Are Div. 3 teams really that bad?

[Chairman of the Bored]

I've seen quite a bit of footy at this level as I go to watch Bournemouth with mate when I can't get to City matches or they don't coincide. By and large the standard has always been pretty decent. Donny last year were a prime example of a team that passed its way out of the Division. Bournemouth always tried to play football (except under Pulis which was bish bash bosh a la Stoke now); it was only the Administrators that castrated them last year.

However, any side with a decent goal scorer will do well. That's why Oldham, Brighton, Leeds, Carlisle and us will finish near the top. Of course, you also need to be lucky with injuries as squads deplete pretty quickly in these parts (although loans have become the saving grace).

At the end of the day, football always wins out, unless you have an "exceptional" long ball team (cf Wimbledon of old, Watford of 3 years ago). Let's hope Pearson keeps us "playing football" and we pass our way back to the Championship.

[act smiley]

Its a noticably lower standard - while teams usually try the right things they often can't pull them off, but its not so low as to deserve the kind of comments that have been on some threads here. The defending does seem a lot more last-ditch than the tight marking of the Championship.

The thing with the championship is that any match we were involved in turned into a pile of crap - watching some other matches the standard of play was a fair bit higher, so I wouldn't say that its quite as good.

[Lovejoy]

We've had a good start, but there are 43 games left. We will have bad patches this season, it's how we react to defeats that counts. The opposition aren't fantastic, but are capable of springing unwelcome surprises on their day.