Why is it so important to achieve promotion from League Two this season?

The 2011-12 season has undoubtedly been one of the most enthralling promotion battles in it's history; and it isn't over yet. On Sunday 27^th May, Wembley will play host to the League Two play-off final between Cheltenham and Crewe Alexandra. The two sides will do battle for the final promotion spot to League One, with the defeated team remaining in League Two for another season; in what may well prove to be an even tougher division to gain promotion from.

This season has seen an unthinkable number of twists; Swindon's sudden rise to the title, Shrewsbury's unbeatable home record, Southend's reign at the top pushed to play-off misery and Crawley's last day automatic promotion. So why will next season be any tougher than this season? In my opinion, I believe that most people felt it was between seven sides that could push for the ultimate prize of promotion. However, next season, I think there will be even more competition for those four promotion spots.

Wycombe Wanderers have not stayed in the same division since the 2007-08 season, where they lost in the League Two play-off semi-finals to Cheltenham. In that time, they have had two promotions and two relegations, which will now see them participate in League Two next season. Therefore, it should come as no surprise to anybody come May 2013, if we see the Wanderers achieving another promotion to League One.

Chesterfield achieved promotion to League One as the champions of League Two in 2011, but failed to successfully adapt to the higher division, finding themselves immediately relegated back to the bottom tier. This side is sure to remember that success and they will be hungry to instantly rekindle that form and mount a serious promotion challenge.

Fleetwood Town have this season won promotion to the Football League for the first time and will be looking to do what Crawley Town achieved this season, with back-to-back promotions. Fleetwood have been somewhat compared to Crawley, due to them receiving heavy financial backing and many feel they will be able to build an extremely strong squad next season. The Lancashire based club recently sold star striker Jamie Vardy to Championship side Leicester City, for a reported fee of £1million and are likely to reinvest all of that into new signings.

Rotherham United will be another heavily financially backed side in the division; which became apparent to everybody after the shock appointment of Steve Evans towards the end of the current season. The Millers weren't far off promotion this season and news coming out of the club suggests that they are prepared to spend whatever it takes for promotion. Rotherham have already signed Kayode Odejayi from Colchester United and ex-Man Utd striker Daniel Nardiello.

Torquay United have failed in the play-offs of League Two for the second consecutive season, after losing to Cheltenham Town in this season's semi-finals. The Gulls had an impressive four players in this season's PFA Team of the Year (Olejnik, Nicholson, O'Kane & Mansell) and lost out on automatic promotion after going five league games without a win in their last five games. If they can hold onto their current squad and strengthen in areas, I see no reason as to why they will not be third time lucky.

Southend United were heavily backed for promotion after breaking a club record and going unbeaten for twelve league games, taking them to the top of the league. However, this was greeted by a poor run of form after the turn of the new year and they dropped into the play-offs, where they were eventually beaten by Crewe Alexandra. Manager, Paul Sturrock will be looking to strengthen over the summer and build for another promotion push.

All of the above teams will be looking to achieve automatic promotion next season, and personally, I can see all of them pushing each other to the very end of the season. This weekend, Cheltenham Town and Crewe Alexandra will both want to secure their position in a higher division. However, the side that fails will surely be a force next season. Crewe recently announced that 18-year-old top-scorer, Nick Powell, will be leaving the club for a fee of £4million to join Manchester United, which will surely enable the club to strengthen other areas of their young and talented squad. And that isn't it! Rochdale and Exeter City, who have been relegated from League One, will be looking to bounce straight back and Gillingham (the pre-season outside favourites) and Oxford United only narrowly missed out on the play-off spots this season.

It is certainly going to be an interesting summer of transfers, and with so many players out of contract, all of what I have discussed could be totally different come the start of the 2012-13 season, on the 18^th August.

Twitter: @Rich__Norton

Important weeks coming up in the League Two promotion battle

So far this season, League Two has been nothing short of competitive.  We have witnessed the unexpected spell of Morecambe topping the table, the inevitable surge of Crawley Town into first, only to be replaced by Southend United on more than one occasion.  The league is still wide open, and with a number of sides believing that they can achieve promotion; The next few weeks are going to be vital, if promotion is the aim.

The top three currently stand as Southend United, Crawley Town and Cheltenham Town – all level on 52 points after 26 games. They are closely followed by Swindon Town (49 points) in 4th and Shrewsbury Town (48 points) in 5th place.  Any of these teams have the opportunity to go on and win the League Two title this season, which is going to make for enthralling viewing and seeing how the campaign will eventually unfold, with the inevitable twists and turns. 

Southend United and Crawley Town have already been on impressive unbeaten runs this season, but the current team with the best form is Di Canio’s Swindon Town, who have taken an impressive 19 points from a possible 24.  Many fans have been left with a sour feeling after Paolo decided to state that his team will win the title!  Another side that has been in a rich vein of form is Torquay United who have also taken 19 points from a possible 24 and find themselves 5 points off the top in 6th position.  All this whilst Shrewsbury have managed to keep an almost perfect home record, racking up 10 wins and 3 draws from their 13 games.

Having only just passed the halfway point of the season, how can the next few weeks be so crucial? With Crawley and Swindon still in FA Cup action, Cheltenham have the chance to go top of the league and Shrewsbury can move within a point of Crawley and Southend.  In addition to this, in the space of four weeks, we have all of these fixtures to look forward to:

- Southend v Swindon
- Crawley v Cheltenham
- Torquay v Shrewsbury
- Cheltenham v Torquay
- Swindon v Crawley
- Swindon v Shrewsbury
- Shrewsbury v Crawley

What a feast of fixtures! Paolo Di Canio really has the chance to prove that his Swindon team can win the league, by playing Southend (1st), Crawley (2nd) and Shrewsbury (5th) all in the space of just three weeks.  We also mustn’t forget that Gillingham and Oxford United will be looking to notch a few results together and challenge for the automatics, as they currently hover at the foot of the playoffs.

All in all, what a month February looks to be for League Two. By the end of this spell of games, we may well be able to cast an opinion as to who looks most likely to achieve promotion.  A winning streak during this month is going to be crucial, as the only definite outcome, is that the top teams are going to be  dropping points!

Twitter: @Rich__Norton

Championship - Round up so far

With just over a third of the season behind us, 6 managerial changes and the Championship table starting to take shape, it is time to review the nPower 2011/12 Championship season so far.

In accordance with my predicted Championship table that I published prior to the season commencing, and the general consensus of many Championship supporters, I think it is now you can the teams in the division that are either surpassing expectations or those that seem to be underachieving.

After the start to the season that Southampton have had I think it would be disrespectful not to start my review talking about them! Nigel Adkins’ Saints have taken the step up well and truly in their stride. They have opened up a 5-point gap over West Ham in second place and astonishingly they are already 13 points clear of the final play-off position. Their impeccable home record, which includes 9 wins from 9, coupled with the once-again prolific Rickie Lambert and help from influential midfielders Guly Do Prado & Adam Lallana (who have also chipped in with 13 goals between them already this season) has helped propel The Saints to the top of the pile and seemingly on target for a second consecutive promotion back to the Premier League.

Making my way down the league, West Ham were always expected to challenge for the title and an immediate return to the top flight and with them currently sat nicely in second place, they seem to be living up to those expectations but it hasn’t been without a few hiccups so far this season, especially at Upton Park where they’ve been defeated by both Cardiff and Ipswich and held to draws by Bristol City and Leeds. Fortunately for Hammers fans their away record has been the best in the league so far which has helped account for the slight hiccups at home and I am sure once the season progresses they’ll become more accustom to the league and their home record will improve, leaving them in great stead for a return to the Premier League at the first time of asking.

Middlesbrough, Cardiff City, Leeds United and Hull City currently occupy the four playoff places and have all performed consistently well this season. Middlesbrough’s success so far this season seems to be based upon the goals of Marvin Emnes and their defensive record, which is the joint-best in the league. Malky Mackay has had a good start to his managerial career at Cardiff City after moving their this summer from Watford, with a good record at the Cardiff City Stadium as well as the impact made once again by Peter Whittingham, they look set to be in the playoffs for the third consecutive season. The other two spots are held by the Yorkshire duo of Leeds United and Hull City despite the latter only managing to score 16 times this season! Both clubs will look to continue their promising start and cement themselves as promotion contenders over the rest of the season but for Hull City that may be a quite an ask due to the loss of manager, Nigel Pearson, to Leicester City in the past week.

Delve into the middle region of the Championship table and you will find quite a number of teams in positions that have surprised a number of fans and pundits alike. One of these has to be Leicester City, who after spending massive amounts of money over the summer, are currently sitting in 8^th place and 14 points off the top of the pace. This slow start has already led to the departure of Sven-Göran Eriksson, with Nigel Pearson returning to the King Power Stadium. I expect Leicester to spend big once again in January as Pearson tries to improve early season form and make them promotion contenders. Another team currently struggling are Nottingham Forest, who after losing in the playoffs last summer, replaced Billy Davies with Steve McLaren who has consequentially now been replaced by ex-Portsmouth manager Steve Cotterill after a poor start. On the other hand, two clubs that had been tipped for relegation this season have started brightly, these being Crystal Palace and Peterborough United. With myself being a Posh fan, I can’t deny that I am very surprised, yet pleased that we currently sit in the top half of the table. The squad morale that we seem to have is fantastic, and this seems to be pushing us to succeed in games that we would never seem like winning at this level 2 years ago. Grant McCann and Paul Taylor (Remember the name!) have both been fantastic, and the squad has coped very well with the loss of last season’s top-scorer Craig Mackail-Smith.

At the wrong end of the table there seems to be no real surprises with Doncaster Rovers, A.K.A The Willie McKay experiment, propping up the table. This comes despite the influx of experienced players such as Herita Ilunga, Pascal Chimbonda and El-Hadji Diouf who were also joined today by Aston Villa defender Habib Beye. With these new signings alongside established Championship players such as Billy Sharp and James Coppinger, it should only be a matter of time until Dean Saunders’ men get themselves out of trouble.  Coventry City are another team that are once again struggling in the division. A lack of funds and ever-falling attendances makes the future look very bleak for even the most optimistic Coventry fan and if performances don’t improve soon, League One looms for the Sky Blues. One shock in the lower echelons of the league for me is the position of Eddie Howe’s Burnley side. A number of seemingly astute signings over the summer haven’t paid off for the youngest manager in the league and only time will tell how long Barry Kilby will give Howe to hopefully change their fortunes around.

I hope you have enjoyed my review of the season so far!

Follow me on Twitter; @Jake__Baxter

Life as a Southend United Fan

Being a Southend United fan, I felt that now might be an enjoyable time to take a look at the progress the club has made so far this season.  We are currently sat on top of the League Two pile after seventeen games, reached the semi-finals of the JPT and have taken Preston North End to a home-replay in the FA Cup first round.  Not a bad start to the season!  There have been many fantastic achievements already this season and the foremost enjoyable factor is on the pitch itself.  Southend are currently on a thirteen-game unbeaten run in all competitions and the team as a whole has developed considerably over the summer. 

At the beginning of last season, Paul Sturrock, was given one of the toughest challenges of his career to date – to rebuild Southend United, with limited funds and less than a handful of first-team players.  It is fair to say he has achieved that in abundance; This Southend United side no longer looks like a bunch of players drafted in to be able to field a side in the league, but a team that is playing with togetherness and desire to gain promotion to the third tier of the English Football Pyramid.  Sturrock also appears to have been a major force in the development of players at the club, such as Kane Ferdinand (now linked with a £500k move to The Hammers), Ryan Hall (top assists in League Two) and Mark Phillips who has been an instrumental figure this season.

Another pleasing factor from this season is the way the club has conducted itself off the pitch after the issues that occurred last season.  The club appointed Tara Brady as the new Chief Executive of the club and he appears to have brought a desire to change the business ethic at the club.  An article was released recently, claiming that Tara had worked hard to reduce the fees that had been paid to players’ agents – However, this had not affected the calibre of player the club could attract.  The strength of the squad has been proven after Luggy (Paul Sturrock) decided against signing former Arsenal/Spurs man Rohan Ricketts and more recently Yannick Boli (former PSG striker and once linked with Real Madrid).

Finally, a recent BBC interview with Ron Martin (Club Chairman) has shown that the club is 90% of the way through the process to commence building work on the proposed new stadium at Fossetts Farm.  Martin claimed that they are at an ‘advanced stage’ and although he didn’t want to put a definite date on when the development would begin; he indicated that early 2012 would be the latest. 

This is an exciting time for any Southend United fan and also for any Southend resident, but fans should also be aware that many clubs have moved into a new stadium and encountered further financial problems.  There is the ‘myth of a new stadium’ solving clubs financial worries and this has unfortunately been the case for now non-league Darlington Football Club, who are sat in the National Conference Division with a 25,000 seater stadium and only able to open one stand for a match.  Not to mention Coventry City, who are in the Championship and struggling even to afford the rent of the pitch itself, let alone the actual physical aspect of the stadium.

Having said this, I feel Southend United are in a position of far greater potential than Darlington.  With the unveiling of Southend Airport becoming International, the building of major sporting training venues and the general development of the area, could there be a better time for a club to attempt to increase its commercial capacity and revenue streams?  The opportunities, if managed correctly, could be endless; The facilities at disposal will allow for the community projects to expand considerably, the Southend United youth academy will be able to aim for the next category under The EPPP and Fossetts Farm may even be able to compete for national events such as Under-21 International matches.

So, I certainly don’t mean to sound negative about the future of Southend United, I am extremely excited, but I want fans to understand that the new stadium will not instantly secure the clubs future.  There will be an unbelievable amount of work to do, but I believe if done correctly, this could be a great time to be a Shrimper.  Let’s hope the team sticks to together and finishes League Two the way it’s started!

Elite Player Performance Plan in Football (EPPP)

On the 20^th October 2011, The Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP) was successfully introduced to the Football League, receiving a majority 46 votes from the 72 Football League managers.  Almost everybody related to the Football League has labelled this as “the end of the Football League as we know it” or “destroying the lower leagues”, but who really knows what the outcome of this will be?

As many of you will know, the Premier League have enforced the rulings so that the best young English talent can be purchased for a far cheaper fee than previous, with the aim to improve the amount of elite English footballers playing in the top-flight.  Furthermore, The Premier League were reported to have told the remaining seventy-two Football League clubs that if they did not agree to the proposed changes, the annual funding provided to them (approximately £5.4m across four years) would be cut, or even abolished.  Meaning that there was little a club in League One or League Two could realistically do, with finances for many of these clubs already extremely insecure.

I’m sure many of you have seen the facts surrounding the amount of money Premier League clubs will have to pay to land a lower league starlet and I want to discuss whether this plan is really going to benefit the nation.

Firstly, The Premier League wants to develop the youth of England and they plan to do this by persuading top clubs to increase their youth recruitment from England, instead of looking to sign players from abroad for a far cheaper sum – but is this really going to change the development of the youth players?  I personally believe that the introduction of a rule where there must be a minimum of five home-grown players in a Premier League team’s starting line-up would be far more beneficial.  If these players are going to become “elite”, then surely they need to be playing at an elite level, as opposed to gaining their experience through being loaned to teams at a lower level.  Maybe five would be too much at first, but I believe that would be a far better route.

The introduction of the plan also saw the lifting of the “90 minute law” – where a team could only sign a youth player if the travelling distance to the club was 90 minutes or less.  I believe this will be a logical improvement, mostly due to the fact that a team such as Newcastle have part of their catchment area based in the North Sea.

It has been said that the plan will provide a much more constant cash flow for lower league football clubs and this could well be a positive with many clubs struggling with the day-to-day running costs.  However, it will also cut down a potential mass income through creating a raw talent and selling on for a high transfer fee, such as Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain this summer for £12m.  This can obviously create a whole host of opportunities for a club, but will lower league clubs want to continue investing in youth systems if they aren’t going to achieve these big sums, even if they may be once in a blue moon for most?  Not to mention the potential of developing players who turn into instrumental first-team players – how will clubs replace these players in future if there is a lack of internal investment in youth players?

Everyone is likely to have different views on this matter.  Fans of Premier League outfits are likely to see this as a positive move and fans of the remaining seventy-two clubs will probably see this as having a negative impact.  Personally, I feel that the plan has a lot of potential but has an awful amount of flaws.  I do not believe the plan in its current state will be able to change the amount of “elite” English footballers coming through English football.  Teams in the Premiership will continue to purchase cheaper foreign players who have a marginally better skill level than the youngsters and this will continue to cut out opportunities for youth players to gain experience at an “elite level”.  I feel the only way this can be enforced is the introduction of the rule I mentioned earlier, with a minimum of five home-grown English players in the match-day squad.  Unless there are changes made to this plan, I feel we could see a far wider gap developing between the top division and the lower leagues – which would be a real shame, considering England has always boasted one of the most competitive Football League structures in the world.

@Rich__Norton

League Two – Round up so far

We are now fourteen games into the League Two season and many feel we should be starting to get a feel for what each individual teams aims will now be for the season.  Personally, I disagree and always find myself reluctant to make such a comment until each side has faced eachother once, however, I believe there are some anomalies already!

Firstly, many anticipated that Crawley Town would runaway with the League Two title and to be honest, I was one of them.  Having seen them play twice this season already, I don’t believe they are as strong as most people first thought and this was potentially proven by Morecambe who annihilated them 6-0 followed by a 3-0 home defeat to Swindon.  Having said that, they have bounced back immediately with six straight wins and placed themselves on top of the pile.  Who knows what extra cash they will be able to get their hands on should they feel they need to improve their squad further?

Crawley are being closely followed by Southend United who finally appear to have found their feet in the division after a some what inconsistent start to the season.  Southend are currently on an unbeaten run of seven league games, including six wins.  They have made some very impressive signings this season including Liam Dickinson, JP Kalala and Neil Harris; They also have a young striker on trial currently, called Yannick Boli, who played for PSG as well as previously being linked with Real Madrid – potentially an exciting prospect for League Two on a cold Tuesday night!

As for the rest of the automatic promotion and playoff places, the only teams which not many would have expected to be there are Morecambe and Cheltenham.  Morecambe have been extremely good on the road and most teams have found them difficult to break down.  Cheltenham have some what crept into the automatic positions currently and certainly deserve to be there.  In my opinion, I feel these teams will start to fall down the table in time and will eventually finish in a respectable mid-table position.  I also believe that Swindon and Port Vale will grab a playoff spot and Gillingham will fill the remaining automatic promotion spot.

In terms of relegation, I think it could be tight this year.  We currently have Plymouth stuck at the bottom of the table and in numerous off-the-field issues and in serious fear of their existence – who knows what a consecutive relegation could do to the club.  Barnet also find themselves in the relegation zone, despite having one of the tastiest attacks in the league, I fancy them to find enough to steer away from relegation and stay up.  Accrington Stanley have had a terrible time on the road this season, but have been so reliant on their home form in recent years that they should have enough about them.  I personally fear for Hereford, I saw them play away earlier in the season and really felt that they will struggle this season and I believe this may be their year to go down.

Like I said at the beginning, I really do not believe you can fully judge a team’s expectations until the 23^rd game of the season, so let’s see what happens in the next nine games!

@Rich__Norton

Football Journalist Accreditation Discussion

I wanted to write a short blog on the recent journalist accreditation issues with the Football League. 

For anyone who did not hear about this, just before the start of the football season there were negotiations between newspaper agencies, press officers and The Football League.  Without going in to detail as to who was involved, the negotiations were to discuss the control over how much journalists would be able to update whilst at the match, in terms of live online match reports and social media updates (E.G. Twitter).

The Football League and various clubs were worried that by allowing journalists to provide immediate live updates, that it may deter people from attending the match itself and not spending their money on admittance.

Therefore, my question would be; is news, media and press coverage something that can still be controlled and what effects will this have on not only the league but individual clubs?  Is there already too much happening in the media to limit the amount a journalist or press officer can report during a game? We have the Saturday afternoon Sky Sports News programme which shows instant goal updates and even has live match updates from various reporters.  Commentary is readily available for all games on local radio stations and these are easily accessible on the internet and have been for some time.  On top of this, most fans who now attend games tweet during the match at every goal, tackle and bad refereeing decision!

But, is this a negative? Surely this is only creating a much wider community of football fans and allowing more people to interact with each other? I imagine there are many football fans that have interacted with somebody on Twitter they didn’t previously know and were able to strike a conversation about the game.  I still think people attending matches will continue, regardless of the live media coverage.  The bigger question, is will this hinder the potential growth of attendances at football matches?

I think I could probably talk about this all day, so I’ll stop myself there and would love to hear some views on this…

@Rich__Norton