances.

 

I've no idea what spurs and arsenal fans were saying, but my thoughts aren't a 'coping mechanism' - i'm simply stepping back from a run of poor results to look at the bigger picture.

[Lillehamring]

1 hour ago, Number 6 said:

That's why I said 2ppg. Dropping to form that is around 6th is bottling it. There's a big gap there. 

 

I definitely wouldn't have taken 6th at the start of the season either.

If you think play off form is bottling it, then you are destined to always be dissatisfied.  What an horrendous and entitled attitude.

 

And if you wouldn't have taken 6th given the mess we  were in, with an unproven manager, a makeshift squad and the most negative home fans in britain then you are either very optimistic, a fantasist or supremely arrogant.

[HankMarvin]

2 hours ago, Lillehamring said:

You have to remember that before the 3 game losing streak, we had a record of P16 W12 D3 L1 - and the one loss was coventry - we're more than capable of beating any team, we aren't suddenly a bad team, we just had a few games that didn't go our way.

Also, in that stretch we dropped just 2 points at home, in the ipswich game.

Capable of beating any team?

apart from the ones that we haven’t been able to beat Home and away. 

Leeds, Ipswich, Boro,

[John12345]

I'm listening to foxes fornicating in my garden as I write this at 1.50 AM...if we don't get promoted it will be such an anti climax. I really wonder what will happen. Would we just buy a few more players , Enzo stays and we repeat.  You can't see it happening.  It's a depressing prospect but morbidly interesting. 

[Sly]

1 hour ago, HankMarvin said:

Capable of beating any team?

apart from the ones that we haven’t been able to beat Home and away. 

Leeds, Ipswich, Boro,

If you take the results insolation, then you’re right.

 

However, I’d say we “could” have beaten Leeds, Boro, Hull and Ipswich if we’d have taken our chances. 
 

Football is a funny old game and it changes in an instant, that’s why it’s admitted by the billions, due to its unpredictability, which itself adds excitement. 

[Sly]

59 minutes ago, John12345 said:

I'm listening to foxes fornicating in my garden as I write this at 1.50 AM...if we don't get promoted it will be such an anti climax. I really wonder what will happen. Would we just buy a few more players , Enzo stays and we repeat.  You can't see it happening.  It's a depressing prospect but morbidly interesting. 

If we don’t get promoted this season, then I think our plan B would be to release the likes of Vardy, Iheanacho, Vestergaard, Ndidi, Praet and Albrighton and do a reset basically. We’ve not offered them new contracts for a reason, as it’s unsustainable to do so if we remain in the Championship. 
 

If they all left, we’d be taking around £20m off the annual wage budget in wages alone. That’s before you factor in annual loyalty (signing on fees) that could in effect, also total a further £5m for those players alone. We would be losing ability, however we’d be looking at a different team next season. 
 

We’d most likely need to sell KDH for a reduced amount in early June to keep us profitable and within PSR rules. 
 

Questions would understandably be asked about Maresca, as not getting out of this league, with this squad would be a failure.
 

I do feel we’ve wobbled and this short break will hopefully allow us to dust ourselves off. The next game is always the must important one and we can’t worry about everyone else. 

Let us take it one game at a time! 
 

 

 

[Sly]

Looking at the fixtures left, it could go anyway really.  
 

We are at the business end of the season and with the likes of Hull, Coventry, Preston, Norwich, WBA and Middlesbrough scrapping for play off places, they’re dangerous.

 

On the flip side, we’ve already started to see the teams in danger of relegation pick up unexpected wins. 

 

Week	Leicester	Southampton	Leeds	Ipswich
37		Middlesbrough
38	Bristol	Ipswich
39	Norwich	Blackburn	Watford	Blackburn
40	Birmingham	Coventry	Hull	Southampton
41	Millwall	Watford	Coventry	Norwich
42	Plymouth	Preston	Sunderland	Watford
43	West Brom	Cardiff	Blackburn	Middlesbrough
44	Southampton	Leicester	Middlesbrough	Coventry
45	Preston	Stoke	QPR	Hull
46	Blackburn	Leeds	Southampton	Huddlesfield

 

Red - Top 4

Orange - Play off hopefuls at this stage

Green - Relegation a possibility at this stage
 

I didn’t realise until reviewing the above, we have a rough set of fixtures really, as Bristol

aside now, every team still has something to play for. This picture will obviously change as we get closer toward the end of the season. 
 

I’m not so confident in my “5 points clear of Leeds” comment I made yesterday now 

 

It’s quite feasible that no club surpasses 100 points but we have three, clubs on 95+ points. 

[StanSP]

5 hours ago, Lillehamring said:

Actually 6.

 

We've taken 1.6 ppg in 2024, if we match that over the last 9 games, that's 97 points.  No one deserves to criticise a team that amasses 97 points.

Could do when you consider the dominant position we were in... 

[iancognito]

4 hours ago, Lillehamring said:

Our form is not 'poor' - even isolating it to just 2024 results - for a team in the mess we were in, with a rookie manager in a notoriously tough league, to be playing on form to get 69 points is not 'poor'.

 

And realistically, it's only the most recent games where we've struggled, due to a combination of factors (injuries, referees, poor shooting) - and those recent games have been the difference.  before that, from the end of november to the middle of february we took 39 points frpm a possible 48 - that's not 'poor'.  That run has cost us for sure, but over a season, these things even out.  

 

If you look at the 17 game period before the 3 defeats, we have an almost identical record to leeds:  

 

LCFC W12 D3 L2 GD+24 P39

LUFC W12 D2 L3 GD+23 P38

 

So the difference between the two sides is that in the first 15 games we were significantly better than them, whilst in recent games they've been significantly better than us.

 

You can't simply equate the change in points as us dropping points.  It is also about the other teams improving significantly.  The form we had upto game week 26 was so good that it would have been nigh on impossible to keep it up, even if we hadn't lost two of our best players.

 

So, yes our form has dipped, others has peaked - this happens in every league, in every season - and is reason neither to slate the team/club or to panic.

Leeds are just mirroring how we started the season, 12 out of 13 wins. They didn't find any real form til about November. All they've done is catch up their piss poor start to the season when - lets not forget - a few of their social accounts that are now singing Farke's praises were questioning his position and whether the likes of Gnonto and Bamford should be wearing the shirt. I think most people's predictions were for at least 3 of the top four to be up there and now we're at the business end of the season and those sides are up there the bed wetters have stopped having bad dreams about Southampton's form and are having them about Leeds instead.

[Bert]

3 hours ago, Sly said:

If you take the results insolation, then you’re right.

 

However, I’d say we “could” have beaten Leeds, Boro, Hull and Ipswich if we’d have taken our chances. 
 

Football is a funny old game and it changes in an instant, that’s why it’s admitted by the billions, due to its unpredictability, which itself adds excitement. 

You could say the only game we didn’t deserve to win out of any of them is Leeds at home. 

[CosbehFox]

6 hours ago, Lillehamring said:

If you think play off form is bottling it, then you are destined to always be dissatisfied.  What an horrendous and entitled attitude.

 

And if you wouldn't have taken 6th given the mess we  were in, with an unproven manager, a makeshift squad and the most negative home fans in britain then you are either very optimistic, a fantasist or supremely arrogant.

 

No-one outside Leicester would say 6th is a good season. We have the biggest budget in the league. We have internationals from England, Belgium, Portugal, Denmark, Ghana and Nigeria. We have the best training facility in the league, if not top ten in the country. Every bookmaker had us in their top two teams for promotion for a reason. 

 

Leeds and Southampton have had to deal with 'messes' post relegation and manage their squads. Ipswich have done incredibly well with their resources to be in contention. 

 

There's nothing entitled, very optimistic or arrogant to expect a relegated side with the biggest budget in the division to finish in the top two. Even more so that it's apparent the club have gambled heavily on it financially. 

[CosbehFox]

4 hours ago, Sly said:

If you take the results insolation, then you’re right.

 

However, I’d say we “could” have beaten Leeds, Boro, Hull and Ipswich if we’d have taken our chances. 
 

Football is a funny old game and it changes in an instant, that’s why it’s admitted by the billions, due to its unpredictability, which itself adds excitement. 

And if we 'could' defend. 

 

Seems there's ignorance in how poor our defending has become. The goals conceded bar the Ipswich games were shambolic. 

[Pliskin]

6 hours ago, Lillehamring said:

If you think play off form is bottling it, then you are destined to always be dissatisfied.  What an horrendous and entitled attitude.

 

And if you wouldn't have taken 6th given the mess we  were in, with an unproven manager, a makeshift squad and the most negative home fans in britain then you are either very optimistic, a fantasist or supremely arrogant.

This is pure nonsense…. 
 

Anything other than 1st is a failure. Even second is only slightly acceptable.

 

This is the most expensive squad the championship has ever seen. We have players who have no right playing at this level, it’s not arrogant, it’s an expectation, if we don’t finish in the top two, this season would have been an epic disaster, even if we managed to scrape through the play offs. Throwing away a 13 point lead over Leeds and 18 over Ipswich is unacceptable.

 

And your point of makeshift squad isn’t true, the manager chooses to make us makeshift due to his philosophy….. I like Enzo I really do, but if Farke was our manager we’d likely be top on my opinion and probably streets ahead, where we should be. 

[Sol thewall Bamba]

7 hours ago, Lillehamring said:

a makeshift squad

I can't believe what I've just read

 

The revisionism is unmatched.

[Number 6]

7 hours ago, Lillehamring said:

If you think play off form is bottling it, then you are destined to always be dissatisfied.  What an horrendous and entitled attitude.

 

And if you wouldn't have taken 6th given the mess we  were in, with an unproven manager, a makeshift squad and the most negative home fans in britain then you are either very optimistic, a fantasist or supremely arrogant.

Mate this league is dogshit. Look at where the 3 relegated teams sit. Not going up would be a massive failure with the resources we had. Not arrogance, just the realities of the gap between divisions.

 

Running at 2.5ppg and dropping form to 1.5ppg and surrendering a large lead is pretty much the dictionary definition of bottling something...unless you think our actual true level is 1.5ppg.

 

The only real counter to saying we've bottled it at this stage is that the season isn't over. If we rectify the form over the remainder of the season and take 1st the we've bottled nothing.

Edited 19 March 2024 by Number 6

[foxinsox]

7 hours ago, Lillehamring said:

I think this season has proved that it absolutely isn't.

 

Our best run of results came at the start of the season where we played some of our worst football.

The games we've lost, have not generally been games where we've been outplayed, but where we've simply not taken our chances.

 

I've no idea what spurs and arsenal fans were saying, but my thoughts aren't a 'coping mechanism' - i'm simply stepping back from a run of poor results to look at the bigger picture.

One difference between our early games and the later ones is that we used the young wingers more in the first run rather than rely so much on Mavididi and Fatawu. A bit of rotation is going to be needed for 9 games in 37 days.

 

The other thing obviously is that other teams now understand our game plan, in a way that they didn't in the first games. There's not much we can do about that apart from playing different tactics and I can't see Enzo doing that.

[FrankieADZ]

Rowett to be birmingham manager till the end of the season 

[Parker Pen]

If you look back in blocks of 10 matches counting backwards we average 1.7 points per game in the last 10 and 2.4 points per game in the 10’ prior to that! 
 

If we carry on with the same form will give us 97 points, 

 

if we revert back to 2.4 and regain that form the. We get 103 points and just surpass what we achieved with Big Nige.

 

if we get something in the middle I.e 2 points a game we achieve 100 points.

 
Plenty to think about but the main thing is to change that mentality back to pre Christmas and kill teams off when we have the periods in the game that we dominate. Let’s face it we haven’t been totally out of any of the games that we have lost just not taken our chances when we did.  Some of which have come back to haunt us. Vardy and Vestergaard against Boro at home, Daka and Mavadidi at Leeds. We haven’t been ruthless enough so now’s the time to change and start making our own luck a bit more starting with positive substitutions for a start!

[moore_94]

I wonder where they would be if they had just kept Eustace

 

Had them in 6th when he was sacked for Rooney

[Super_horns]

41 minutes ago, moore_94 said:

I wonder where they would be if they had just kept Eustace

 

Had them in 6th when he was sacked for Rooney

They started ok under Mowbray but since he got unwell rather lost their way although were unlucky against us .

[FrankieADZ]

21 minutes ago, Super_horns said:

They started ok under Mowbray but since he got unwell rather lost their way although were unlucky against us .

do you think you'll have much of a chance against Leeds?

[Super_horns]

6 minutes ago, FrankieADZ said:

do you think you'll have much of a chance against Leeds?

Unfortunately not .

 

They will expose our lack of pace or punish us for trying to play out from the back.

 

Same with Ipswich and probably to a lesser extent Southampton.

[jammie82uk]

Opta Predicts 

 

 

Leicester have a game in hand, though, and remain favourites to win the league according to the Opta supercomputer. In the latest round of its simulations of the rest of the 2023-24 Championship campaign, Leicester won the title 58.4% of the time, while Leeds did so 33.1%. That means the weekend’s results reduced Leicester’s title chances by more than 6% and increased Leeds’ by 4.5%.

 

Leicester and Leeds are overwhelming favourites for automatic promotion, though, with their chances of finishing in the top two currently at 87.9% and 78.5%, respectively. Ipswich have a 28.8% chance of sneaking into the top two, and will need Leicester’s poor recent form to continue if they are to overtake them.

Fourth-placed Southampton’s top-two hopes are hanging by a thread now. Nine points off the automatic promotion spots, their chances are now rated at just 4.8%, although having not played at the weekend, they have two games in hand to claw their way back into contention.

[TJB-fox]

Rutter injured for Leeds