Race to the tape: 2024's League One promotion campaign

[BWFC_Insane]

When I look at Derby, and indeed a lot of sides this season….I think we are massively underperforming.

For me we have the best squad in the league. There are issues but everyone else has them too. Pompey a whole team missing today through injury.

I don’t think Evatt is bad or even necessarily actually want him to leave. He’s done a good job here and stabilised the club. The issue I have and probably why it’s such a mess on social media is that some of the hyperbole about Evatt that is virtually non stop is ridiculous. He can’t even be mentioned in the same breath yet as Allardyce. He’s miles off. As it stands he’s a promising young manager who started awfully here off the back of Covid promotion at Barrow then we had a worldie second half of the season. Got up. Did well for half a season in league one then fell apart and we rebuilt. Same thing happened season after where another rebuild did well and we got into the play offs and then lost in pretty insipid fashion. Ok but this season it’s a much weaker league and we are bound to do it. He needed backing from the board though and got it. Boy did he get it. Started like an unstoppable train but slowly and surely the same cracks we had the last two seasons have been exposed. Lose to teams we shouldn’t who just set about us. Lose the ‘big’ ‘more significant’ ‘higher pressure’ whatever games you want to call them too often and don’t really win any. Have game after game where we talk about how good we were we just couldn’t find the finish or messed up defensively. And every so often we pulverise someone to show how good we are. But leagues aren’t built on that. They are built on grinding out result after result and doing that more than everyone else.

Derby and Portsmouth both show us huge respect. Because we are a better team than them. But they find ways to win. When it really matters. And we find ways to lose.

The style of football is irrelevant. Ultimately we all want success. I hope it can be success with Evatt as I can’t in all honesty think of a magical replacement anymore than anyone else can. I just think that we should accept that he’s no messiah or managerial genius. He’s not as it stands close to our best managers at this club and has in some ways had a much more favourable scenario in front of him.

He’s a lower league manager at a big club struggling to get us out of league one. He won’t be the first in that position and won’t be the last but that is the long and short of it. It’s not like better managers haven’t struggled to achieve this. But we do need to accept that he can’t keep doing the same things not least because one assumes there isn’t an endless pot of money. At some point he may have a lesser group of players but we will still need to find a way out. That’s the test. I don’t think you need to be a good manager to get us up this season. Next season you might need to be.

[Worthy4England]

Next season, Rotherham and Sheff Weds are currently looking likely...then a bit of a cluster with some fairly chunky names in it. I suspect you're right that it feels a chunk more problematic next season.

[officer_dibble]

Stockport and Wrexham both well backed could be up as well. Charlton look to have made a good appointment. Will be tougher next season. I’m a plus one on the above… this was our best chance. Need to turn it around in the play offs.

[knobpolisher]

Derby one down at half time, come on Northampton

[The_Gun]

Come on the fecking Cobblers!

[TANGODANCER]

Things not all going to plan in the League. Carlisle two up....

[dave the minion]

Derby lost to Northampton. Leaderless, soft, bottlers.....

[DJBlu]

Fat lady has laryngitis.

It's not over till it's over.

COYWM!!!!

[The_Gun]

Get in there.

[TANGODANCER]

Oh be joyful..

[Prufrock]

Bradley sent off at the end too.

[jmjhb]

Great result if and only if we can take advantage. Given recent results, I have serious doubts. Obviously hoping I will be proven spectacularly wrong this time next week.

[BWFC_Insane]

Great result if and only if we can take advantage. Given recent results, I have serious doubts. Obviously hoping I will be proven spectacularly wrong this time next week.

It’s certainly a huge boost. We’ve hit the fabled international break rest we’ve been talking about for so long and had the massive boost of derby losing a game I think we’d have given them at least a point in.

So it’s sort of now down to us. We have to string wins together and that’s the challenge. Win one lose one isn’t cutting it. We need to win maybe 6 games out of 7 and it’s down to the players to show they have the ability to do that.

[Worthy4England]

Great result if and only if we can take advantage. Given recent results, I have serious doubts. Obviously hoping I will be proven spectacularly wrong this time next week.

It’s certainly a huge boost. We’ve hit the fabled international break rest we’ve been talking about for so long and had the massive boost of derby losing a game I think we’d have given them at least a point in.

So it’s sort of now down to us. We have to string wins together and that’s the challenge. Win one lose one isn’t cutting it. We need to win maybe 6 games out of 7 and it’s down to the players to show they have the ability to do that.

No way on God's green earth you didn't have Derby down for three in this, oh merchant of doom!

[Mar]

Great result if and only if we can take advantage. Given recent results, I have serious doubts. Obviously hoping I will be proven spectacularly wrong this time next week.

It’s certainly a huge boost. We’ve hit the fabled international break rest we’ve been talking about for so long and had the massive boost of derby losing a game I think we’d have given them at least a point in.

So it’s sort of now down to us. We have to string wins together and that’s the challenge. Win one lose one isn’t cutting it. We need to win maybe 6 games out of 7 and it’s down to the players to show they have the ability to do that.

No way on God's green earth you didn't have Derby down for three in this, oh merchant of doom!

IIRC he was saying we needed to win 7 out of 8 (n-1) of our remaining fixtures for us to go up. It's been a common theme for weeks that wed have to win the majority of our remaining games. Maybe that still rings true depending on results elsewhere but I don't think anyone would've thought Derby would drop points against Northampton. I'm fairly certain the presumption would've been Derby dropping points against Pompey and us having to win just to keep up.


Still the result in the Portsmouth v Derby game can resonate. Any points Pompey pick up mean that we could overtake Derby by winning our games. A win for Derby means we could get into 3 points off Pompey and a point behind Derby. Which would mean we'd be well in contention. All ifs and buts of course. Weve got to win our games.

[Worthy4England]

TBF (and it was tongue in cheek), think I said I could see similar too. I mean it's all relative, but decent for us yesterday.

[officer_dibble]

Not looking good tonight!

[Prufrock]

Pompey are just a better version of this. Still thick. The football gods are on the side of football terrorism.

[The_Gun]

We really will have fecked up if we don't go up automatically. Pompey and Derby not a shade on any of the three who went up last season.

[DJBlu]

How the feck are they in 1st and 2nd?

Pompey limping towards the title?