Ups & Downs 23/24

[Sutekh]

Given the last few years I'm not sure we should really be lolling at clubs with batshit mental owners seemingly intent on screwing the club into the ground.
That said, £3 billion? Just how could a stadium cost that much unless you're using it for money laundering purposes?

Tottenham's stadium cost £1 billion so three times the cost of that????

Admittedly, there's buying the land, and if it's the land I think it is there'll need decontaminating and completely new infrastructure, but I can't see it being anywhere near that cost.

Spurs already owned much of that land, given that their new stadium was built on the old White Hart Lane site, which probably limited their cost a bit but £3bn in Birmingham is way OTT I'd say - unless they're including hotels, entertainment complex and a small airport in the design.

[Dirk Gently]

For further context, Everton's stadium is costing £500M - although I suspect it may have gone up a bit since then. So £3B is just a ridiculous estimate.

[Winston Biscuit]

Disappointed with Aldershot's recent collapse. Would have very much been cheering them on in the play offs

[WestYorksRoyal]

For further context, Everton's stadium is costing £500M - although I suspect it may have gone up a bit since then. So £3B is just a ridiculous estimate.

Think it's large development of retail, residential, training facilities plus stadium. So £3bn certainly realistic.

[Brum Royal]

Given the last few years I'm not sure we should really be lolling at clubs with batshit mental owners seemingly intent on screwing the club into the ground.
That said, £3 billion? Just how could a stadium cost that much unless you're using it for money laundering purposes?

Tottenham's stadium cost £1 billion so three times the cost of that????

Admittedly, there's buying the land, and if it's the land I think it is there'll need decontaminating and completely new infrastructure, but I can't see it being anywhere near that cost.

Spurs already owned much of that land, given that their new stadium was built on the old White Hart Lane site, which probably limited their cost a bit but £3bn in Birmingham is way OTT I'd say - unless they're including hotels, entertainment complex and a small airport in the design.

The land cost isn't going to be a major part of the issue here, it's been a karting centre for years for much of the land they're proposing to buy, and it's all industrial land round the site. There's likely going to be a fair whack of remediation costs, but it's not an expensive part of the city either (Small Heath and environs is one of the poorer parts of the city).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/68768084

There's a wider sports complex being built as part of the development. I didn't realise the first team trained out at Henley in Arden, I thought they were based out of the Wast Hills site on the south side of the city near me, but bringing all that into the facility would make a lot of sense for the club.

[Stranded]

Chesterfield, having got to 90 points after 35 games, have now picked up just 5 points in their last 10 games. Clearly massively taken the foot off the gas once it became clear they were up.

Went from losing just 3 games in those first 35 to 10 now.

Question is, how fair is that on other sides with something to play for? Sides may be relegated or miss out on the play-offs as a side met the "couldn't give a shit" version of the side in their 2nd fixture as opposed to the "steamroller" version of a few months back.

I get easing off a bit once target achieved but to go from picking up 2.57 PPG to 0.5 PPG over the last 10 games is frankly a mindblowing drop off for a promoted side.

[Clyde1998]

Chesterfield, having got to 90 points after 35 games, have now picked up just 5 points in their last 10 games. Clearly massively taken the foot off the gas once it became clear they were up.

Went from losing just 3 games in those first 35 to 10 now.

Question is, how fair is that on other sides with something to play for? Sides may be relegated or miss out on the play-offs as a side met the "couldn't give a shit" version of the side in their 2nd fixture as opposed to the "steamroller" version of a few months back.

I get easing off a bit once target achieved but to go from picking up 2.57 PPG to 0.5 PPG over the last 10 games is frankly a mindblowing drop off for a promoted side.

Problem is unless they've started playing their U18s or something, you can't prevent it from happening. You can't make players give a shit.

[Stranded]

Chesterfield, having got to 90 points after 35 games, have now picked up just 5 points in their last 10 games. Clearly massively taken the foot off the gas once it became clear they were up.

Went from losing just 3 games in those first 35 to 10 now.

Question is, how fair is that on other sides with something to play for? Sides may be relegated or miss out on the play-offs as a side met the "couldn't give a shit" version of the side in their 2nd fixture as opposed to the "steamroller" version of a few months back.

I get easing off a bit once target achieved but to go from picking up 2.57 PPG to 0.5 PPG over the last 10 games is frankly a mindblowing drop off for a promoted side.

Problem is unless they've started playing their U18s or something, you can't prevent it from happening. You can't make players give a shit.

Oh yeah, not saying there is much you can do about it just surprising that any side would be happy to take their foot that far off the pedal. Are rumours going round that the manager even went on holiday in the run up to the Wealdstone game recently.

[Stranded]

Mansfield confirm their place in L1 and will play in the 3rd tier for the first time since 2002/03.

At the other end, Forest Green suffer back to back relegations and drop out of the EFL after 7 seasons.

Colchester's home win over Grimsby all but condemns Dean Bouzanis' Sutton to relegation too.

[Stranded]

Championship promotion race really hotting up

Soton beat PNE 3-0 last night and now sit just 5 points behind Ipswich with a game in hand.

That game in hand - Leicester (a) next Tuesday.

Soton also finish the season at Leeds.

Seems guaranteed that the top 4 sides will all finish with over 90 points, if so, it is guaranteed that for the first time ever a team will get to the 90 point mark and not go up. May even see that happen to 2 sides esp if Soton do "come from nowhere" and nick an automatic spot.

[Winston Biscuit]

Are teams getting more points these days? I am not just talking about the Championship. I am sure 90 points used to feel like a pretty special achievement 20-30 years back, but seems to almost happen as standard nowadays (I may also just be misremembering, which I do a lot of)

League 1 this year could have 2 clubs over 90 and 1 on 89 points. Last season League 1 had a team on 96 points finishing 3rd.

[URZZZZ]

Mansfield confirm their place in L1 and will play in the 3rd tier for the first time since 2002/03.

At the other end, Forest Green suffer back to back relegations and drop out of the EFL after 7 seasons.

Colchester's home win over Grimsby all but condemns Dean Bouzanis' Sutton to relegation too.

Big fall from grace for Forest Green

To think they played Ipswich in a league fixture as recently as Feb 2023 and yet 15 months later, could respectively find themselves four divisions apart

[Sanguine]

Are teams getting more points these days? I am not just talking about the Championship. I am sure 90 points used to feel like a pretty special achievement 20-30 years back, but seems to almost happen as standard nowadays (I may also just be misremembering, which I do a lot of)

League 1 this year could have 2 clubs over 90 and 1 on 89 points. Last season League 1 had a team on 96 points finishing 3rd.

90 points still the record for any club not achieving promotion, so if there are more instances of 90 points+, it is only that some teams are dominating their divisions.

[Sanguine]

Championship promotion race really hotting up

Soton beat PNE 3-0 last night and now sit just 5 points behind Ipswich with a game in hand.

That game in hand - Leicester (a) next Tuesday.

Soton also finish the season at Leeds.

Seems guaranteed that the top 4 sides will all finish with over 90 points, if so, it is guaranteed that for the first time ever a team will get to the 90 point mark and not go up. May even see that happen to 2 sides esp if Soton do "come from nowhere" and nick an automatic spot.

Lots of different scenarios of course, but there is one - Ipswich draw this weekend, the other three teams win, and then Southampton beat Leicester, that would see the table look like this with two games to go.

Leicester 91
Leeds 90
Ipswich 90
Southampton 90

GD for Ipswich (+32) and Southampton (+30) is very close as it stands, and between Leeds (+42) and Leicester (+41) too.

[Brum Royal]

Are teams getting more points these days? I am not just talking about the Championship. I am sure 90 points used to feel like a pretty special achievement 20-30 years back, but seems to almost happen as standard nowadays (I may also just be misremembering, which I do a lot of)

League 1 this year could have 2 clubs over 90 and 1 on 89 points. Last season League 1 had a team on 96 points finishing 3rd.

90 points still the record for any club not achieving promotion, so if there are more instances of 90 points+, it is only that some teams are dominating their divisions.

Probably a result of the widening of the gap between the haves and the have nots across the pyramid. Obviously in the Championship, but it seems to now be widening into League One as well. The haves are now more dominant in their divisions than previously when teams were less financially divergent and more even, so the bigger sides are gaining more points in a season more regularly.

[Stranded]

Are teams getting more points these days? I am not just talking about the Championship. I am sure 90 points used to feel like a pretty special achievement 20-30 years back, but seems to almost happen as standard nowadays (I may also just be misremembering, which I do a lot of)

League 1 this year could have 2 clubs over 90 and 1 on 89 points. Last season League 1 had a team on 96 points finishing 3rd.

90 points still the record for any club not achieving promotion, so if there are more instances of 90 points+, it is only that some teams are dominating their divisions.

Probably a result of the widening of the gap between the haves and the have nots across the pyramid. Obviously in the Championship, but it seems to now be widening into League One as well. The haves are now more dominant in their divisions than previously when teams were less financially divergent and more even, so the bigger sides are gaining more points in a season more regularly.

In the Championship, this does seem to be the case this year - 3 of the 4 runaway sides are the PL relegated trio only Ipswich's fantastic season has stopped it being a 3 team division in a division.

In terms of League 1, in 5 of the past 10 years at least 2 sides have broken 90 points, in one year Sheff Utd broke 100. Given one year was COVID interuppted that means only 3 seasons failed to see a team break 90.

It seems that there is usually 1 or 2 sides that click and get away from the crowd a little bit but it isn't often the "bigger clubs" who do it - naturally in L1 of late there have been more big clubs down there, normally due to financial issues, who, once they sort themselves out, can recruit better players than their rivals and get out. This may be us next year or the year after if the financial mess can be left behind.

[WestYorksRoyal]

Watching the Championship relegation 6 pointer between Blackburn and Wednesday. Have to say both look a great deal better than us and many L1 playoff chasing teams I've watched like Lincoln, Barnsley and Oxford.

Obviously they would lose players upon relegation and be set back a little, but I would expect the relegated sides to be strong next season.

[Winston Biscuit]

Screenshot from 2024-04-22 15-20-19.png (3.36 KiB) Viewed 162 times

Donnie's amazing run continues with another win at the weekend making 9 wins from the last 10 games. A win against lowly Colchester tomorrow and they will be into the play offs. Would be an extraordinary turnaround of a season by them having been in 21st place after 34 games

[Winston Biscuit]

Also, it could be one of those odd occasions where a team, Colchester this time, having 2 games in hand rather than just the 1 that those teams around them have, could work against them. Colchester currently 3 points clear of relegation with a better GD by 7 and have 2 games left to play, but those 2 games are against teams up near the top with something to play for. If their GD takes a hammering in those 2 games and brings it down to near level with Sutton who are behind them then they may get nervous as Sutton play MK Dons on the last day, a team who are assured of finishing 4th, so have nothing at all to play for, and who's players will have the play offs the folllowing week on their mind.

[Stranded]

So after last night L2 has an interesting final day:

Relegation

Despite their 4-1 defeat Colchester should be fine.

Colchester: Stay up with a draw regardless of Sutton's result
Sutton: Need a win and hope Colchester lose. Need to overturn a 4 goal difference as well.

However, if Sutton manage a 3-0 win and Colchester lose 1-0 they will be equal on points, GD and goals scored. Colchester will stay up on the countback decider as they will have won 11 games to Sutton's 10. Any other 4 goal swing saves Sutton.

Play-offs

MK Dons secure in 4th spot

Doncaster's crazy 10 game winning streak could still end up with them missing out.

Doncaster: In with a win/draw. If they lose however, will miss out on GD if Crewe draw and Barrow and Crawley both win.
Crewe: In with a win/draw
Barrow: In with a win. Can qualify with a draw but only if Crawley, Bradford don't win. In with a loss, if Crawley, Bradford and Walsall don't win (Walsall with 6 goal swing).
Crawley: Win - qualify if one of Barrow, Doncaster or Crewe lose. Draw - in if Barrow lose, Bradford don't win or Walsall don't win with a 4 goal swing
Bradford: Need to win and hope Barrow lose (or draw with a 7 goal swing) and Crawley don't win.
Walsall: Need to win & hope Barrow lose and Crawley/Bradford only draw at worst. Also need to claw back 6 goals on Barrow and 4 on Crawley to go past them.