Beestin & May

[RoversAlias]

Also, I disagree that L1 looks all that tough next season. None of the three relegated Championship sides look that great and there aren't really many teams used to playing at a higher level if you look at it. There's Charlton, who have serious off-field issues, MK Dons who had one year in the Championship, potentially Millwall who are small fry for the tier above and then Portsmouth who we did the double over this season. Hardly a roll call of impressive, big sides that.

Slight under-estimation of other teams in this league. There's Bradford or Millwall for starters, Scunny and Fleetwood who will all be strong, along with all the teams coming down from the Championship. Even Rotherham will re-strengthen and get rid of dead wood. After that you have the nearly not quite teams, like Oxford. I think we're going to have our work cut out just getting into the top half, never mind thinking about the play-offs. Of course, my opinions are based on our present squad, which is nowhere near good enough for a prolonged assault on L1. I can see us in the bottom half, but IF we strengthen in all the right areas, then who knows.

As for young Beestin & May, a reserve side can only be good news for their progression. It just may well have been the very thing that could have saved Lund and Middleton from going on the list.

I was challenging the assertion that the division "looks tougher than it has been for some time" and is full of clubs used to playing higher up, because that simply isn't true. I don't think it'll ne easy by any stretch (personally I'm happy if we can secure a top half finish) but I don't think there is anyone to fear on our fixture list. This league has just seen Sheff Utd and Bolton go out of it, Wolves too in recent seasons, the only club who comes close to matching those sides for size is Blackburn, who are in notorious off-field trouble.

Overall I agree with our assessment on our squad, we need probably 5/6 new players to push us on to a top half finish and I trust in Fergie to go out and find those players.