League One & League Two 2024/25

top1whoisman

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May 18, 2016
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League One

Barnsley
Birmingham City
Blackpool
Bolton Wanderers
Bristol Rovers
Burton Albion
Cambridge United
Charlton Athletic
Crawley Town
Exeter City
Huddersfield Town
Leyton Orient
Lincoln City
Mansfield Town
Northampton Town
Peterborough United
Reading
Rotherham United
Shrewsbury Town
Stevenage
Stockport County
Wigan Athletic
Wrexham
Wycombe Wanderers


League Two

AFC Wimbledon
Accrington Stanley
Barrow
Bradford City
Bromley
Carlisle United
Cheltenham Town
Chesterfield
Colchester United
Crewe Alexandra
Doncaster Rovers
Fleetwood Town
Gillingham
Grimsby Town
Harrogate Town
MK Dons
Morecambe
Newport County
Notts County
Port Vale
Salford City
Swindon Town
Tranmere Rovers
Walsall

Season begins on Friday 9 August.
 
Gary Neville has bought Peter Lim's stake in Salford which I believe was 50%. Interesting to see how they go from here, they seem to be looking to attract outside investment without any success so far.

Squad wise I'm not sure what their plan is either. You'd think they're in a great position geographically to pick up younger players that have been released from PL/Championship sides in that part of the country, develop them and sell on but they had a really old side last year.
 
IRN-BRUno said:
Gary Neville has bought Peter Lim's stake in Salford which I believe was 50%. Interesting to see how they go from here, they seem to be looking to attract outside investment without any success so far.

Squad wise I'm not sure what their plan is either. You'd think they're in a great position geographically to pick up younger players that have been released from PL/Championship sides in that part of the country, develop them and sell on but they had a really old side last year.
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Gary is good at obtaining capital and will no doubt now be able to be more flexible with this as he's the main decision maker. Most of his private ventures outside football have been successful, so I think we will see Salford doing better now that he and his team are in full control.
 
IRN-BRUno said:
Gary Neville has bought Peter Lim's stake in Salford which I believe was 50%. Interesting to see how they go from here, they seem to be looking to attract outside investment without any success so far.

Squad wise I'm not sure what their plan is either. You'd think they're in a great position geographically to pick up younger players that have been released from PL/Championship sides in that part of the country, develop them and sell on but they had a really old side last year.
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They've lost some key players this summer, such as Alex Cairns and Callum Hendry.

They've also signed some good replacements, though again a number are 30+ (Jamie Jones, James Chester, Jon Taylor, Cole Stockton).

Interesting to see how they do in Karl Robinson's first full season with them. He normally has teams playing good football and battling for (though often not acheiving) promotion from league one - MK Dons, Oxford, Charlton.

He was a very good appointment for a club struggling in league two, but they didn't seem to have much of an improvement under him last season.
 
IRN-BRUno said:
Gary Neville has bought Peter Lim's stake in Salford which I believe was 50%. Interesting to see how they go from here, they seem to be looking to attract outside investment without any success so far.

Squad wise I'm not sure what their plan is either. You'd think they're in a great position geographically to pick up younger players that have been released from PL/Championship sides in that part of the country, develop them and sell on but they had a really old side last year.
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I suppose there's a ton of competition for players in the northwest, always has been.

Mind you, Oldham, Bury and Rochdale are all non league now which should help in theory. Having said that, Stockport are back in recent seasons, Wrexham are sort of northwest and Barrow are actually based in Manchester I believe when it comes to where they train, sharing facilities with FC United last I heard.
 
What a brilliant job Dave Challinor is doing at Stockport. Top of League One with 2 wins out of 2. Everyone talks about Wrexham when Stockport have progressed at the same rate only slightly better.

21/22 Challinor takes over in November with Stockport in 9th, loses 1 in his first 23 games and they win the National League. Wrexham finish 2nd and lose in the playoff semis.

22/23 4th in League Two, lost in the playoff final to Carlisle on penalties.

23/24 Wins League Two, ahead of Wrexham again.

He's also built a very nice CV in the lower leagues/non league, it's not just there he's done well:

2010/11 - Colwyn Bay, runners up in NPL Premier Division, wins the playoffs

2011/12 - 2019/20 AFC Fylde, dropped down 2 divisions to join them, a mini sugar daddy club. 3 promotions in his first 6 seasons to reach the National League. Made the National League playoffs in their first 2 seasons at that level, losing out in the final to Salford City in 2018/19 but did win the FA Trophy. Sacked early into 19/20.

2019/20 Joins Hartlepool in November, takes them from 13th to 4th, wins the playoffs to gain promotion to League Two. Keeps them up comfortably the following season before quitting to join Stockport.
 
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Bolton vs Wrexham has been a decent League One game so far. Not the most entertaining perhaps but both sides are technically solid and play a nice brand of football. Wouldn’t surprise me if we saw both of them in the playoffs.
 
top1whoisman said:
Bolton vs Wrexham has been a decent League One game so far. Not the most entertaining perhaps but both sides are technically solid and play a nice brand of football. Wouldn’t surprise me if we saw both of them in the playoffs.
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Bolton need to get promoted this year. Have fumbled the last two opportunities.
 
Interesting little infographic on the realities of transfer business at this level:
 
Wigan's an interesting one. They've normally had one of the biggest budgets whenever in league one over the last 30 years and so usually go up.

But after all their recent financial issues, they've still been serving transfer embargo (only signings frees and loans) so haven't spent anything again in terms of transfer fees. And after selling a good young player for a pretty large fee for league one (£3.5m) then no wonder they're at the bottom of the list. Also might be selling / losing another (Aasgaard) for a similar fee before the window ends.

Wrexham also interesting. If they do well, people will probably go on about 'money talks'. But while getting some good lower league players for league 2 / NL standard over the last few years, it's still very much a (good) lower league type squad and they've not spent much this summer in transfer fees to strengthen for league one. Though they don't really lose anyone, which is a big help at this level as keeping hold of your best players is often really tough.
 
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Chipper said:
Interesting little infographic on the realities of transfer business at this level:
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Not sure what state Wigan are in, assuming bad, but we (Rotherham) are supposedly debt free. We're doing this shit for funsies. We have 1 point from our first 3 games after dropping down in to League One, so I'm feeling great about it.
 
DOTA said:
Not sure what state Wigan are in, assuming bad, but we (Rotherham) are supposedly debt free. We're doing this shit for funsies. We have 1 point from our first 3 games after dropping down in to League One, so I'm feeling great about it.
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Wigan seem to be in a betwixt and between state, really.

After a couple of decades of being quite big spenders under Dave Whelan, they then had a couple of years of terrible owners messing them around financially.

Their current owner seems to be looking to run them sensibly and sustainably to get them back on solid ground. They've had a good youth set up over recent years and producing some good youngsters - a number of whom left cheap during the administration year, but they seem to have a new group of them (Hughes just joined Hull for £3.5m; Aasgaard linked with Blackburn for similar fee or more; highly rated England U21 Sam Tickle in goal...)

Due to that, and the transfer embargo, their team is currently a mix of youth, frees and loans. But they finished mid table last season (even with a points deduction), and I imagine it'll be something similar again. Though goals seem to be an issue in the current squad - hopefully our own Joe Hugill will start getting some for them!
 
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Not sure how accurate that graphic is, Wigan definitely paid a fee to Exeter for Aimson this summer.
 
IRN-BRUno said:
Not sure how accurate that graphic is, Wigan definitely paid a fee to Exeter for Aimson this summer.
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Actually, yeah. Good point. Going off the Wikipedia page for their 24/25 season, it claims £200,000 for Aimson, £300,000 for Rankine from Chelsea, and £350,000 for Sibbick off Hearts. So either that or the graphic is way off.

Wigan's transfer embargo must have ended at the end of last season then! It was certainly still in place then, when they did really well to finish mid table with both an embargo and starting off with a points deduction.
 
Two promoted teams in Stockport and Wrexham top of the League One table after 3,5 matches. Birmingham and Charlton on 10 points too.
 
Naughty Franchise fans are being taken away by an army of security here at plough lane. Soon enough they'll have none left, so it will be just like playing at home for the MK players.
 
What's going on at Bolton?

Surely one of the big favourites for promotion and are now in the relegation zone after losing 4-0 at home.
 
I watched Bristol Rovers lose 4-0 to Wigan on Saturday afternoon, I've had far better Saturday afternoons! But Joe Hugill scored twice in the first half, both very scrappy goals which Rovers should never have allowed in, he also took great pleasure celebrating them both in front of Rovers fans, he was very unpopular in the Rovers end, but he has a good pass on him and has very quick feet.
 
Looking forward to Ethan Laird vs James McClean.

Edit: Laird not in the squad.
 
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BeforeKeanetherewasRobson said:
Didn’t think he did. Replay showed Brady jump up and thought Beckham just sat there?

Lifelong United fan 100%.
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His lad was punching the air. Nothing wrong with it obviously, just wondering if there was more to it than just being Brady’s guests.
 
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