Opposition looking stronger

[bathlad61]

After looking at the last two pre-season squads, my god, how lightweight ( quality & numbers ) we appear in most areas, ( apart from midfield ). Things have to improve rapidly.
The biggest concern seems to be, the way most of the clubs who were top ten last year, already improving & strengthening their squads, the likes of Derby, Sheff Utd, Norwich, Forest.
Add to these, the three who came down, decent squads all ready + parachute payments, and one or two dark horses, who just build slowly, on paper the task of top six, looks tough.

[klix]

Its been the same for the last 10 years

[Rev72]

My expectations at this stage given what we have done in the transfer window are very low..just hoping that there will be 3/4 additions to make us stronger and more competitive.

IF we are as you were come the start of the season then its a mid to lower table season written all over it and that is just not good enough for a club like ours.

Think Rotherham doing the double on us again may just send the Rev over the edge

[Tichi1]

TBH Rev, If we can get a player out of Klitch, get Roberts playing to hi potential, gt Baker and Foreshaw playing as expected, see Ayling at center back with Philips now playing as a defender.... Get Sai under control and Hernandez and Alioski 10% better...De Bock looking like the plyer we thought we'd recruited but who lost total confidence in that dreadful run just after Christmas..
A decent choice of keepers, and a work ethic not seen in many a year...
Bring in just a couple more signings

Could look a very different team to the one that finished last season IMO

[Jezleeds]

After looking at the last two pre-season squads, my god, how lightweight ( quality & numbers ) we appear in most areas, ( apart from midfield ). Things have to improve rapidly.
The biggest concern seems to be, the way most of the clubs who were top ten last year, already improving & strengthening their squads, the likes of Derby, Sheff Utd, Norwich, Forest.
Add to these, the three who came down, decent squads all ready + parachute payments, and one or two dark horses, who just build slowly, on paper the task of top six, looks tough.

Seen the news about Aston Villa today, to add to that?

[Rev72]

TBH Rev, If we can get a player out of Klitch, get Roberts playing to hi potential, gt Baker and Foreshaw playing as expected, see Ayling at center back with Philips now playing as a defender.... Get Sai under control and Hernandez and Alioski 10% better...De Bock looking like the plyer we thought we'd recruited but who lost total confidence in that dreadful run just after Christmas..
A decent choice of keepers, and a work ethic not seen in many a year...
Bring in just a couple more signings

Could look a very different team to the one that finished last season IMO

Hope your right pal..hope your right.

Just expected more on the transfer front tich..maybe we will have a couple of late quality signings but surely if you are a serious contender you get your business done early doors for obvious reasons.

We'll see what develops over the next few weeks....

[joellufcprice]

TBH Rev, If we can get a player out of Klitch, get Roberts playing to hi potential, gt Baker and Foreshaw playing as expected, see Ayling at center back with Philips now playing as a defender.... Get Sai under control and Hernandez and Alioski 10% better...De Bock looking like the plyer we thought we'd recruited but who lost total confidence in that dreadful run just after Christmas..
A decent choice of keepers, and a work ethic not seen in many a year...
Bring in just a couple more signings

Could look a very different team to the one that finished last season IMO

Even if Klich, Forshaw and Baker all turn out great we've got 6 of them for 2 positions essentially as Phillips is still a centre mid, he might be a deep lying one but he won't be used as a centre back (and if he is we are ****ed)

We are basically at moment praying on miracles as this squad is not in a million years capable of achieving anything, it is too sparse and not enough quality. As it stands our team is worse than last year imo

[WTF11]

Even if Klich, Forshaw and Baker all turn out great we've got 6 of them for 2 positions essentially as Phillips is still a centre mid, he might be a deep lying one but he won't be used as a centre back (and if he is we are ****ed)

We are basically at moment praying on miracles as this squad is not in a million years capable of achieving anything, it is too sparse and not enough quality. As it stands our team is worse than last year imo

Can't quite make out how the squad is worse than last year? We have shipped out some truly poor players, recruited a (supposedly), world class coach, brought in another GK from a PL side and one of their outfield players too, sold none of the players who were actually any good, so....how worse than the squad as finished the end of last season?

It's not perfect, neither is it the end of the world, yet

[joellufcprice]

Can't quite make out how the squad is worse than last year? We have shipped out some truly poor players, recruited a (supposedly), world class coach, brought in another GK from a PL side and one of their outfield players too, sold none of the players who were actually any good, so....how worse than the squad as finished the end of last season?

It's not perfect, neither is it the end of the world, yet

It is worse because we don't even have a squad as it stands, we have the same team as last year + two unproven loan players.

[Silentman]

Can't quite make out how the squad is worse than last year? We have shipped out some truly poor players, recruited a (supposedly), world class coach, brought in another GK from a PL side and one of their outfield players too, sold none of the players who were actually any good, so....how worse than the squad as finished the end of last season?

It's not perfect, neither is it the end of the world, yet

WTF don't forget what our stats looked like in the second half of last season, if we hadn't got off to such a good start last year we'd possibly be starting this season in League 1, so last seasons team isn't a very good yardstick to start with. I know they didn't add an awful lot be we are without Lasogga and Pennington from that team; we've loaned out the promising O'Connor. We've added a keeper but consensus was BPF did a pretty good job and had enough promise to start this season - so let's call that zero sum gain in adding Blackman. We've also added Baker. Hernandez is another year older, another year slower. So on the whole I'd say Joel's right, as we sit here today the team is worse than it was last season and last season wasn't anything to write home about.