STURTZ
Very well known Exeweb poster
Can't see that whatever teams come up from league 2 we can reduce our travel much although losing Carlisle will be good, maybe make up for losing Cheltenham. Teams coming down? Well weve got bloody Rotherham but QPR would be nice and, of course, Pl*mouth would be brilliant!Whilst nobody can dispute that last season Ipswich were by far the best team in L1 and Plymouth weren't too far behind, I didn't think much of Sheffield Wednesday in either of our games and at Hillsborough, with our severely weakened team, deserved at least a point.
Many of the same teams, Barnsley , Bolton and Peterborough are challenging again this season(with big investment)and only Portsmouth has shown a significant improvement and Derby with a minor improvement. One also needs to add Oxford; the latter three also having significant investment. So L1 maybe not as strong as last season, but despite large investment to the above teams, not massively so.
The teams near the bottom end mostly struggled to a degree last season and if staying up will probably do the same next.
The teams coming up will be stronger than those going down and the relegated teams from the Championship will probably be no great shakes either. Huddersfield and Rotherham may well struggle in L1 and the third team is anyone's guess.
L1 next season will be competitive, but I suggest the standard won't be much better than this season. Signing a striker or two and attracting the right players in key positions could even make us one of the competitive teams?