Season Predictions 2020-2021

[Hoochie Bloochie Mama]

FourFourTwo have predicted a 12th place finish for Mogga's mid-table maestro's

https://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/championship-table-prediction-2020-2021-season-preview-efl-promotion-play-offs

I hope for better, depending on how the last month and a half of the transfer window pans out. 

[1864roverite]

Relegated 

[JHRover]

Mid table at best. Get stuck in a rut after a poor start and a probable relegation scrap.

I can only count perhaps 5 clubs right now that I would be confident in us finishing above.

There will likely be a few surprise packages up the top end especially with no club spending massively and the short turnaround. We could have been one but so far have failed to address our problems and are weaker in depth than last year.

[Admiral Nelsen]

"more reason to hope than worry" - a pretty good way of summing it up for me, but obviously we're short of a couple of quality defenders before we can really hope. 

[Hoochie Bloochie Mama]

Looking at Norwich's transfers (and i presume they've kept the same manager?) they must be favourites to go back up. They've brought quite a few from abroad in and they normally buy well. 

[K-Hod]

Unless we really sort the defence out, then probably about the same as last year. 

[tomphil]

11th to 13th  going as we are.

An awful lot depends on the pool of 'forwards' whose positions change every few weeks getting a decent goals tally between them because we'll still concede plenty.  A spate of injuries and key men not finding form will see us struggling very badly this season, beware.

Flip side a few good additions and a manageable bill of health could see a place or two better than last season. Unlikely though imo.

No doubt the facebook pages are awash with play off and promotion predictions.

[Mashed Potatoes]

40 minutes ago, Hoochie Bloochie Mama said:

Looking at Norwich's transfers (and i presume they've kept the same manager?) they must be favourites to go back up. They've brought quite a few from abroad in and they normally buy well. 

Losing seems to have become a habit at Norwich - might be difficult to shake off like it was for Huddersfield last season.

[Ossydave]

All hinges on sorting the defence. As it stands we're an injury away from relegation. Solid permanent and a naughty little loan we can be top 6.

[perthblue02]

Mid table , within touching distance of the plays offs and then

[rigger]

Promotion 

[matt83]

Hopefully the keeper is an improvement. But with no Tosin the already leaky defence is worse than last season. So as it stands I can’t see any better than the 10th-15th zone. Wouldn’t take a lot for us to be in a relegation battle.  

But I remain hopeful defenders are coming. 

[roversfan99]

I think it is about fair and would presumably lead to the managers job being incredibly difficult to justify?

Hopefully, an unexpected few bits of real quality will come in and the picture will change.

[Blue blood]

Read ,4-4-2s preview in their magazine. BRFCS got a shout out as the place to get Rovers info from. Had to say I liked what the Rovers fan had to say (anyone on here?) Positive but didn't pull any punches on TMs weaknesses in the striker department (spending or playing them out wide.) 

 As for this season it's very hard to say until the transfer window is done, for us and many clubs as squads can look very different. 

If there are very few additional upgrades then I will go 18th. Lose a key player and it will be lower, gain a couple and it will be 10th. 

[jim mk2]

So here we are, another season about to start and apart from some juniors pressing their claim the defence is still largely the same. 

A new goalkeeper might make a difference but yet again, experienced "target" defenders have signed for other clubs. 

Albert Einstein is credited with saying, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results,"

Why should we end up anywhere but mid-table or lower? 

[MarkBRFC]

At the moment with this squad, I'd predict anywhere between 15th-12th.

Even if we're to sign a couple of good defenders before the window shuts, we still have to trust that  Mowbray can organise and knit the team together to be better than midtable, which I'm not sure that he can.

Edited September 7, 2020 by MarkBRFC

[philipl]

Squad even with the current defensive inadequacies good enough to make top 6.

Mowbray will squander 10 to 20 points net so another standstill season producing points in the range 55-65.

Finish 10th. 

[JHRover]

7 minutes ago, philipl said:

Squad even with the current defensive inadequacies good enough to make top 6.

Mowbray will squander 10 to 20 points net so another standstill season producing points in the range 55-65.

Finish 10th. 

How do you reach that conclusion when a bigger squad with all the same players as now was mid table all last season?

We havent improved other than potentially in goal which remains to be seen. We are undoubtedly weaker in defence which was a problem area last year and have lost depth further up the pitch e.g Graham and Downing. Vast experience and in game know how.

Wycombe, QPR, Rotherham, Luton probably the only clubs that I would have any sort of bet on us finishing above.

[roversfan99]

There is no way that the current squad, which has Amarii Bell as first choice left back and Derrick Williams as one of the first choice (and one of only 2 senior CB's who himself could be about to leave) centre backs, and as @JHRover points out is also missing more than just Adarabioyo from last seasons mid table squad, is a top 6 squad all of a sudden.

[Hasta]

Goals conceded in our last 12 competitive games:-

3 3 1 1 2 3 2 2 1 3 2

That's gong to cripple us, and if we do become more sterile going forward we have big problems.

At least we will have kept a few clean sheets in pre-season playing Blackpool and Fleetwood reserves. ?

Centre-half, left back and striker in and keep everyone fit then top 6.

As it is about 14th or 15th.

 

 

Edited September 7, 2020 by Hasta

[Waggy76]

Unless , 2 championship quality central defenders and a left back are signed ...

Relegation is a realistic possibility.

[JacknOry]

Hinges on whom if anyone we bring in to plug the huge holes in our backline. Post Cunningham, Downing was our best LB (which says a lot on its own) and both are now gone,Tosin was a success and he is now gone too. The young lads at the back do not look like they are ready yet except for I would have Wharton in the squad for backup. We need 2x CB and a LB minimum and they must be of good/top end Championship quality.

With the squad as it is, not sure how anyone can be looking up instead of down. DG, Downing, Cunningham, Tosin all gone. Glad we got a new keeper but he is an unknown quantity as it stands. We could flirt with relegation if we are not careful. 

[Herbie6590]

Here’s the season preview from our good friends @LoftForWords - they reckon 14th, I reckon we need some signings to hit that level...

 

Blackburn 40/1

 

Last Season: One of the oft-returned to stories on the excellent Under The Cosh podcast is the Nottingham Forest squad of 1997/98 renting a flat-bottomed boat to tour the backwaters and canals of Miami Beach as part of a week-long promotion celebration, then ill-advisedly taking to the open seas in it, swiftly capsizing, dumping the city’s supply of canned lager and several very expensive Premier League footballers into the shark-infested Atlantic Ocean, almost drowning non-swimmer Geoff Thomas in the process. That used to be Blackburn. Really bad ideas, recklessly executed, with disastrous results, amidst a lot of arm waving and panic.

In July this year, BBC4 aired an uninterrupted journey down the Kennet and Avon Canal on a narrow boat for two hours straight “featuring the sights and sounds of wildlife and the towpath as the boat passes by”. Channel editor Cassian Harrison described it as “an antidote to the conventional grammar of television in which everything is getting faster and faster”. That’s Blackburn now. Just sort of plodding along down the middle of the road, occasionally winning five out of six (Barnsley, Brentford, Stoke, Derby, Bristol City all vanquished in November) to get the blood moving around a bit and dispel the latent DVT threat, but also equally capable of taking the same set of fixtures in reverse later in the season and winning one from seven. 

They’re like an over parented child. Immediately reined in with a 0-0 draw at home to Wigan and cautioned about “getting a bit carried away” at the mere mention of play-offs – “ooh, somebody’s had a bit too much sugar I think.” But similarly soothed with a nice 3-2 away win at Cardiff just when the season seems to be completely unravelling and shit is starting to be lost – “ooh, somebody’s a bit tired aren't they? Have this Adam Armstong goal from the halfway line. Then bed.”

The campaign was basically over as a contest when Bradley Dack’s knee exploded live on the tellybox two days before Christmas, but it hadn’t really been up to much before that and they drifted through to an eleventh placed finish largely unnoticed bar one 5-0 win at Sheff Wed the brought puzzled glances from the outside world. They do have Lewis Holtby to look at though.

Ins>> Thomas Kaminski, 27, GK, Gent, £450k

Outs >>> Richard Smallwood, 29, CM, Hull, Free >>> Dominic Samuel, 26, CF, Released >>> Danny Graham, 34, CF, Released >>> Sam Hart, 23, LB, Released >>> Jayson Leutwiler, 31, GK, Released

Manager: Tony Mowbray Insert paragraph about him being one of football’s good guys.

This Season: In the same way the Connor Washington transfer caused QPR problems long after the player had failed and moved on, Blackburn are rather hamstrung by the ongoing underperformance of two players who represent significant outlay in the transfer market. Unlike Washington, who was bought from the division below after one hot streak at Peterborough, Ben Brereton and Sam Gallagher looked like reasonable, if rather over-priced, punts having both played well at this level before and, in Gallagher’s case, enjoyed a productive season on loan at Ewood Park. Neither has fired though: Brereton has only started 14 games and come on as a sub that many times again, scoring twice, while Gallagher scored seven times in 44 appearances last season. With Danny Graham’s Indian summer now over it’s left Rovers heavily reliant on the enigmatic Bradley Dack, who they need to come back good and strong from a season ending knee injury, and Adam Armstrong, finally fulfilling his undoubted potential but now being linked with moves back upstairs, even potentially back to boyhood club Newcastle. With the money, some £12m of the money, spent, the Covid-19 pandemic biting into club finances, and FFP limits already being pushed close, new arrivals have been thin on the ground for a squad that looks short. Tony Mowbray really needs more than a couple of those four players to stay, play, and play well if a terminally leaky defence isn’t to get them into a few difficulties in 2020/21. Do like Lewis Travis though.

Local Knowledge: Ian Herbert @IanHerbert @BRFCS.com “Last season ended up being another season of consolidation but it threatened, albeit fleetingly, just before Christmas and once again right after lockdown, to deliver a play-off finale. Instead, all that was on the matt behind the front door was a red & white docket of doom, indicating that as we were out, our package of opportunity had been left with Swansea. A place in the play-offs would have been an incredible achievement, especially given the loss of our talisman, Bradley Dack, for over half a season. But in the end, the combination of a brittle defence and a pair of expensive, goal-shy (wide) strikers resulted in an eleventh-placed finish, four places higher and three points better off than 2019. 

“As is usual, the final league table rarely lies and in this instance, it would have survived the close scrutiny of an enthusiastic prosecution barrister in a court of law. Rovers were not as good as we had hoped, but not as bad as we had sometimes feared. Some notable highs, including a 5-0 victory at Hillsborough were balanced out by some extraordinary lows. Kenilworth Road, for the final game of this extended season, proved the point admirably, as Rovers contrived to lose 3-2; despite Luton registering only a single shot on target during the game. Never change Rovers.

“With Tony Mowbray there are certain phrases, which upon first hearing, sound like compliments but with the benefit of mature reflection, can also be interpreted as being somewhat back-handed. A prime example is “he’s a safe pair of hands”. Solid, stable, reliable, dependable - much like a footballing Volvo estate. Functional, but unlikely to raise the pulse rate significantly or cause an endorphin rush as you run a red light. Mowbray is a safe pair of hands, a decent man of principle, but extraordinarily given his pedigree, seems to have a blind-spot when it comes to organising a defence. His other main weakness seems to be when given unfettered use of the club credit card. The signings of Brereton and Gallagher have rightly cast a shadow over his judgement and it seems will forever influence his enduring legacy. The examination he will face summer is the biggest test of his ability since he came to Rovers and in the Championship, there is no algorithm to rescue his grades. 

“At the time of writing, precious little business has been done, addressing only one of the many gaps in the squad, a new goalkeeper; the Belgian, Thomas Kaminski. Rovers defence at the start of last season consisted of three loanees plus Lenihan & Nyambe. Those two remain (for now) but centre-back, left back, midfield and forward line all are short following the departures of Walton, Adarabioyo, Downing and Graham amongst others. That might mean opportunities for some of our promising youngsters but as a wise pundit once said... In a post-COVID world, Rovers finances have taken a battering and the headline profit & loss numbers indicate that Rovers are sailing close to the FFP wind. If anyone from Derby or Sheffield fancies buying some prime East Lancashire real-estate for say, £80m and leasing it back on a peppercorn rent, please make yourselves known at reception on Nuttall Street.

“We have only one senior goalkeeper and he is new to English football; we have only two “regular” centre backs (& we are trying to sell one of those to Swansea), one left back (we signed a loanee last season to replace him, until the self-same loanee got injured and returned to his parent club) so you might say that our defence is threadbare but in reality, it’s not as strong as that. Unless we complete a shopping spree as manic as a lackadaisical husband rushing round the perfume counter at Selfridges at 15.00 on Christmas Eve, it seems highly likely that our goals against column will define our season. We have collected midfielders under Mowbray, hopefully we can assemble three or four in some combination to provide adequate service to our expensive strikeforce. At some point in the opening couple of months, Bradley Dack’s return will be hailed as being “like a new signing” and the midfield will remain our crowning glory. Adam Armstrong though, now there’s a little diamond.

“Based on the current squad at time of writing, I’d shake hands on seventeenth right now. One can only assume that at least two defenders and a midfielder will arrive before deadline day and dependent upon their quality, that prediction can be revised upwards.”

What we said last season: Fourteenth. Actually finished eleventh.

Prediction: Fourteenth-ish again. Personally I much preferred this lot when they were chucking live roosters at each other.

Edited September 8, 2020 by Herbie6590
Loft For Words admitted factual error ?

[Hoochie Bloochie Mama]

Good read. Wasn't aware of the Dulux thing. 

[Herbie6590]

15 minutes ago, Hoochie Bloochie Mama said:

Good read. Wasn't aware of the Dulux thing. 

Me neither....so I asked....?