Jewell: Championship Tougher Than Ever
Blues boss Paul Jewell says he expects a tough opening game at Bristol City this afternoon but would expect a similarly difficult afternoon wherever the Blues are playing in what he says is likely to be one of the tightest Championships for years.
Jewell said: I think it’s a tough place to go. If we’d have been playing Leicester, that’s tough, Doncaster’s tough. There are no easy games at this level.
"Bristol City have got some good players, they’ve got a player that Leicester have been enquired about and been quoted £6 million in Nicky Maynard, they’ve got an England goalkeeper. Whenever you look through the Championship, it’s littered with quality players.”
The Town manager says plenty of clubs will go into the season with the same aim: "There are a lot of teams in this division will be thinking they can get in the play-offs.
"I think the teams that have come down think they can because they’ve got the parachute money behind them.
"And the teams that have come up. Brighton have spent £3 million on a striker [Craig Mackail-Smith], Southampton have spent money in the transfer market and have good players and one [Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain] worth £10 million reputedly.
"So that’s five teams without really thinking about it, and then you’ve got Forest and Cardiff. It’s a tough league. I think we’ve all got to think we’ve got to get in that top six but we’re not all going to get there.”
The strength of the division is illustrated by the high profile of some of the managers with Sven-Göran Eriksson at Leicester and Steve McClaren with Nottingham Forest: "There are two ex-England managers in the Championship, which shows the quality of it.
"I guess that in years gone by you won’t have had two ex-England managers going down to the Championship. They know it’s a tough league and the rewards if you get out of it are great.
"Sven was at Notts County and now he’s at Leicester, so he obviously sees a way through because we all want to get in that Premier League.”
Jewell is clear on what he will see as an achievement for Town come May: "What is success this season? As long as we improve and progress, I think that’s the long-term aim, as I keep on stressing. We want to progress. Progression is success [for us] I think.
"Getting to the Premier League is the goal and if we get there as quickly as we can, great. If it takes an extra year or two, it’s worth the wait when you get there.”
Story syndicated from TWTD.co.uk
What to read next:
U's Vs Accrington Match Preview As the round of matches over the festive period draws to a close, we have the visit of Accrington Stanley on that most rare of events in our football history, a Sunday afternoon kick-off. If you filter out play-off and cup games, in the league this accounts for just 25 games since we were formed, seven won, six drawn and 12 lost. As you would imagine, Sunday games are generally focussed around Christmas and the New Year, or more recently, Sky-mandated final games of the season. It’s been a pretty positive holiday schedule for the U’s too, eight points from four games, and with other results often going our way, we’re now just two places and three points outside the play-offs.
U's Vs MK Dons Match Preview Happy New Year U’s fans! After two hard fought 1-1 draws away from home across the festive period we kick off the New Year with a home match against Milton Keynes. Tickets look to be selling well, although not in the West Stand it seems, so should be a decent crowd providing MK bring more than their normal coach load. I know it doesn’t count for anything but the calendar year League Two table has us in fifth with 72 points from 46 matches played so 2025 hasn’t been a bad year to be a U’s fan.
Gillingham Vs U's Match Preview First and foremost, I hope you are all having a pleasant Christmas break relaxing with family and friends, and wishing you all a very happy, healthy and prosperous New Year. This will be our final match of 2025, with a trip to Priestfield to face old adversary Gillingham, our second game against them this month and our third this season. This will be our 112th game in all competitions against the Gills, a relationship that started with a Ted Davis U’s side winning 2-0 at Layer Road on 27th August 1938. At the final whistle tomorrow we will also be at the halfway point of the season, so considering at the end of September we were 20th, plenty of optimism for the second half of the season.
Crawley Vs U's Match Preview Merry Christmas U’s fans! Boxing Day in proper football leagues means football matches and the U’s face one of their shortest trips of the season as they venture across the Thames to face creepy Crawley. Crawley’s “stadium” is one of the few grounds I’ve gone away with the U’s (the 3-1 League Cup win back in 2019) and it felt like a ground that should be in the National League South but Crawley have been established in the football league since 2011 with two promotions to League One during that time which is impressive given the relative size of the club. We don’t have a huge history against Crawley Town, with just 24 meetings to date of which Crawley have won 11. In fact since that memorable League Cup win we hadn’t managed to beat Crawley until the, not as memorable but probably more important, 3-2 away win towards the end of the 2023/24 season that went a long way to helping us stay in this division.
U's Vs Newport Match Preview And so, Danny and Nicky enter their second century of games managing the U’s, at home to struggling Newport – let’s hope it starts a bit better than the first century finished. There won’t be many games we score three and lose, trouble is there’ll be even fewer where we concede four and win. That being said, I couldn’t fault the first hour of the Salford game, with the U’s in control of a game against good opposition, and on a typically heavy pitch. Then we kind of fell apart, certainly defensively, helped in no small part by a masterclass from ex-U’s Luke Garbutt (how is he only in League 2?). Credit must also go to 250+ of the faithful, a long trip starting at stupid o’clock – they deserved more than that for their support.