Quote Originally Posted by Robertomac View Post
Comparing the standard of one division to another is almost impossible. I watched all the playoff games and thought the standard in L1 and L2 was pretty poor. I'm probably living in fantasy land but thought that we look a much better side than all the teams I saw. In some respects, certain teams looked more like my perception of a non-league team if you'd asked me 5 years ago - lots of knocking it long into the channels and no-nonsense defending.

The only thing I keep thinking is that we managed to finish 5th under Nolan in L2 having been in the automatic spots for much of the season. That team was pretty dreadful really and got to within 2 games of promotion. I remember when we were top of the league and winning games, I never thought we looked the part - polar opposite to this season, Munto and Big Sam.
It’s a good point about the Nolan playoff season and the question we could ask is whether this team is better or not than that one? The style of football is certainly a lot different but what it was is effective at that time.

For years people used to say that you couldn’t progress in the lower leagues or even non league playing “pretty” football without the physicality that those leagues demanded. The Cowleys at Lincoln were probably the last to adopt the traditional lower league style and do it well. It brought them success as a result.

I think the culture is changing in this country and we are starting to appreciate good football and also it is being proven that if you can play a good style of football in the lower leagues then it can be successful.

Doncaster at one point were referred to as the lower league Arsenal when they rose up to the championship.

I don’t expect us to turn up to league two and be in the top three. It would be foolish, arrogant and disrespectful to the league we are going into. There will be tougher challenges ahead but based on Stockport I don’t think it’s unrealistic to think depending on who stays and who comes in that a top ten finish would be out of reach.