Pumpetypump wrote:
If you see the start to the season through the prism of us being a fallen giant then you could get downcast I suppose but I'm firmly telling myself the whole time "We are newly promoted". The other day we went to an established top 5 Championship club and beat them on their own turf. The fact that they hate us and lost to a freshly promoted side must have been really annoying.
The capitulation at Feath better not become a habit but nor is it a disaster. We are roughly where I expected us to be, the only thing that has surprised me is that our attack hasn't clicked, and I thought that would have become more fluent by now.
I think this is a fair summary. I also expected about mid table with the possibility of sneaking into 5th with some luck going our way. All teams have runs of form, Fev are currently having a good run. If they continue to grind out results when they lose a few to injury or poor form will probably determine their fate like the handful of clubs fighting it out behind Toronto and Toulouse.
Regarding our attack, I guess losing our main two playmakers in Keyes and Chisholm on top of the loss of McNally hasn't helped. I guess you could argue that the club had a choice re Chisholm but they obviously feel in the longer run it was the right call. I'm fairly relaxed about this year as I believe we would only be making up the numbers in the top 5 in all reality if we made it. It's also the ideal time for people like Lilley and Milnes to develop a partnership and prove they can lead a serious promotion push in 2020. To achieve promotion in the next couple of years we really need to keep this squad together for a year or so though as the vultures are already targeting some of the promising young players.