Up or down more likely?

Town are 10/1 to get promoted at 10/1 to get relegated. Hand on heart which is the best bet? Bear in mind that 2 sides go down and 4 from 7 go up. We spent most of last season in 14th place, we are currently 13th place on alphabetical order!

up!

I really cant see us getting relegated, there are more than enough worse teams in the league for us to be safe. So for me more likely to go up.

I feel a bit twitchy about it in all honesty. Worry that we feel we may be quite dependent on a midfielder playing up front for our goals. Also very aware that the season doesn't start for another month and plenty of time to get another striker in. Think the odds are about right.

I may regret this but I can't see anyway we will be relegated.

I'd say we have a better squad now than at the end of last season when we finished in good play off form.  

Definitely top 10, should challenge for play offs.  Higher if RS finishes off with 2-3 good signings and gets the team playing to potential

We certainly have enough quality as it is without anymore additions (except a left back). However, we will need those additions to make us a promotion prospect, so we certainly have more potential to be a promotion side than a relegation one.

There were times last season when I thought we were crap, and there were other times I thought we were top 7 material. At the moment we have the remnants of two manager's players, plus a sprinkling of newcomers. It could go either way, we'll know after the first two or three games which way it's likely to go.

I feel like being a good organised team is enough for play offs, without having to be particularly eye catching. And i feel Slade will achieve this.

In Slade and Wilko we've got a management duo that are undeniably better than Hurst/Doig and Bignot/Moore. So for me, the signs point to us doing better than we did last season.

The thing is, Bogle played such a huge part in any successes we had last season. I don't think we're going to replace him as we have more goals spread through the team now, but we obviously still need a striker.

I'd disagree that Slade/Wilkie are better than Hurst and Doig, who has more promotions to their name? Who is managing in a higher league? Therefore I reckon we'll be in the 10th to 15th part of the league again, unless he can sign a couple of gems.

Personally I would think we are a little behind where we would ideally be.
Therefore I think the January transfer window will determine our season.
I can't even begin to think that we would go down.
Unfortunately I think we have to write last season off in terms of the club progressing forward.
So once again I will look for a mid table to pushing for play offs. Anything above will be a bonus.
Happy for a couple more signings to prove me wrong !!

Quoted from Mariner_09

I'd disagree that Slade/Wilkie are better than Hurst and Doig, who has more promotions to their name? Who is managing in a higher league? Therefore I reckon we'll be in the 10th to 15th part of the league again, unless he can sign a couple of gems.

we don't need a couple of gems.

We look to have built a good solid team throughout, which is better than 1/2 'gems'

Quoted from Mariner_09

I'd disagree that Slade/Wilkie are better than Hurst and Doig, who has more promotions to their name? Who is managing in a higher league? Therefore I reckon we'll be in the 10th to 15th part of the league again, unless he can sign a couple of gems.

OK, maybe 'undeniably' was a bit strong. I was a fan of Hursty and gutted when he left....time will tell whether he reaches the Championship like Slade, but at the moment you just can't compensate for his experience...promotion or no promotion.

All it takes is a run of consistency. Not got to have the best team in the league but if you work together and work hard as a team then results will follow.

Quoted from GrimRob

There were times last season when I thought we were crap, and there were other times I thought we were top 7 material. At the moment we have the remnants of two manager's players, plus a sprinkling of newcomers. It could go either way, we'll know after the first two or three games which way it's likely to go.

I very much doubt that. 2 or 3 games is nothing to base a season on surely?

Try as i might, i just cannot get excited at the team as we stand. I'm not a huge fan of Slade but accept that he is about as good a manager as we could hope for in our position, seeing as he has a lot of experience higher up the leagues. He will get my support as all managers do but......

The signings so far don't really get the juices flowing, but to be honest i don't have any idea what is a good or bad signing at the level we are at, so it's a wait and see approach from me. I've been waiting for years for a manager to come in and get the team and fans galvanised like a McMenemy or a Buckley did, but every passing year just seems to be more of the same middling stuff with the odd bit of excitement.

Last season was a bit of a damp squib after the joy of winning at Wembley and getting back into the league, and it was soon back to the stuttering stop start routine, on and off the pitch, with managers and players changing by the month; we never seem to get it right for any prolonged period. Slade feels more like a safe pair of hands appointment to me, than anything thrilling, and i don't think we will be in danger at the wrong end of the table, but i'm not so sure we will be any better off than we were with the 2 previous managers. I thought Biggy showed great potential, but scared off too many fans and ultimately the board. As ever i'll go into the new season with a suck it and see approach and hope it's our time again. God knows we've waited long enough.

Solid and consistent will go along way in this Division, 3 managers and virtually two squads didnt help either of those things last season so ....unless we have a terrible start, ie about 10 points by November then i dont see the board firing anybody this season, we should have at least have a settled set up.
Reduced squad numbers will help reduce the temptation on meddling and if Mcallister is ready to go and Rose fulfills his potential then there is a solid looking centre mid in there, again something we havnt totally had last season.

A slightly improved position in my mind will be the most likely outcome and it then comes down to the goal scoring form to turn that into promotion potential.

GrimRob
There were times last season when I thought we were crap, and there were other times I thought we were top 7 material. At the moment we have the remnants of two manager's players, plus a sprinkling of newcomers. It could go either way, we'll know after the first two or three games which way it's likely to go.


the first 2/3 games don't determine a season or give a good idea of where we are likely to go..I'd say around Christmas we'll have more idea

Mid-table last season.  Just for reference, the last 2 Premiership winners finished 12th and 14th the season before each win.  Leicester and Chelsea.

So any success is possible. We do not even need to finish top to go up.

A well set out team, with players in correct positions, with fixed formations, who actually pass to each other rather than opponents, and who are fit to last 90 minutes on a consistent basis to keep a familiar line up from match to match will survive in this league.

If all of the above happen, and we can also keep goals against down, and return to fortress Blundell Park after several missing years, then the top 7 could be very realistic.

10 less goals let in or ten more goals scored last season would have been a huge difference to where we ended up.

If both of those had been achieved, then we would have had 28 more points in the bag - so sometimes the boring 1-0 wins we all hated under Hurst actually make some sense for points gathering.

How many times did fans go home thinking we had been robbed by a team blocking everything, grabbing a goal then setting up the brick wall against us ???

We were suckered several times by cleverer managers and their game plans !! If fans on here can see it, why couldn't either previous manager ?

Last season the thing that stood out more than anything was the total lack of consistency I am hoping Slade and Wilco will address this positively of course.

I'd be a bit (well, a lot) happier if we had signed a good left-back by now as the defence would then be pretty well-set. Also, the squad is still missing a striker though whether the triallist is the type we need, I don't know.

Hopefully, the apparent increase in athleticism in the squad will help us this season. We really were a very slow team for much of last year and more pace in midfield and attack should be a great help.

I realise that some of the signings in the close season are a little underwhelming for some, but I think we need to remember that the mid-season signings were in general pretty decent (the ones who are still with us, I mean) so it seems probable that we'll start the season with a better squad this year than last year, Bogle and Andrew aside. You'd have to say that the new midfield options we have appear a lot better than the Berret/Summerfield combo we saw for a good bit of last season.

I'm feeling slightly underwhelmed to be honest but hope its misplaced. The bookies odds I saw last week suggested bottom third and unless we secure a decent striker they may be right.

More likely up but I'd say were still a few jigsaw pieces away from being serious challengers to the top seven.

Relegation is out of the question. In this division, with just two places, you have to be an epically shite team to go down

What are the odds based upon? Last season where we had a newly promoted manager who cobbled together his first EFL squad and then was replaced by one who destroyed it in favor of a 1 - 9 -1 formation?

Up BTW!

More up than down. I think. I hope.