Who will be relegated from the Championship this season?

[Left Footer]

Yeovil, Barnsley and Sheffield Wednesday

 

[Thunder Bolt]

It's easier to stop a defence conceding than it is to get a strikeforce scoring though. Our defence is reasonable. I certainly wouldn't say it was anywhere near as good as it was last season and it's far too old, but it's the least of our problems right now. However, how can anyone get that team/those players scoring? I'm far from convinced Leroy Lita is the answer. His record suggests he'll get three goals for us by the new year. And we have nobody else likely to score. 11 goals in 12 games is pitiful and now we don't even have the man who got four of them.

I'd actually be much happier if we were scoring and conceding plenty, because at least any half-decent manager would be able to tighten the defence.

Kuszczak has already said he wants a new contract. I hope that is sorted out before January, as he is out of contract at the end of the season, and we could easily lose him in the next transfer window. If we lost him, then our defence would be shattered.

 

[CheeseRolls]

Absolutely. I don't know why we seem to allow contracts to run down so often. Finding a replacement of Kuszczak's quality would cost us just as much as we're paying him in wages and, unless we found someone on a free, in excess of £1m as a transfer fee. Retaining him is a must.

However, the rest of the defence needs to be broken up. Greer, Bruno, Upson and Calderon are all getting on, and El Abd isn't going to get any better now. It's okay to have one or two older heads, but an entire defence the wrong side of 30 is simply the result of poor planning. It's time to invest in some decent defenders in their mid-20s.

Doesn't FFP suggest that the value of players is in fact dropping at championship level ? Unless you are a hot prospect under 24, new deals could be less generous from now on in.

 

[Trigger]

Yeovil
Barnsley
Middlesbrough

Or

Yeovil
Barnsley
Brighton (if we keep failing to score goals)

 

[Ernest]

Yeovil
Barnsley
Middlesbrough

Or

Yeovil
Barnsley
Brighton (if we keep failing to score goals)

Looks like Mowbray on the way out

 

[sparkie]

Yeovil
Wednesday
Millwall

 

[Paris]

Yeovil
Sheffield Wednesday
Charlton

 

[glasfryn]

phishing exercise
just hope its not us!

 

[Geriatric Seagull]

Sadly, based on current form, we won't be far off. It's alright putting so much faith in our injured players but they won't all return at once nor is there a guarantee that they will all hit top form straight away.

 

[Lifelong Supporter]

Offering such a worthless and thoughtless comment suggests you're Exhibit A in the 'I've got my head in the sand' brigade.

No just actually telling it as it is. Perhaps you do not like the mirror.

 

[Rugrat]

Yeovil, Wednesday, Birmingham

In fact I don't really care as long as it's not us, the longer term damage could be huge

I know most think as soon as we get our injured back we'll be OK my fear is that none of us really know. We're just assuming OG will get the team firing again but I'm not so sure ... history is littered with many good Managers that have "failed"

 

[LamieRobertson]

Yeovil on Saturdays showing and I guess there ability to strengthen there squad on such meagre crowds..,who else? Far to early to say

 

[BHAWise]

We won't be anywhere near the drop zone at the end of the season. Have people forgotten some of the dreadful performances last year. When Orlandi comes back we will start scoring. It will be like 2 new signings as Lopez shines when Orlandi plays. A fit lita/ulloa/cms/plus one more loan striker= goals. Look at reading a few years back they were awful upto Christmas

 

[Goldstone1976]

I don't know why we seem to allow contracts to run down so often.

Maybe because the club think that most of the players won't make the grade in the PL and don't want to have lots of long term contracts with players of Championship quality?

 

[theonesmith]

Absolutely. A Gus team without Ulloa, Orlandi and Bridcutt would still have played a lot better than we are now and would still have beaten a terrible Yeovil team on Saturday. People have blinkers on if they think our problems are all down to the injuries. They are not. We have become a poor team with no style and no discernible game plan. Of course having Orlandi and Ulloa in a team will improve it, but the team they return to will be in awful form, near the bottom of the table, extremely low on confidence and unable to score goals. They will provide an initial boost, but thinking everything will be fine once they're back is foolish. They could just as easily be sucked into the poor play we are now producing in every single match.

Also, we could be 18th on Saturday night and these players are still MONTHS away from returning. If you think the situation is bad now, imagine it after another four or five defeats. God knows what the league table will look like when these players are finally back in December or January.

Just like the Gus side (with relative strength considering injuries) beat Bristol City away last season yeah? Oh wait.. We didn't even have a shot in that game did we?

 

[Ernest]

It only takes TK to get injured and it's a different ball game and even our aging defence could be find it hard to sustain form through the season, once we start shipping goals it will be game over

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Just like the Gus side (with relative strength considering injuries) beat Bristol City away last season yeah? Oh wait.. We didn't even have a shot in that game did we?

We had no strikers for the majority of that game on an awful pitch. Barnes was taken ill in the afternoon, and CMS snapped his achilles in the game because his studs stuck in the pitch.
Within two weeks we beat Palace 3-0. Good games and bad games. All managers have them. It's when bad games are becoming consistent that relegation fears arise.

 

[Tricky Dicky]

Too early to even have a guess. Anything can happen. Re-ask come January.

 

[c0lz]

Yeovil
Sheff Wed

Would also make my day if Bolton went down.