One month from today we kick off our Championship season against Derby County at Pride Park. A lot has happened since our relegation on May 22nd with the manager and then our top scorer leaving and Carson Yeung getting arrested. On the positive side most of our big names are still with us and we have secured the services of a decent manager. We have also signed four players but I doubt any of them would have been on anyone’s wish list for the summer.
The next month will no doubt see the exit of a few more players and the arrival of others. Hopefully Chris Hughton has been told he can spend some of the money raised from sales so he won’t be restricted to frees and loans.
So with one month to go how confident are you that we will be promoted at the first attempt and how does that compare with how you felt at the end of May?
Vote in the poll on the right and feel free to leave a comment to explain your increased / decreased confidence. You can also leave me a comment on Twitter @Aylesbury_Blue.
I would be hopeful of a play-off place only. I think Chris’s task is becoming more and more difficult as each day passes.
By Hughtons own admission, he is going for all of the Bosman crowd.
There is no guarantee that any of the money from sales is going to be available. In fact, its more likey not to be. Even the new £18 mill offer for CJ and Dann.
We are currently looking at 30 year old defender Caldwell from Wigan. That says it all.
We are depleted with few funds. I think CH is the man for the job, but I for one wont hold it against him if we struggle, and I think we will.
was hopeful about a month ago, not so much now that it looks like Dann will be following Gardner out of the club along with who else knows??!! If we’d have kept the spine of the team (Jerome excluded) from last season with a few astute additions I think we’d have walked it. Play-off place is about all we can hope for I think depending on how much (if any) of the monies generated are given the CH to improve the squad.
As 6th August is my 75th birthday Nigel has promised that we will start off the season with 3 points against Birmingham, if the rest of his transfer targets materialise then I can see us challenging for a top 6 place.
Good luck to you, other than on 6th August and 3rd March.
No. Nothing is granted. At least 11 sides could win promotion. Southampton coming up with a very good team, what about Brighton, Leicester and Derby spending money and so on. And Chris is in a very difficult situation, waving goodbye to a lot of our best players, trying to build a new team for no money and even expected to play attractive football and be up there when the season ends….. He needs all the support we can give him!
It seems Tragic that Curse that follows the Blues has struck again, CH has a monumental job in getting the Old Firm players to feel the hunger again. We need to build a squad that will not only win Promotion but do well in EUROPE which will build confidence within the team and even attract Players. I would think that we are inundated with good players who would never get the chance to play in Europe with thier clubs wanting to play for us.
I am a frustrated Bluenose but a sucker for the cause since 1967, and i feel a fresh breeze blowing towards St Andrews and its time to raise the stakes and the roof to get behind Chris and the team.
K.R.O
look at facts.
38 league games played last season + cup games. McLeash stated we don’t have a big enough squad to play so many games. thats why we fell apart at the end of the season.
This year we have 46 league games + cup games + 8 European games.
14 players already gone with a £6 million return. Foster, Ridgewell, Dann, Johnston, Furguson, Zidic, Jerome all tipped to leave for a further £50million
In summary the club will have recovered £56 million on transfers, they will be operation with 21 less players than they currently have apart from any they bring in of course and they will be playing at least another 15 games more in the season than last year.
These are the facts, now look to find out what the real agenda is!!!
It was a little over a yeaar ago that Birmingham were a model club and balancing the books. relegation does cause a masive hole in the finances but the parachute payment this year is greater than ever. Birmingham amaisingly won the Carling cup and that generated significant money, not only that they qualified for the Europa league which will net millions.
Pannu states to the press that he will not have a fire sale and any players that do go will only leave with the full approval of the manager. Are we to believe the loss of Gardener, Dann , Johnston etc will be met with Houghton’s approval knowing no money will be available?
our squad was too small last year, so can we expect a signifficant infux of players in excess of the 21 left or expected to leave?? perhapse they will play the acadamy kids in the Europa league
What is happening at st andrews at the moment look suspiciously like Asset stripping. I hope not for the sake of the future of the club but as they say, actions speak louder than works and all the indications are for a season of humiliation in Europe, a fight to stay in the championship and i wouldd’nt be suprised to see the siezure of the club by authorities as the Carson Yueng saga unfolds.
Pannu and Young need to come out and state their detailed plan for the club including the true level of debt and shortfall. if we are to believe that all players of vale will be sold off, what percentage will be given to the manager.
I doubt if this sort of true information will be forthcoming because of the damage it will do to season ticket sales
It’s gonna be really hard. But as a Blues fan you’re used to doing it the hard way.
Anyhow I think the new manager will be great and sincerely hope that he will stay on even if we don’t get promotion at first attempt. But there is a chance we will make it because I think that there will be so many teams in the top of the championship that will beat each other so less points will be needed this coming season. And hopefully the manager can put together a team with young and hungry players mixed with the experience of Carr and others. Young and hungry is vital for the promotion push.
The I keep my fingers crossed that the owners strange business affairs in Hong Kong don’t interfere with the matter of football at St.Andrews. It feels a little bit strange and I’m afraid I must say that I don’t trust them whatever Mr.Pannu says….
You didn’t have enough choices in the poll. I would have voted for: “I never feel sure about anything with Blues”.
This comes from experience. I can remember being 4-1 against Swindon with 20 minutes left to play and feeling fairly confident that we were going to win. (For those of you too young to remember, we lost 4-6.) Once in a blue moon there is a nice surprise; I expected Arsenal to win the League Cup.
three words YES YESS YES
How can we be confident of going up, we have no idea what the squad will look like come September 1st. There is always a panic at the end of the Transfer Window and Blues will be an easy target.
This is a big challenge for CH, he managed to keep his relegation squad together at Newcastle and brought them straight back up, pretty much like Alex McLeish did with us the first time he took us down. This time CH will be starting from scratch so he has a mountain to climb.
Can you believe a club can implode as quickly as we are from position we were in 4 months ago, its unbelievable! (and I’ve not even mentioned the arrest of Mr Young and the fact we have no backroom staff, no board, no commercial manager – who is running the club by the way – looks like Peter Pan has got to do everything on his own!!)
Bit early to call on this one I think. Ask me again at the end of August. If the last few weeks is amything to go by, we will by then have sold the club to a consortium led by Barry Fry for 2s 6d, Jerome will have scored 6 goals in his first three matches at Stoke and Alex McLeish will have resigned via text at the Vile in order to take up the new position of Director General at the United Nations sparking riots on the streets of Nigeria. What a wonderful world!
hopefully out of all this turmoil, the little chinese hairdresser will sell the club and return to cutting hair in honk kong prison, peter pannu will return to hosting master chef and someone with real money will buy the blues
I agree with Johnners and KLB,Its too early to call and we just dont know whos jumping ship and whos not,if we can keep a couple of our quality players from last year,ie Johnson,Foster and Ridgewell and bring in a bit of quality in on Bosmans,who knows??…..I have to say my gut instinct is that it may be a long hard season,I pray Houghton proves me wrong.Its just all up in there air at the moment…..I would have preferred a quieter summer, but this is Blues!!
KRO!!
Reality check. Lower expectations. Mid table for Blues, competing for most of the season with the lower rather than upper half of the table. The good news is that we will see more goals at St. Andrews this season and some young players given a chance to shine. Europe will add some novelty, but nothing more as Blues will treat it as an inconveniance. Shame.
Hello from Tyneside, then just a quick word. I was angry (still am) at the sacking of Hughton at NUFC. After Shearer’s inept cameo that saw us narrowly relegated, and an immediate exodus of overpaid and underperforming ‘stars’ we were left with a bare bones squad and a few nobody would take off us (some are still there). Hughton galavanised a nucleus of those players prepared to knuckle under and play for promotion, and added to that some loan signings, freebies, youth players and bargain basement signings to make up a viable squad. But the key was the core of committed ros. If he can achieve that in the first few weeks, you stand a chance, if not it will be a long hard slog. It’s a difficult league to get out of (ask Forest, Boro and Cardiff). Good luck!!
Are you confident of promotion? Maybe, who knows, yes, why not.
Are you confident of seeing better football and scoring more goals? Yes, can’t wait.
I’m looking to seeing CH’s team, no matter which want away Premiership flop is sold. I’m excited to see new players and a better way of playing.
We are Blues, used and abused by our so called faithful players (Gardner,ect!)
Hopefully there is a true and upstanding company that can take over the club, then we can move on. As the old saying goes, BETTER THE DEVIL YOU KNOW. But then again, the last board used and abused us for their own good.
I’m happy with Hughton and think he will do a great job.
If the assets of Yeung are not seized or suspended already then the fans must pressure him to sell his 29.9%.
Blues have been through alot in the past but this will bring us to our knees if Yeung and his board stay, get rid and let the fans be the major share holders, it worked for many a year for the most succesful club team in the World.
I would be willing to start the revolution.
Back to the question:
Yes we will go up, but it will be a battle and the right people who WANT TO PLAY FOR THE CLUB and not be taken over by GREED ( Hope you read this Gardner, you’re not a blue nose )
And as for you Steve Bruce, stop raiding our players.
I’m sure there is some emotional psychology going on as you keep poaching our players.
Who is next to Sunderland?
I was not optimistic in May and am less so now. This is no disrespect to our new manager either. There are significant issues going on within the club at present that will have an impact on building a team that can achieve promotion on the first attempt. We have lost some important players already and with more to go the task will not get any easier. Stability needs to be restored and Hughton given the time to rebuild without having to worry about failing at the first attempt with us.
You know, I don’t think we’ll be too badly off next season. Forrest will be strong with Shhsteve and yep, we’ve lost Mr bluenose of the decade (CG) but if CJ + SD leave for £16m then that isn’t bad business. Foster is yet to leave as is Ridge etc. I’m thinking of the team next year : Foster, Carr, Davies, Ridge, Murphy, Beau, Fergie, Fahey, xyz, King, Rooney. Championship Winners 2012 !!!
I agree with Barry , we were never going straight back up , and the sooner people stop even talking about it the better! We are in the Championship end of ! The club are just about to embark on the biggest asset stripping exercise since the Ken Wheldon days and still I’m reading all of this aspirational rubbish , we haven’t seen the half of it yet !
I am more confident than at the end of the season. We were obviously going to face a season of attrition under McJudas just like last time we were in the Championship with him. Then despite having an experienced squad we just scraped home. We now have a boss who faced with a similar situation the next year went on the attack and got home comfortably.
We may or may not succeed this year: I just feel we will do better than what we would have done under the previous occupant.
If he brings us attacking football and goals i for one will be happy with that, entertainment is why we watch football at the end of the day and lets face it we have been starved of it for so so long under alex mclown and steve brute and to a lesser extent the legend thats trevor francis. A play off spot would be nice tho. Come on blues.
I’m not feeling confident at all, we were told that a fire sale wouldn’t happen, but it’s looking more likely that it is going to happen, Gardner gone, Dann & Jerome (no great loss) next, fergusson, Johnson, Foster, Zigic, thats all our best players, we’ll be lucky to make the play offs, I feel for Chris Hughton, who by the way I’m over the moon we’ve got him, not looking good 🙁
K.R.O
————-Foster—————–
Carr-Davies-Johnson-Ridgewell
Burke-Michel-Mutch-Beausejour
———Rooney-King————–
Subs: Doyle, Ozturk, Murphy, Redmond, Gomis, Fahey, Asante
I don’t see how we can fail to win the league.
Stube – excellent team, however they’re highly unlikely to last 46 games let alone cup and Europa involvement. We saw last year how short we are in terms of depth, our starting XI last year was PL quality, however take 1 or 2 out (or in our case most of the squad) and we’re chronically short of options and thus chronically short of promotion.