The Coca-Cola League Championship 2006/07

Tricky then. The way you have played this season I wouldn't be surprised if you made it, I think i am going to go for Stoke though.

I hope you are right and I'm wrong I can see you sneaking in their though. You have no pressure at all.

I'd probably opt for Stoke as well, I am hoping we do it but I don't want to jynx it. We are away from fortress Layer next week so it will be tough.

Thing is we are going o struggle either way regardless next season. We'd get killed in the premiership and if we remain in the Championship we'll probably suffer second season syndrome and get relegated.

But surely even if you did get slaughtered in the Premiership - for a club of Colchester's size it would be a great, great adventure. I think you would have enough to stay up in the Championship. It would be important to just aim for mid table stability rather than to emulate this season. Colchester can never properly move forward until the new stadium is built - and I hope for your sake that you will still be in the Championship when hat happens.

The thing is our new stadium isn't even in Colchester. It will be a 10,000 seater which the fans would never fill up as they can't be asked to travel to the outskirts for a home game.

We will try to consolidate our position next year but everyone is going to want to sign our good players. We do though have a very tactically astute manager who is very good at getting a bargain. I'd like to see Mourinho do his job.

Regarding the premiership,it would be a great adventure but we'd literally get hammered every week as we wouldn't be playing our home games at Layer Road and no fan would want to be getting hammered regardless of who they are playing.

If Colchester got promoted it would be an incredible achievement and would financialy set them up for many many years to come. Still i think it will finish

Derby
West Brom
Stoke
Wolves

Wolves are lucky they have QPR at home and Leicester away, i think they will just sneak in. Its very tough between Derby and Brum but i thinkBrum might sneak it on goal difference.

Leed svs Hull is interestin g at the bottom i think both will lose and win their last 2 games meaning hull would stay up.

nCfC-CaDiZ wrote:Woah, loads of posts deleted from this thread!

Congrats on your win today. Was always going to be difficult against this improving Leeds side, and you have another tricky game coming, or at least, I hope! If you lose against us it will be very difficult from there. Who do you have on the final day?

We have Southend at home on the final day.

With other results so far very much going our way, i can see a play-off place beckoning. Hopefully Stoke vs Col U will be a draw which should kill them both off.

We need to win both of our remaining games though

Things are looking much better than last week when we were 4 points off with 3 games to go, its now 1 point off with 2 games to go.

debaser wrote:eurgh. birmingham win to go top. stupid, useless wolves.

Wolves were top class today.

One of the best matches ive seen all season

Luck was just not on their side in any way. Some of the chances they missed were incredible and Brum basically scored with all their chances in the second half

fair enough, i did not see the game. birmingham do seem to have picked up an annoying habit of sneaking victories by 1 goal. ah well, at least we'll have some derbies next season. it's a bit lonely being the only midlands club in the top flight.

Yeh, Birmingham have played ugly football this season - not the team to watch for entertainment. It is sometimes the way to play it in this league though. Ridiculous that they are top really. Sunderland, Derby, West Brom, Stoke, Southampton....all have been better than Brum this season. Shame, but thats the way it is.

Talking of exciting leagues check out the conference, just one or two games to go for some teams and around 10 teams could still go down. Plus two play-offs spots are up for grabs...



1 Dag & Red 45 44 92

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2 Oxford Utd 45 34 81
3 Morecambe 45 17 78
4 York 45 19 77
5 Exeter 45 18 75

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6 Burton Albion 45 6 75
7 Gravesend 45 8 74
8 Stevenage 44 11 69
9 Aldershot 45 2 64
10 Weymouth 45 -16 63
11 Kidderminster 44 -4 62
12 Northwich 43 -16 57
13 Rushden & D'monds 44 2 56
14 Forest Green 45 -6 54
15 Woking 45 -6 54
16 Crawley Town 44 1 52
17 Cambridge Utd 45 -10 52
18 Stafford Rangers 45 -21 52
19 Altrincham 45 -14 50
20 Grays Athletic 44 -1 49

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21 Halifax 44 -9 49
22 Tamworth 45 -17 48
23 Southport 45 -9 47
24 St Albans 45 -33 37

league 2 is has some intrigue as well. pretty much sorted at the top (we seem to have got ourselves into the playoffs, and can hopefully finish 5th). bristol rovers the only team who look like they could displace one of the teams in the playoffs.

but down the bottom it is poised for a dramatic end. boston play at wrexham on the last day, with macc, acc and bury not out of it. boston only have about 9 professional players left, so it really would be a miracle if they survived. and hilarious if wrexham went down (local-ish rivals of the shrews, and we play them on tuesday so could help them on their way)

1 Hartlepool 44 28 88
2 Walsall 44 31 85
3 Swindon 44 21 84

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4 Milton Keynes Dons 44 14 78
5 Lincoln City 44 9 70
6 Shrewsbury 43 22 67
7 Stockport 44 6 67

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8 Peterborough 44 9 63
9 Bristol Rovers 43 4 63
10 Rochdale 44 18 62
11 Wycombe 44 8 62
12 Darlington 44 0 62
13 Notts County 44 3 61
14 Grimsby 44 -16 57
15 Barnet 44 -15 56
16 Hereford 44 -7 54
17 Chester 44 -6 52
18 Mansfield 44 -6 50
19 Bury 44 -15 48
20 Accrington Stanley 44 -10 47
21 Macclesfield 43 -20 47
22 Wrexham 43 -24 45

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23 Boston Utd 44 -27 45
24 Torquay 44 -27 33

Anyone thinking of attending any of the play off finals? I am not sure how easy it will to get tickets for the Championship final - certainly there will be a large demand due to it being at Wembley, wouldn't be surprised if its a 90,000 sell out - whichever teams are in the final. If not the Championship final I would like to attend one of the lower league finals to experience the new Wembley.

If Saints get to the play-off final i'll obviously go, but i've heard rumours that the FA want to play the semis at Wembley as well:S

What this season?

possibly - although i dont think it will happen

nCfC-CaDiZ wrote:Anyone thinking of attending any of the play off finals? I am not sure how easy it will to get tickets for the Championship final - certainly there will be a large demand due to it being at Wembley, wouldn't be surprised if its a 90,000 sell out - whichever teams are in the final. If not the Championship final I would like to attend one of the lower league finals to experience the new Wembley.

if shrewsbury get there, i'll definitely go. you can be an honourary shrew if you want

I would love to be but unfortunately I shall be supporting the Dons in the League 2 Play Offs.

nCfC-CaDiZ wrote:I would love to be but unfortunately I shall be supporting the Dons in the League 2 Play Offs.

Yeah im supporting hte MK Dons in the play-offs, i love Martin Allen the guy is a great manager. I think he has put together a good team that should have been promoted automatically, but they have let so many leads slip and ended up drawing games.

Why are you supporting the dons NCFC ??

If your looking for the rest of this thread, it's about 6 pages back. It cuts off after 50 pages.

Sgoater1 wrote:

nCfC-CaDiZ wrote:I would love to be but unfortunately I shall be supporting the Dons in the League 2 Play Offs.

Yeah im supporting hte MK Dons in the play-offs, i love Martin Allen the guy is a great manager. I think he has put together a good team that should have been promoted automatically, but they have let so many leads slip and ended up drawing games.

Why are you supporting the dons NCFC ??

i saw shrews v dons the other week. dons were a strong team, but pretty much played the old wimbledon way: strong in set pieces, lots of long balls and try to kick us off the park.

martin allen was an absolute twat on the sideline, him and a couple of coaches were jumping up and down appealing absolutely every decision that didn't go for them and constantly trying to indimidate the ref/officials. unsurprisingly, he was about as popular as warnock is. he has put together a good side though, i agree.

anyway, we were lucky to win the game and i don't want to be facing the dons in the playoffs. at least if we finish 5th/6th, we'll avoid them till possibly the final.

debaser wrote:

Sgoater1 wrote:

nCfC-CaDiZ wrote:I would love to be but unfortunately I shall be supporting the Dons in the League 2 Play Offs.

Yeah im supporting hte MK Dons in the play-offs, i love Martin Allen the guy is a great manager. I think he has put together a good team that should have been promoted automatically, but they have let so many leads slip and ended up drawing games.

Why are you supporting the dons NCFC ??

i saw shrews v dons the other week. dons were a strong team, but pretty much played the old wimbledon way: strong in set pieces, lots of long balls and try to kick us off the park.

martin allen was an absolute twat on the sideline, him and a couple of coaches were jumping up and down appealing absolutely every decision that didn't go for them and constantly trying to indimidate the ref/officials. unsurprisingly, he was about as popular as warnock is. he has put together a good side though, i agree.

anyway, we were lucky to win the game and i don't want to be facing the dons in the playoffs. at least if we finish 5th/6th, we'll avoid them till possibly the final.

Yeah i know they play a very direct style but it would be a shame if they didnt go up as they have really tried to e ambitious. They have the stadum on the way, a decent manager and a solid looking team. I think Allen has done really well keeping McLeod he has done very well for them this season but will surley leave in the summer.

Yeah it looks as though it will be..

MK Dons V Stockport
Lincoln V Shrewsbury

If this is the case how confident will you be? Lincoln have been decent this season scoring loads of goals but they seem to f@ck up in the big games. Id be confident the Dons could beat Stockport, they did it away this weekend so they must be confident if this is how it pans out.

i'd be pretty confident. we've been the on-form team since christmas to get into this position, whereas lincoln have been pretty poor form over the last few months. i'm hoping we can sneak up into 5th to get the away leg 1st. lincoln have been in the playoffs the last few seasons, but i don't know if that's useful experience or just gives them more pressure

dons would beat stockport i think, having seen both. stockport had that amazing run earlier but have had a bad spell ever since that run broke down.

anyway, i should wait until we're definitely in it before planning my trip to wembley

debaser wrote:i'd be pretty confident. we've been the on-form team since christmas to get into this position, whereas lincoln have been pretty poor form over the last few months. i'm hoping we can sneak up into 5th to get the away leg 1st. lincoln have been in the playoffs the last few seasons, but i don't know if that's useful experience or just gives them more pressure

dons would beat stockport i think, having seen both. stockport had that amazing run earlier but have had a bad spell ever since that run broke down.

anyway, i should wait until we're definitely in it before planning my trip to wembley

Yeah Lincoln will be under so much pressure cos they have been there for the last few years. I think you would do them and i can really see a Dons V Shrews final.

hope so. it'd be fantastic if we got to wembley. promotion would be amazing, considering we're moving into a new ground next season, but if we get to the playoffs it's been a good season, whatever happens.

Of the teams in contention to go up - which do you think will STAY up should they manage it?

Imo...

Brum = probably not
Suderland = stay up
Derby = probably not
Preston = no way
West Brom = possibly (they've massively underachieved in the c/ship this season and with their talent should really be in the top 2)
Wolves = no way
Southampton = probably just
Stoke = unlikely
Colchester = god damn no way
Sheffield Wednesday = no way

oh and here's the championship team of the year according to the PFA

Matt Murray (Wolves), Graham Alexander (Preston), Gareth Bale (Southampton), Darren Moore (Derby), Curtis Davies (West Brom), Jason Koumas (West Brom), Carlos Edwards (Sunderland), Dean Whitehead (Sunderland), Diomansy Kamara (West Brom), Michael Chopra (Cardiff), Gary McSheffrey (Birmingham)

I think i'd just about agree with that except that i'd have Cureton over McSheffrey based on THIS season.

Rasiak-9 wrote:Of the teams in contention to go up - which do you think will STAY up should they manage it?

Imo...

Brum = probably not
Suderland = stay up
Derby = probably not
Preston = no way
West Brom = possibly (they've massively underachieved in the c/ship this season and with their talent should really be in the top 2)
Wolves = no way
Southampton = probably just
Stoke = unlikely
Colchester = god damn no way
Sheffield Wednesday = no way

Tough to say because their summer signings could change things.

I think Birmingham ought to if they get promoted. They have the finances, the squad and the resources to stay up. Like you say West Brom should be achieving more with the squad they have. Sunderland are an interesting case. I guess it would be a big test of just how good Keane is as a manager. I think they would need investment in order to stay up. I don't think they have a particularly good squad, but they are playing with considerable confidence which makes a big difference. They might struggle to maintain this confidence in the PL when they are losing regularly. Again, I think it would be very tough for Southampton to stay up, but they might just be able to achieve it.

I think all the other teams would really struggle to stay up if they got promoted.

Sgoater1 wrote:

nCfC-CaDiZ wrote:I would love to be but unfortunately I shall be supporting the Dons in the League 2 Play Offs.

Yeah im supporting hte MK Dons in the play-offs, i love Martin Allen the guy is a great manager. I think he has put together a good team that should have been promoted automatically, but they have let so many leads slip and ended up drawing games.

Why are you supporting the dons NCFC ??

I think the Dons have come in for way to much stick after the Wimbledon thing. They have the new stadium on the way and a growing support base - who when I visited the NHS last season - sang all the way through the match. I think they could be a Premiership club in 10 years time - no exaggeration. Martin Allen is a fantastic manager and they have some useful players in their team. I think regarding the direct style- it is always tempting to play that way when you have someone like Izale McLeod up field who makes a fool out of defenders at that level.