END OF SEASON PREDICTIONS

[Best Mate]

You guys are a depressing bunch! I understand that it is more fun to see us win and compete rather then lose and fight relegation but you have to push to be the best you can.

If we got up this season it would be immense. If we struggled initially in the league above and even came back down - it would not detract from the achievement of back-2-back promotions.

Wycombe have been doing it for about 5 years - yo-yoing and I can cope with that. Exeter did b-2-b and survived and their team was on a par with us and they added a bit more quality and that is all we would need to do.

If we were to go up - I would suggest we are much more financially capable of competing then Daggers.

The thought of playing some, what the snob in me, calls 'proper decent teams' again gives me a real buzz.

Anyway - all that being said, I see a solid 12th being achieved this year and that does give us a base to go on with. Would take a sneaked promotion every day of the week though....

[charliesghost]

Jan 9, 2011 16:29:57 GMT ConcreteBob said:

Jan 9, 2011 16:23:19 GMT lincolnyellow1 said:

With half a season gone and most teams played at least once, who feels they know what the top 7 places will end up being.
My predictions are as follows -
.
1st - Chesterfield
2nd - Wycombe
3rd - Bury
................................

4th - Rotherham
5th - Gillingham
6th - OXFORD UTD
7th - Shrewsbury
..................................
Play off Final (At Old Trafford)
OXFORD UTD v Shrewsbury
.
OXFORD UTD playing league 1 football next season

That would be GREAT. But it would be odd for our resident Yarnited fans actually going to OT for a game of football!

Personally, I think we'll finish 10th. To be honest, I think anything from 22nd and above is great!

Great? Really?

Crikey Bob, I thought we'd cured you of your incurably low standards for OUFC.

Dor any club coming out of the Conference, relegation should not even be an issue. I can't remember the research, but it's something like 1 in 15 clubs that go straight back down. And that is usually a "small" yo-yo club.

So, to finish 20th is not great, good, or even average. It's miles below average. At a guess, "average" is about mid-table. So, "great" would be autmoatic promotion (achieved by smaller outfits than us, but still relatively rare). Good would be top ten. Average 11-16th; poor 17th-20th; and f**king awful = relegation.

Why does it matter whether we finish 22nd or 9th, say? Well, because a side which finishes that far down the table is then going to need major, major surgery (disruptively so) to challenge the following season.

But then, I forgot. You think that OUFC belongs in the bottom tier for good anyway, so that wouldn't bother you, I guess!

[charliesghost]

Jan 10, 2011 14:40:13 GMT Best Mate said:

You guys are a depressing bunch! I understand that it is more fun to see us win and compete rather then lose and fight relegation but you have to push to be the best you can.

If we got up this season it would be immense. If we struggled initially in the league above and even came back down - it would not detract from the achievement of back-2-back promotions.

Wycombe have been doing it for about 5 years - yo-yoing and I can cope with that. Exeter did b-2-b and survived and their team was on a par with us and they added a bit more quality and that is all we would need to do.

If we were to go up - I would suggest we are much more financially capable of competing then Daggers.

The thought of playing some, what the snob in me, calls 'proper decent teams' again gives me a real buzz.

Anyway - all that being said, I see a solid 12th being achieved this year and that does give us a base to go on with. Would take a sneaked promotion every day of the week though....[/quote

Totally agree. The momentum acquired by b-to-b promotions would be massive, financially and otherwise, for the club. It would probably also see us able to buy our own stadium back.

The fact that some people see this as undesirable is deeply weird to me.

And what's the defeatism about? We'd still be one of the biggest clubs in League 1, and even if we weren't, so what? Ever heard of Blackpool, peeps? Lucky Ian Holloway doesn't have your attitude, ain't it? Lucky also that Fat Bob never listened to your types, or our club wouldn't have its glorious history.

Football clubs are about dreams. Dreams rooted in reality, surely, and I never want to see us turn an annual loss again. But even if the dream is that we compete above our station, what is wrong with that? If you fail, it's a glorious failure to achieve something significant, rather than a passive acceptance of ongoing, banal mediocrity.

The Lenagans want us to progress as a football club - to do so sensibly, sure, but to progress none the less. And with our fanbase expanding all the time, to aim as low as "consolidation" in League 2 is hardly progress. It's simply a return to the dark old days of Kassam.

[ConcreteBob]

Jan 10, 2011 16:17:37 GMT charliesghost said:

Jan 9, 2011 16:29:57 GMT ConcreteBob said:

That would be GREAT. But it would be odd for our resident Yarnited fans actually going to OT for a game of football!

Personally, I think we'll finish 10th. To be honest, I think anything from 22nd and above is great!

Great? Really?

Crikey Bob, I thought we'd cured you of your incurably low standards for OUFC.

Dor any club coming out of the Conference, relegation should not even be an issue. I can't remember the research, but it's something like 1 in 15 clubs that go straight back down. And that is usually a "small" yo-yo club.

So, to finish 20th is not great, good, or even average. It's miles below average. At a guess, "average" is about mid-table. So, "great" would be autmoatic promotion (achieved by smaller outfits than us, but still relatively rare). Good would be top ten. Average 11-16th; poor 17th-20th; and f**king awful = relegation.

Why does it matter whether we finish 22nd or 9th, say? Well, because a side which finishes that far down the table is then going to need major, major surgery (disruptively so) to challenge the following season.

But then, I forgot. You think that OUFC belongs in the bottom tier for good anyway, so that wouldn't bother you, I guess!

Charlie! It's been a while.

Basically, i am saying avoiding relegation is an achievement. We only came up last season you know. Let's keep our feet on the ground before going a bit OTT thinking we'll get in the play offs. Of course i'd like to see that happen, but it's not necessary this season.

And to answer your question, I don't think anyone has gone straight back down to Conference.

I see you're still putting words in people mouths again too. I thought YOU'D been cured of that.

[seekeroftruth]

According to the notes from the meeting between Oxvox and Lenagan, the club will make a profit this season. Now to me if we have a chance of reaching the playoffs or automatic promotion then I would forego the "profit" and invest in a couple of players that could make the difference. The signing of Maclean would be a start and a couple of other players. We are in the perfect position to make a real go at promotion, so why not go for it. The gates will improve the higher up the table we can go. It would not be impossible to invest £200k now and recoup that with the extra gate money if we were to finish in the top 6.

Thank god the players dont have the same attitude as some of the posters on here. Lets not settle for 2nd best, lets go for it. Denis Smith took us from 2nd bottom on boxing day to promotion at the end of the season. It can be done.

[Best Mate]

Amen to that post......