RyanioBirdio
Well-known member
- Joined
- 1 May 2018
- Messages
- 8,775
Here is the last eight years of League One. This details where a team finished / how they were promoted and where they ranked (brackets) in terms of goals conceded:
13/14
1 Wolves (1st)
2 Brentford (2nd)
P/O Rotherham (9th)
14/15
1 Bristol City (1st)
2 MK Dons (3rd)
P/O Preston (2nd)
15/16
1 Wigan (3rd)
2 Burton (1st)
P/O Barnsley (8th)
16/17
1 Sheffield United (4th)
2 Bolton (1st)
P/O Millwall (11th)
17/18
1 Wigan (1st)
2 Blackburn (2nd)
P/O Rotherham (7th)
18/19
1 Luton (3rd)
2 Barnsley (1st)
P/O Charlton (2nd)
19/20*
1 Coventry (1st*)
2 Rotherham (8th*)
P/O Wycombe (10th*)
20/21
1 Hull (2nd)
2 Peterborough (4th)
P/O Blackpool (1st) or Lincoln (7th) or Sunderland (3rd)
19/20 with Rotherham is a complete anomaly because everybody only played three quarters of a season, so it was left to PPG to settle everything. It’s difficult to know who would have finished where, or where that would have ranked everybody defensively as a result, so I’ve marked it with an asterisk but have included it regardless.
Robinson’s lone promotion with MK came about with the third best defence in the division. Unless you have a top 5 defence, realistically top 3/4, you aren’t getting automatic promotion without the help of a global pandemic shutting down the season early. That’s just the facts - if you can’t defend you’ve already thrown in the towel on the top two before a ball has been kicked. The data is there; it isn’t an opinion.
Even our L2 promotion team was built on the best defence in the division, and that was despite having two actively awful keepers who kept dropping clangers. I don’t think anybody would call that team boring or conservative - being able to defend doesn’t mean being defensive. That justification is a cop out. It’s intentionally misleading. If anything a solid back line gives you more ability to be attacking and score even more goals, because it lets the team push up further and assume a more aggressive starting point. Sorting the defence can be one of the most attacking things you can do.
We need more than five defenders including only two full backs, which results in midfielders drawing straws to see who has to go and fill in when someone has to miss a few games. Otherwise the playoffs is the best we will ever achieve, at which point we need to be able to post good numbers against the top 7/8 sides all season long. We also have a manager who has now lost all four of his playoff campaigns. Not digging him out - I’m saying it all has to go into the pot when you consider what you’re doing and why. It’s relevant. You need to be able to find something in your squad, be it on the pitch or in the dugout, that justifies the approach. You need to be able to point to something and go, “That’s why this is approach is sensible and might work.” You have to justify your decisions.
If you don’t want to defend or invest properly in the players whose job it is to do it, top two is gone. If you can’t beat the best sides and don’t have any experience in what it takes to win a playoff from the manager, you’re extremely unlikely to navigate your way through those three games successfully, so the playoffs become pretty much a write-off as well as the automatics. What’s the plan at that point? What’s the goal? What are we here for besides glorious defeat at best if we take both the automatics and playoffs off the table? What’s it for?
People can get as huffy as they like about it - I’m arguing for success based on facts and evidence. Anybody arguing the other way is arguing for failure. Which one of us is a TRUE fan in that scenario?
We need to raise the standard as well as add a bit of depth at the back. Even conceding 5 goals less in a season can net you 10 extra points. Fingers crossed we don’t get distracted by wingers and attacking midfielders. We need those too, obviously, but a bit of balance wouldn’t go amiss.
Let’s see what the squad looks like by August. Lots of time.
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