EFL League 1 Team of the year | Page 2 | Vital Football

EFL League 1 Team of the year

Christ, we have four players in the team of the year (would have been five if not for ineligibility) and seems to be a lot of negativity.

Personally I feel, although it wouldn't be comfortable, we'd stay in the Championship with this squad and current manager/coaching team. Sheff Utd are knocking on the play off door, as are millwall and neither have really splashed the cash, certainly not the latter. Knob end came up a few years back and haven't really invested yet are comfortable. Even bolton look like staying up and are f**king awful. Last season we were burdened by some shit, out of their depth managers. Keep Cook - whose managerial record suggests his teams don't become embroiled in relegation battles and we'll be absolutely fine. However let's just enjoy the ride in trying to get there first.
 
How about we worry about next season when this one finishes eh? I'm pretty sure the people in charge know what needs to be done in the summer. Just enjoy this season. If you can.
 
moonay - 4/4/2018 13:52

C_Latic - 4/4/2018 13:40. ................. Oh and most importantly, give our best players new contracts for a change rather than selling them.
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So who have we sold recently who we should have retained ?

Aside from Morsy when we went up last time (and even that failed), I can't for a second think who you're talking about. Jason Pearce ?

You really do search hard to find the negative in things, don't you.
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Yanic Wildschut and that decision took us down.
 
Pretty sure we had four players in TOTS two years ago (Perks, Morgan, Grigg, Jacobs)? That went well! The gap is vast regardless of other teams’ success. Millwall have a home crowd like Pompey who win points off the back of their home atmosphere and refs/away players being intimidated. I’m not surprised they’ve done well. Every opposition team comes to the DW and it’s basically a home game. Eight home wins in two Championship seasons say it all. I agree that Cook will give us a great chance to survive, but if we tie his hands by selling his best players then he may jump ship and we’ll be heading back down again.
 
Understand you and other fans thinking that TB, but I can’t help but think otherwise. We had finally managed to string a few results together that January with Morsy’s return and Yanic as always a huge threat. We’d just broke out the relegation zone. Yanic proved that he could win us points on his own (Huddersfield away) and Yootha was getting the best out of him whether it be on the wing or up top. We may have gone down either way, but I can’t help but thinking with Yanic, we’d have culminated enough extra points to be safe. Once we lost him, the goals dried up and that was it.
 
Combination of Caldwell,Joyce and Barrow took us down,we had players well capable of keeping us in that league.
 
C_Latic - 4/4/2018 15:26
Yanic Wildschut and that decision took us down.
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We were offered absolutely silly money for him ............. and what has he done since ?

Also, that was hardly a club decision...........didn't he want out?
 
Hardly silly money in todays market.

Apparently 4m upfront 3m in add ons. Of the 4m, 1m went to Middlesbrough as a sell on fee, we signed Yanic for 600k 12 months earlier. So we made a net profit of 2.4m, hardly inspiring enough to panic sell the player, who after a poor start from November to January, was single handedly winning us games and lifted us out of the bottom 3.

Club could have not released the transfer request to the media and promised to sell him in the Summer, yeah he'd have probably sulked for a short while but I'm sure in order to get a Summer move he'd have soon been firing on all cylinders. Reckon if he kept is form up, he might even have been picked up by a lower end Premier League club, someone with pace and power is a great asset when on form.

We lost 6m in income by going down so a net loss of 3.6m for the club. I do believe he would have kept us up given how poor the teams just above us were.

That being said it would also have kept Joyce in the job, and probably relegated us this season instead. His training methods had us picking up so many soft tissue injuries so Powell wouldn't have played much this season.

As long as we get promoted and keep the squad and management then it will probably have been for the best in hindsight but at the time selling Yanic was definitely stupid and if we did slip up this season the decision would be even worse.

Yanic was frozen out by Norwich as soon as they realised promotion was beyond them, due to only spending 1 season in the top flight they get just 1 seasons parachute payments and their outgoings are massively above the income they'll get next season without the payments, so have been forced to cut their costs. It's why they also sold Alex Pritchard in January. They can't afford to pay us an of the additional installments.
 
C_Latic - 4/4/2018 15:34

Pretty sure we had four players in TOTS two years ago (Perks, Morgan, Grigg, Jacobs)? That went well! The gap is vast regardless of other teams’ success. Millwall have a home crowd like Pompey who win points off the back of their home atmosphere and refs/away players being intimidated. I’m not surprised they’ve done well. Every opposition team comes to the DW and it’s basically a home game. Eight home wins in two Championship seasons say it all. I agree that Cook will give us a great chance to survive, but if we tie his hands by selling his best players then he may jump ship and we’ll be heading back down again.
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Clutching at straws there. Millwall averaged less than 2 points a game at home last season and only half fill the stadium. Pompeys home form is awful. Bradford another packed out stadium with one of the better atmospheres have the worst home form. Shrewsbury with small crowds and no atmosphere have the best home form. So we can't use a half full, quiet stadium as an excuse for our disappointing home form.

Teams generally win because they're more organised, work hard and do the important things right, if you have a bit of quality as well then you're on to a winner, but there's a lot of weak sides punching well above their weight this season in the Championship, with the likes of Hull, Sheff Wed and Sunderland struggling despite having much larger budgets and better squads because their managers were a shambles and they under performed on the pitch.

A few Millwall fans shouting nasty things hasn't got them lots of wins it's because they have an excellent manager and coaching set up, are a very well organised, hard working, fit side that are playing with confidence. Exactly everything we lacked last season and we had a much better squad of players.
 
I'm talking about the Championship Northern Soul not League One. I think it's safe to say Millwall fans have been far more up for it this season than last season in L1. Even opposition players and management all call it the most intimidating place to go and I think they'd know better than us. I agree with you in terms of how teams like Millwall are winning (organisation, hard working etc) but you're wrong if you don't think a good home crowd makes any difference, I learnt that lesson Monday night when Pompey's deafening home support won them a penalty and got their players over the line in that second half. Compare that to our eight wins in 46 Championship home games in a vastly empty stadium with only two blocks of home fans making any attempt to support the team, compared to normally a 4 figure away support.

Moonay, regarding Wildschut, I'm pretty sure we'd have earned more than double what he got for him from Norwich had we stayed up. He put in a transfer request but had we held our nerve and not sold him, he's have withdrawn it and apologised in a flash. He basically admitted it in an interview after the move, not a chance he'd have wasted 6 months of his career sitting in the reserves because his move didn't come off. He'd have simply tried his bollocks off for us until May, then go in the summer.

Our three managers were both complete failures but I still disagree in terms of all the players being good enough to stay up, a quick summary tells me this:

Keepers: This for me was the absolute killer. Two were shite, one was over the hill and the only good one wasn't allowed to play due to the genius playtime clause. To think, Caldwell was offered Angus Gunn on loan by Man City in the summer and turned them down because he wanted Bogdan instead.

Defenders: Warnock and Buxton were both past it, proved it at Burton and Warnock is already back in League One. Morgan wasn't good enough for that level. Didn't have a solid right back all season bar that Hanson and Connolly. Burn did very well but also has never played for a Championship team not fighting relegation.

Midfielders: David Perkins was a regular starter despite two successive Championship relegations. Max Power and Michael Jacobs both weren't up to standard at that level. Powell was unfortunately never fully fit for virtually the whole season. Morsy only came back in January. Without Powell we had virtually no goals from midfield none from Power/Perkins and was it one from MacDonald?

Forwards: Grigg was never fully fit but also struggled with the step up. Lacked pace and height to trouble imposing Championship defenders and the goals dried up. He'll do better next season though I fancy. Less said about Obertan the better. Many people seem to think Bogle was crap. Yanic was out best player by a mile, won us points on his own and we sold him in January.

Imagine having Yanic against Notts Forest, Blackburn and Bristol City. Eight more points I'd have fancied us to get with Yanic in the team against them. It's water under the bridge but it won't stop me thinking, what if.
 
Bogle never got a chance with us. Like a long list of strikers going back to Jason Scotland forced to play without a strike partner or decent support. One exception Will Grigg and half our fans slag him off.
 
"Burn did very well but also has never played for a Championship team not fighting relegation."

Lots of points made previously, but this particular comment is well wide of the mark ?

Dan Burn started poorly in the 2016/2017 pre season (Macclesfield being a case in point), had a poor initial start to the season with the gaffes but improved as the season progressed ... he has stated the reasons why he thought it took time for him to settle. Initially scapegoated by the chairman's genius (he blames football experts now for the choice of said buffoon) managerial signing.

He also happened to play for Fulham back in 2014/2015 when Fulham were struggling under Felix Magath. Magath was then sacked and replaced by Kit Symons ... They were in 20th place for Gary Caldwell's first game (2-2) at Craven Cottage. Ended the season in 17th place.

He did happen to have a top notch performance against Wigan in the 3-3 draw at the DW earlier in that season.

Totally agree about the Yanic leaving comment though .... effectively pushing the club towards relegation. Whittle made a comment (at the time) about the awful January 2017 transfer window .... what a waste (almost) all of those were.

That ex united muppet's training methods have also been mentioned .... speaking late last year to a former employee "at times the training methods and tactics resembled, something right out of the dinosaur age".
 
C_Latic - 4/4/2018 22:41

I'm talking about the Championship Northern Soul not League One. I think it's safe to say Millwall fans have been far more up for it this season than last season in L1. Even opposition players and management all call it the most intimidating place to go and I think they'd know better than us. I agree with you in terms of how teams like Millwall are winning (organisation, hard working etc) but you're wrong if you don't think a good home crowd makes any difference, I learnt that lesson Monday night when Pompey's deafening home support won them a penalty and got their players over the line in that second half. Compare that to our eight wins in 46 Championship home games in a vastly empty stadium with only two blocks of home fans making any attempt to support the team, compared to normally a 4 figure away support.

Moonay, regarding Wildschut, I'm pretty sure we'd have earned more than double what he got for him from Norwich had we stayed up. He put in a transfer request but had we held our nerve and not sold him, he's have withdrawn it and apologised in a flash. He basically admitted it in an interview after the move, not a chance he'd have wasted 6 months of his career sitting in the reserves because his move didn't come off. He'd have simply tried his bollocks off for us until May, then go in the summer.

Our three managers were both complete failures but I still disagree in terms of all the players being good enough to stay up, a quick summary tells me this:

Keepers: This for me was the absolute killer. Two were shite, one was over the hill and the only good one wasn't allowed to play due to the genius playtime clause. To think, Caldwell was offered Angus Gunn on loan by Man City in the summer and turned them down because he wanted Bogdan instead.

Defenders: Warnock and Buxton were both past it, proved it at Burton and Warnock is already back in League One. Morgan wasn't good enough for that level. Didn't have a solid right back all season bar that Hanson and Connolly. Burn did very well but also has never played for a Championship team not fighting relegation.

Midfielders: David Perkins was a regular starter despite two successive Championship relegations. Max Power and Michael Jacobs both weren't up to standard at that level. Powell was unfortunately never fully fit for virtually the whole season. Morsy only came back in January. Without Powell we had virtually no goals from midfield none from Power/Perkins and was it one from MacDonald?

Forwards: Grigg was never fully fit but also struggled with the step up. Lacked pace and height to trouble imposing Championship defenders and the goals dried up. He'll do better next season though I fancy. Less said about Obertan the better. Many people seem to think Bogle was crap. Yanic was out best player by a mile, won us points on his own and we sold him in January.

Imagine having Yanic against Notts Forest, Blackburn and Bristol City. Eight more points I'd have fancied us to get with Yanic in the team against them. It's water under the bridge but it won't stop me thinking, what if.
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In fairness C, a decent analysis of last season.
 
OnLoanfromEnfield - 4/4/2018 23:20


Totally agree about the Yanic leaving comment though .... effectively pushing the club towards relegation. Whittle made a comment (at the time) about the awful January 2017 transfer window .... what a waste (almost) all of those were.

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Aye and got derided for it at the time. It was patently obvious but I think some get seduced by quantity rather than identifying whether the individuals can improve the team and provide it balance. Two strikers for half season is shameful mismanagement. Cynic in me thinks the heirachy brought the numbers in to fool the masses to deflect any criticism from selling out only real attacking asset and condemning us to the drop. It was just a catalogue of errors from loaning out Morsy to loaning in bogged down. to hiring an idiot and assembling an imbalanced squads and everything in between.
 
Isn't hindsight a wonderful thing.... If only we had a Manager and Chair who had the benefit of this up front, who knows they may be even better at the job than some of the fans
 
jeffs right said:
Bogle never got a chance with us. Like a long list of strikers going back to Jason Scotland forced to play without a strike partner or decent support. One exception Will Grigg and half our fans slag him off.
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Bogle didn’t get a chance because he’s not good enough. Moved to Cardiff, who quickly shipped him out to Peterborough. He’s not in the team there. Not good enough!
 
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