Given the depressing threads around inadequate pre season preparation, inadequacies of the squad, is the new German striker up to it etc, I thought everyone would appreciate the chance to read the latest ramblings of everybody's favourite Millwall fan....
The time has come for Rangers to play by the rules or face the chop
If the west London club are not punished, the Financial Fair Play policy will be meaningless
LESS than two weeks before the Sky Bet Championship kicks off and we still can’t be entirely sure who will be in it yet. The Queens Park Rangers dispute remains unresolved.
If the league’s governing body had any cojones it would do what it has repeatedly threatened to do and boot QPR down to the Conference, reinstating, in their place, the team who finished third bottom last season.
I admit I have intense personal reasons for wishing this eventuality – Millwall being the relegated club in question. But if some sort of draconian action is not taken against QPR, then the Financial Fair Play policy will lie in tatters and every club will think they can get away with spending like the late Viv Nicholson on amphetamines.
Well – okay – perhaps not the very poorest clubs. But the rest will see that when push comes to shove, the Football League is not prepared to enforce its regimen. It may well be that FFP is idiotic, but rules are rules and QPR transgressed by some £60m. Either they pay the money, plus interest, or they are out. That’s what should happen. But it won’t – some sort of fudge will be concocted, with the other big spenders in the division looking on with interest. It will be a fractious, desperate and hugely entertaining league once again.
There was huge pleasure to be had last season from watching Bournemouth and Brentford upsetting the big boys; one doubts that such a thing might happen again this time.
Bournemouth, bless them, are already up; Brentford, by contrast, may struggle at the other end of the table, shorn of their inspirational manager, Mark Warburton, and without having significantly strengthened the squad. It will be interesting to watch how they fare, guided by owner Matthew Benham’s “scientific” approach to the game — intensely data driven, and the reason Warburton left. So what accounted for Brentford’s excellent season last time around – was it the singer, or the song? My guess is that it was stuff from beyond the realms of science. If there is to be an arriviste upstart in 2015/16, my guess is that it will be Bristol City, who won the Division One title at a canter. A club who periodically threaten to be big time but who come from a city where football is perhaps of less consequence than rugby.
Elsewhere, follow the money. Middlesbrough had the best defence in the Championship last time but, Patrick Bamford aside, lacked much of a cutting edge up front. Bamford has now left, Boro have not yet found a fecund goalscorer to replace him. They have dangled vast sums of money in front of the noses of Blackburn Rovers – some £12m has been mooted – in an effort to prise away the division’s most reliable goalscorer, Jordan Rhodes. But Blackburn keep saying no. Without Rhodes or Bamford will they score enough goals? I doubt it.
The favourites are Derby County, but their collapse from the turn of the year — nailed-on certs for automatic promotion in December, eighth by the end of the season – suggests a frailty that new manager Paul Clement has attempted to address by shoring up the defence.
It cannot be said too often, though, that the best route out of the Championship is via a proven Championship-level striker who can steer clear of injuries. Derby have one in Chris Martin, but injury and a loss of form coincided with Derby’s dive. However, Clement has brought in Tom Ince and Chris Baird, both high quality signings, and you might expect them to be there or thereabouts.
Who else? At least one of the relegated sides – probably Hull City, who are beginning to get a rather agreeable yo-yo reputation – should figure. Along with Ipswich, Sheffield Wednesday and maybe Burnley and Leeds United.
Leeds are still hampered by chaotic ownership and Burnley by a lack of cash, but my guess is that the Championship will be more open than for many a campaign. Hell, even QPR might figure, if they spend another fifty-million quid.
Rotherham have surely flirted long enough with relegation – it is time the relationship was consummated.
And Charlton Athletic – last season’s most weirdly inconsistent side – may well join them, although Reading and Huddersfield might fight them closely for the right to be in that most pleasant and entertaining of leagues, Division One. |  |
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