Yes I'm well aware the window doesn't shut for 5 weeks, but the real action for us starts on Friday.

So time to gauge posters opinions of how likely we are to bounce straight back to the big time or not.

For me I say 6/10, some decent additions who offer promise, but equally a lot of high profile departures notably in defence, and added to that a relatively inexperienced manager, plus a steep change in personnel, and the best I can see for us is challenging for a PO place.

Of course this might change in the event of adding genuine proven quality, and keeping hold of some key players, but as it stands I see a season of transition, and bedding in a lot of new players as being a step too far too mount a real promotion push.

I hope I'm wrong, but I feel the bedding in period for the team as a whole may be too long for a promotion push this year. Somewhere mid-table would be my guess.

4/10 for me, not at all confident of an immediate return especially with the high amount of fixtures in August .

Like tiger says though the window as 5 weeks before it closes

7

It’s clearly too early to say.

I think we will be more competitive than some think but it’s going to take time and it’s really going to probably be less important than some try to make out.

I would say I would be disappointed if we weren’t too half. The rest is just down to at what point we click into playing well as a team and mastering the new system.

6/10. Defence probably not strong enough

10/10 hopeful of an instant return
5/10 realistic

So hard to say. A bottom half of the table finish wouldn't surprise me but there again we could finish in the top six. I do think, right now, somewhere in mid-table.

Play offs and then it’s 50/50.

Top. Think we’ll smash the league

Id take being around 8/9th around the World Cup break. Then second half of the season the team really starts to click and we make a surge for the top 6. This is quite a fluid opinion though, and is very much dependant on what further business we do, as others have said.

Hoping for top 6.

I think the team will take time to gel though and worries around the defence make me think realistically between 10th and 15th.

For the first season in a long time I really don’t know what to expect.

I wouldn’t be shocked to see us smash the league and finish top but I’d neither be shocked if we finished bottom.

There’s that much of a culture change around the whole club it’s either gunna instantly work or it isn’t.

Not sure we’ve enough nouse, guile or know how within the squad. We’ve lost a hell of a lot of experience and there are are a lot of players to bed in.

Without seeing the new players it’s anyones guess. Without seeing them, I think we are short a striker (at least one) an attacking player (wing / midfield) and probably an experienced head in defence.

I can see what the club is trying to do, it just seems that we may be doing too much at once to achieve promotion.

With the squad we have 8 out of 10 confident. With what I think we will have at the end of the window 4 out of 10.

Subject to signing a goalscorer before the end of the window ( and sooner rather than later ) I expect us to finish in the top eight, and hopefully in the top six.

I have absolutely no idea about the relative strength of the new recruits. Our squad has been weakened and I have no feeling for how good the new manager is. So maybe hopeful but certainly not confident.

Not happening this season in my opinion, but I’m not fussed as long as I enjoy more games.

Maybe next year all being well.

6th and a playoff victory!

A huge task for any manager during this ridiculously short close season let alone a very inexperienced one. Still too many players whose better days are behind them and desperately need a goalscorer. Mid table finish at best I'm afraid.

5/10

There's just so many unknowns right now.

One of the most promising things is the fact that Kompany appears to have improved every year he's been managing.

Probably 4/10. The Championship is an unforgiving league. We won't be facing the quality we're used to facing every week, but for the most part we'll face sides who are well drilled, difficult to break down, and with a couple of quality players who can hurt you.

I've seen a few comments on here along the lines of; "nothing to fear", "we'll walk the league". My gut tells me those posters are in for a shock.

My biggest fear is that we'll be too wedded to the idea of playing out from the back and we'll end up beating ourselves. I hope I'm proven wrong and I am looking forward to the season, but I can't see a promotion.

Add O’Hare, Delap and a CD before the end of August, too six.

6.5 out of 10

Really looking forward to the season but we need a few players still in key areas. Striker and an experienced cb are essential. I’d say 5th with this team right now.

I think we’ll make the playoffs by finishing 5th but fall short by getting beat by Middlesbrough in the final.

never expected it this season.
I'm really hopeful for 23-24 though.

Way too big a turnover of staff and management. Players like Pope Collins Mee Tarks Wood Weghorst and maybe McNeil Cornet and Brownhill gone. If the last 3 stay then maybe we could scrape into the play offs but if 2 of those 3 go we are in mid table at best. Very much a fire sale so far bringing in players for the future. Tough to judge the likes of Bastien Twine etc.
Huddersfield game will be a big yardstick for the season. As of today my odds would be Champions 20/1. Playoffs 8/1 Relegation 10/1. Mid table 3/1.

FCBurnley wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 24, 2022 5:17 pm

Way too big a turnover of staff and management. Players like Pope Collins Mee Tarks Wood Weghorst and maybe McNeil Cornet and Brownhill gone. If the last 3 stay then maybe we could scrape into the play offs but if 2 of those 3 go we are in mid table at best. Very much a fire sale so far bringing in players for the future. Tough to judge the likes of Bastien Twine etc.
Huddersfield game will be a big yardstick for the season. As of today my odds would be Champions 20/1. Playoffs 8/1 Relegation 10/1. Mid table 3/1.

Firesale? We’ve sold two players and signed 8. Think you should take a look at what a firesale actually means.

I sometimes think a good gauge is what other fans / neutrals think.

Here is a popular Championship twitter accounts predictions for the season:

Not overly confident and I think we’ll lose at least another key player yet (McNeil or Cornet)

Defence is very inexperienced and I think we’ll be shy of goals from the strikers.

Top 10 for me.

With a new striker 8/10. Without 4/10

Just watched the video on the Newcastle game.

We're dead certs for promotion

It's so hard to know given the extent of change and that no one knows how the new players will perform individually or together as a team. Clearly we need patience for that very reason but at the same time an excellent start would mean teams start to fear us to an extent and put them on the back foot. Such a start might not be realistic especially as I'm not convinced the preseason programme has been right. I'm hopeful of top 6. But lots of guesswork and Kompany needs our support regardless.

Before a ball is kicked even the best team in the league is less likely to be promoted than not.

Using the OP’s grading I’ll go 4/10. Automatic promotion seems very unlikely but there’s always a way up through the play offs and you’d like to think we can be in the mix to challenge the top six. But as things stand I don’t see enough goals in the side, and I doubt an inexperienced defence and goalkeeper will be able to counteract that. I also suspect the squad will be weaker at the end of the transfer window than it is now.

Not at all optimistic but will continue to support the team.
If you'd have told me that in our next match we'd be without Pope,Mee and Tarks I'd have shat myself.
I'm not a big believer in a team bedding down as 11 good footballers should be able to go out and play football under any circumstances but playing together regularly a team will get better so we'd all better be prepared to be patient.
Last season,Forest were in the bottom 3 when Cooper took over and ended up in the play offs.
We have a hell of a player in Scott Twine and hope that we can keep hold of Cornet and McNeill who will relish playing this division.
The experienced players will be vital if we are to be successful.

The difference between bottom half/mid table and a play-off spot is usually, very roughly, somewhere between 5-8 wins. We're the team in the league with the biggest ground-up rebuild. We've literally built a new team from scratch. I'm about 4/10 for promotion because I can't see how we immediately string enough results together with such a stark change in style and personnel against teams who are more experienced than us in this league, and whose squads aren't learning about one another on the job, so to speak.

I hope the logic is something like this: we could have gone for a $hit-or-bust promotion challenge with big spending on ready-made players, get promoted whichever way possible, then get drubbed every week for a season because we can't compete, then get relegated again. But instead, we build a team stacked full of players who in three or four years are almost all legitimate PL calibre, allowing us to compete a bit better on the field; those players tied to contracts that we can more realistically afford, we sell at peak player value, allowing us to compete a bit better in the transfer market.

I'm thinking about the players we've been closely linked with over the recent years like Ziyech, Bowen, and one or two others who we missed out on, who went on to do amazing things, and who might have been more viable signings had we gone in for them a season earlier. I'm hoping the likes of CJ, Twine, Bastien etc, other teams will be looking at them a few season from now asking where on earth Burnley found them, only we've got about six or seven of those players all playing together, rather than the odd one here or there. That's the hope, anyway. Is it realistic? I've no idea. If this process works it'll most definitely require a bit of patience, but the idea is to give us a better platform to compete in the PL. Demanding the patience to allow these players to f'k up and grow as footballers is a feature of this model, not a bug.

Our years-long stint in the PL was built on miracles, really. That's obviously not sustainable.

6/10 I think we will finish top ten as it stands. Depends who else goes and how quickly things gel. Need another striker too. It’s the GK and CB pairing that concerns me most though.

Top half finish will be an achievement. 7 games in the first month will sort the men out from the boys and I have a feeling we will be playing catch up from the resulting situation.

4/10 from me, although I will continue to predict wins in our guess the score league!

Too many young players. If we sign 2 or 3 more experienced or very good players, we will have a better chance.

RVclaret wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 24, 2022 5:18 pm

Firesale? We’ve sold two players and signed 8. Think you should take a look at what a firesale actually means.

It’s the latest buzz word that they think makes them sound more knowledgeable than they actually are. I’ve been using these words as a barometer as to whether to take opinions seriously or not.

Current squad as is would be a 3 or 4/10.

Add a striker that we can be confident will notch at least 15 along with a more experienced centre back and it would jump up to an 8 or possibly 9. We need to hold on to Taylor, Roberts, Brownhill and McNeil though.

The odds being offered of 9/1 by some bookmakers (Paddy Power, Sky, Betfred) is completely insane. Get off to a poor start, as many on here envisage, and those odds will very quickly become 33/1.

I think the settling in period will mean it's too much for us this year.

Consolidation this year, followed by a top 6 finish next year.

Of course, i'd love us to go straight back up, but when realism kicks in, i'll settle for top half with 6 points courtesy of the horse botherers.

I think we will kick in after a few weeks bedding in and I'm confident of a top 2 finish.
9

I saw someone on here say 17% of our league games are played in the month of August, absolutely insanity if Cornet is still here and not featuring. I think we're 3 quality players short, through the spine of the team. CB, Attacking Mid, ST. When I say quality I don't mean unproven cheapskate deals either.

I mean Armstrong (loan), O'Hare and a central defender that knows this league, Steve Cook did really well for Forest. Egan/O'Connell at Sheff United, Mepham from Bournemouth. Rodon at Spurs. I'd take Gary Cahill on a free transfer, played quite a few for Bournemouth last year.

Straight back up ,we need to try to beat Readings points total for Championship winners

By the way, this is all based on the assumption that Cornet and McNeil are both off, right?

Because if by some miracle they are both here in September everything changes.

Realist here.

If we were to lose Taylor and one of McNeil/Cornet then I'll be having a flutter on relegation.

The clearout has gone beyond sensible. Stick Hennessy back in there and a defence lead by Collins with Pieters as utility backup would look a bit more like.

Bottom half as it stands.

I’m just hoping we don’t get relegated again.

Too early for prediction, let's see how many we bring in/lose.