The Leyton Orient friendly was the low-point, barely managed to scrape 11 players for it and the bench looked like a creche. That squad looked lower mid-table at best.
Since the end of July we have let a few more go, but brought in a good few too. Keeping Lookman is huge, and it feels like getting a new signing. We even had the guts to rebuff the massives after Fox. Quite a turnaround from letting players go for some world cup stickers and a bag of crisps in the RD era.
How are we looking now? If we keep everyone fit, I think we should challenge for promotion with what we have right now. We arent injury proof though, and we need a couple more to cope with that should an injury crisis happen again.
We have also got some good players who will return from injury over the course of the season.
Are we stronger then the 2009/10 team that finished 4th?
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Yet isnt quite as good as the one that won the League
At the same time though I also think that the League this season is the "easiest" one we've been in, in terms of the opposition, i.e. there is no Norwich / Southampton etc. no Rhodes at Huddersfield or really strong rivals like Sheffield United (they're a lot weaker I think now) or Sheffield Wednesday
Our current side isn't as strong as Powell's class of 11/12 but Holmes and Lookman would walk into that side.
I also think the league this season is the weakest it's been in all the years we've been in it. No Southampton, Norwich, Leeds, Sheff Weds, Brighton, Huddersfield while Sheff Utd seem to have self destructed.
It looks like the strongest teams are ourselves, Bolton, MK Dons and Millwall and would say there's 2 top six spots on offer to anyone who gets lucky or puts a decent run together. I put it down really to just being the best of a bad bunch but if it gets us up i'll bite your hand off for it. I can't see the others maintaining early season form. I genuinely thought we might come unstuck at Walsall and in the end it was easy to see the difference in the teams.
Yes you can say that consistency is key in any Division but look at the Championship and how mad it is with anyone having the ability to beat anyone, you can get a good run together in the Championship and it means nothing
How about a midfield and attack of
Kashi/crofts Jackson
Holmes Novak lookman
Ajose
Deon Burton had a very good season for us up front, he was a great target man but we desperately needed a decent foil for him, going through various cheap and loan options Mooney, Akpo, Dickson, Forster. If we had been able to sign BWP a year earlier, we possibly may have gone up.
And the 2011/12 side would absolutely tear our current one apart.
That said, my face is far too pretty to be sticking it into every challenge. He did not have such an issue.
The nucleus of the relegated team had stayed together and it showed.
Powell's 2011 side made a very decent start also, right up with the pacesetters all through the first half a dozen games.
Almost a total clearout and a more or less completely rebuilt team.
Slade's 2016 squad .... impossible to tell at this stage.
This time, the club knew they were relegated early in April and Meire and Duchatelet didn't have the nous to put a plan in place to get an early start on the team rebuilding.
Where was Meire at this time? Oh yes, on holiday in Dubai.
Not even a manager appointed before 6th June; chaos behind the scenes with very few essential backroom staff; many players desperate to leave and not even told when to report back to training.
The squad went on tour to Austria - many of those players are now not even at the club. What was the point of that?
Even by the first League match of the season, we had fielded a hastily cobbled together side and a bench of raw inexperienced youngsters.
And it showed in the performance and the result.
On the other hand back back in 2011, Chris Powell and The Spivs had sat round the table and decided on a plan together in the March, putting it into practice behind the scenes almost straight away.
Most of the new signings were made early in the preseason and the group went on tour with most pieces of the puzzle completed.
The benefits of having the nucleus of the squad spending time and bonding together during the preseason is blindingly obvious.
But it's equally obvious the squad is having to do it's bonding now instead of pre-season.
We've got some decent players and the potential to be one of the strongest teams in the division this season.
But it will be galling if we miss out on promotion by a couple of points - because the club were not ready when the season commenced.
Crazy to think of the other strikers in the top 6 that year:
Holt
Beckford
Morison
Austin/Paynter
Rhodes
...and Deon Burton.