League One 2018-19

[mattitouk]

I thought i would start a thread on the general 2018/19 League One season relating to other clubs in this division.

We had one last season on the main forum page, but it kept getting washed pages back by the Echo News Feeds and other threads that were more directed towards the comings and goings directly related to Southend United (and rightly so, that's what the main page is for).

So this season, I thought it would be more sensible to place it in the "General Football Forum" this time around, in order for people to find it more easily.

Anyway, It can be about anything really, key players injured, top scorers, players looking like a future star, teams looking at relegation and teams looking good for promotion etc...Obviously it will develop as the season progresses.

I'll start with my current musings:

Oxford.... currently sit bottom of the league with a minus 10 goal difference (conceding 13 goals after just 4 games). and the only team in the league to have a 100% lose record so far.

Shrewsbury seem to have an attacking issue, having the lowest goal scoring record in the league,.. managing to only score 1 goal in 4 matches so far.

Barnsley are currently the joint top scorers and the only remaining team in Division One to yet concede a goal, either at home or away.

Burton seem to be struggling a bit so far this season adapting to League One football, after receiving the financial rewards of Championship football over the previous two seasons.

In general, that seems to be quite a few high scoring games so far, Fleetwood beating Scunthorpe 5-0, and a fair amount of 4-0 & 4-1 results.

Peterborough's pre-season refurbishment, seems to be currently paying off with 19 new players coming into the squad. 4 wins out of 4 (only Portsmouth can currently match that).
They also seem to have the best attacking pairing in the division, with the young Scottish duo of Jason Cummings and Mark O'Hara scoring 7 times already so far between them.

However, at the other end of the table, Shrewsbury introduced 20 new squad members, and seem to can't buy a win at the moment.

 

[Bearded Shrimper]

Good work on this, nice one. I've been away on honeymoon so haven't seen any football apart from our results. Much needed catch up

 

[Massimo Giovanni]

Thanks Matt,early analysis is hard, but I can't see all the new clubs into this league settling easily. Accers have made a good start, as have Black Cats.

 

[Cricko]

A weekend has passed and you have not updated this yet Matt....Very poor work my friend

Must be on ANOTHER holiday.

 

[mattitouk]

Haha @Cricko , ...Funny you should mention that,... i'm off away on holiday again to Menorca in about 10 days time for a week, so i will be forced into listening to the Peterborough and Shrewsbury games from the poolside.



As for the Division One results, this weekend was a bit of a mixed bag. (i'll get onto bags later).


Barnsley scrapping out a lucky 2-2 draw against Scunthorpe, I say lucky, because I thought they would initially demolish them, and more so when the Iron were 2-0 up with just half an hour still to play.


Acrrington Stanley...(Who are they?....Sorry i couldn't resist)....
Anyway, They seem to be either the current luckiest buggers in the league or rightly crowned as the come back kings!
They're currently denied a play off position by goal difference, but the reason they are where they are is because they always seem to be scoring late on and picking up points.
For example...An 89th minute winner against Bristol Rovers to take all 3 points. 78 minutes to take a 1-1 draw with Charlton, a 79th minute winner against Oxford on Tuesday night, and a 93rd minute equaliser away against Blackpool at the weekend.


Oxford break their duck and finally pick up their first victory of the season with a 3-1 home win over Burton, Ex Southend youth player Ricky Holmes got the final goal by coming on as a substitute in the 69th minute and scoring with his very first touch of the ball.
However, they may well return to losing ways though on Saturday when they have to travel oop north to the Stadium of Light to face Sunderland.


Talking of Sunderland, I half expected them to walk this league when it was pre-season, but they seem to be riding their luck a little bit so far this season, yeah they were convincing in their wins against Gillingham and Scunthorpe, but they got a 96th minute winner over Charlton in the opening day of the season, a draw with Luton and leaving it late-ish against Wimbledon at the weekend (Ex shrimper Pigott got Wimbledon's goal).
Incidentally, but probably not surprisingly that was their first ever encounter with each other in their history.
Also more surprisingly (well at least to me) it was Sunderland's first back to back away victory (beating Gillingham last Wednesday) in over 4 years!!.. and also the first time they have won 4 games in a calendar month in nearly 11 and a half years!!


Peterborough are still scoring for fun, and remain the only team in the division with a 100% win ratio. they made easy work of Plymouth demolishing them 5-1, and sending them bottom of the table on goal difference.
Cummings bagged another brace to currently lead the goal scoring chart with 6 goals and 2 assists in the 5 games played so far. Everyone fans favourite Ched Evans is in 2nd place, and if i fudge the figures a bit, Our very own Tom Hopper currently takes the Bronze Medal.


Plymouth along with Shrewsbury are the only two teams left in the division to yet win a match, I wouldn't imagine Plymouth's luck will change this weekend when they travel to (joint) 2nd place Portsmouth, Shrewsbury might fair better when they face Bristol Rovers.


Charlton played out a boring 0-0 draw against Fleetwood, the highlight of the match being that the game had to be suspended after thousands of bags of crisps were thrown onto the pitch in protest of the owner. Crisps were chosen as apparently the chairman has banned staff from eating at the desk after reducing the bill on office cleaning staff. Also the ticket office staff have been told that they will not be paid the bonuses they were promised after exceeding the targets they were given.

If you want to read up on more of Charlton's CEO's cost cutting measures, you can do here:
https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/fo...o-eat-at-their-desk-amid-roland-a3918616.html

I do hope Uncle Ron doesn't read this and have a light-bulb moment... Talking of light-bulbs, the comment about having to hold "meetings in the dark" in order to save on the electricity bill, did make me smile...... Childish I know....But my initial first thought was, "if that was me i would bring a bag of crisps in with me, they would never know"... Probably a packet of Skips or Wotsits would be my choice, as they don't make much noise when eating them.

 

[mattitouk]

Ex Newcastle winger LuaLua moves to Luton.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Ex Newcastle winger LuaLua moves to Luton.

How the mighty are fallen.Remember seeing him play (and being impressed) for Newcastle at the Nou Camp back in 2002.

 

[Ricey]

How the mighty are fallen.Remember seeing him play (and being impressed) for Newcastle at the Nou Camp back in 2002.

Wrong one I’m afraid. You’re thinking of Lomana LuaLua, the one that has signed for Luton is Kazenga his younger brother. He was only 12 in 2002.

 

[Firestorm]

Wrong one I’m afraid. You’re thinking of Lomana LuaLua, the one that has signed for Luton is Kazenga his younger brother. He was only 12 in 2002.

Ex Col u if I recall

 

[Ricey]

Ex Col u if I recall

That’s the one.

 

[mattitouk]

It seems Sunderland have adjusted to life in League One & have still been cost cutting in wages by cancelling the wages of Didier Ndong (that cost £13.6 million) and Papy Djilobodji (£8 million) due to not not showing up for training and missing match fitness.

 

[mattitouk]

I've said it before, but still the surprise team of the season so far for me is ..... Accrington Stanley!!

Currently 5th in the league, unbeaten away, and only lost 1 at home.

Only 4 points off the auto's, and seem to have a couple of comfortable win's under their belt (on paper at least) when they face lowly out of form Shrewsbury & Bradford in their next two league games.

Not bad for a team who's average attendance this season is just 2,087. (that's not taking into account away fans).

 

[AndyT]

Where's that Portsmouth fella gone with his "We get at teams from the start and kill the game off early" quote!

 

[mattitouk]

It seems The Boxing day match between Sunderland and Bradford will be the highest attendance figure of a 3rd tier league fixture since 1979.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/46621156

A quick check on their own fans forum, indicates that they seem to think that they are currently heading for a 45,000+ attendance figure by kick off, perhaps more if they beat promotion rivals Portsmouth tomorrow.

Edit: Ended up being just over 46,000, amazing support for a League One match.

 

[southendkid]

Bradford are still in the relegation zone but they've suddenly come to life, since Dec 1 they've scored 19 goals in 7 matches (and one of those was a 1-0 loss to Sunderland, where apparently Jack Payne managed to get the ball over the line but the ref didn't spot it). I thought they were dead certs to go down a month ago but they'll overtake us at this rate.

 

[mattitouk]

They won again yesterday 3-0 against Accrington Stanley, lets just hope they lose their winning form before we face them in 2 games time.

 

[AndyT]

Apparently yesterday Blackpool's attendance was made up of more than 80% of away fans, eclipsed at Truro City where the away fans made up 98% of the crowd!

 

[Mr Plow]

Apparently yesterday Blackpool's attendance was made up of more than 80% of away fans, eclipsed at Truro City where the away fans made up 98% of the crowd!

Indeed the official count was 7804 Sunderland in a crowd of 10994.

 

[AndyT]

There's a technicality on that Truro crowd which I hadn't realised and kind of null and voids it a bit, sadly.