I spoke earlier this week (link) about the countdown to the new English season being well underway and touched upon my first preview of the new campaign, which was sent out as scheduled on Thursday and where I put up a bet at 25-1, highlighted something at twice those odds and then but up two very solid selections in a faily detailed 4,000 word Championship preview.
Part 2 will go out this week and whilst it is too late for those second tier notes, you are in plenty of time for the rest of the previews and there is never a bad time to join the newsletter service.
I have worked incredibly hard on the four English divisions in build up to the new season and whilst I an wary of giving too much away at present, I did give subscribers some basic notes on three friendly games yesterday .............
Bristol Rovers- Swansea City
I like Rovers as a club and they will be absolutely delighted with back to back promotions which have taken them from the Conference to League 1, which is the minimum level they should be playing at. They traditionally finish the season strongly and after 95 huge league and playoff games in the last two seasons, many of which have been played under a lot of pressure and level of expectation, a season of consolidation will not do anyone any harm and I do suspect they might again be a little slow out of the blocks. They have an EPL team in town today, so will doubtles be up for that, but this has been a huge week in the history of the visitors and I expect them to want to mark it with a win. New US owners have bought a controlling interest in the club ,will provide additional investment in players and the club are already hoping to bring in Joe Allen from Liverpool, the new owners have experience with sports teams at MLS and NBA level and certainly appear to have long term plans. They were at the club yesterday and doing a lot of media work and you would think they would be at the game today, head coach Francesco Guidolin openly stated that he would be taking this seriously and whilst he is still without a handful of players who had summer commitments, he will be starting a number of first team players and looking to get at least 70 minutes out of all of them.
Notts County- Nottingham Forest
These are VERY near neighbours, the two closest grounds in England separated by pretty much just the width of the River Trent. Forest will have a huge following here, especially for a friendly and sold out their advance 4,000 ticket allocation days ago and with further tickets on sale on the day, will have well over 5k at the game and with three new signings confirmed yesterday and talk of the trio playing some part today, that might see interest further skyrocket. New Forest head coach Philippe Montanier has made a big impact in a short time and local reporters have said regardless of results, and the club have beaten Sporting Braga 3-0 (other Portugese team results against English clubs have been very good, see Derby below) and Port Vale 2-0 in their last two warm up games, the improvement even in training is hugely noticeable. I understand that the very influential Chris Cohen is finally 100% fit after missing the best part of three seasons and has had his first real pre season in three years ( I have spoken about his importance many times), this is a big club with massive potential and we have to keep an eye on them in the next month or so. NF are a team who will focus heavily in my notes in the opening weeks of the new season, so I don't wish to say too much more currently, but I feel they will see a third straight win and the only one that a lot of supporters will have seen, as important and a momentum builder.
I discussed County's trip to Portugal and their match with Vitoria Setubal last weekend .......
This is County's first pre season friendly and they play their second tomorrow again Benfica, so you would assume the first team squad will be split across the two games, the U21 and U18 groups are here in the Algarve too and I suspect that a few from the former will be in action today or tomorrow. Vitoria have already played Benfica, holding the Portugese champions to a 0-0 draw yesterday, in a good, solid performance that they were very pleased about. That should leave them a little sharper than the Rams.
Derby have been working very hard and getting to know new boss Nigel Pearson, they trained in England on Wednesday, arrived here late the same day and did a double session, morning and evening yesterday and given that and the hot weather here, there is every chance they will be a little short of energy and/or "leggy". Midfielder Bradley Johnson said:“Hot weather training is something we’re not used to but we’re really putting a shift in. We’re grateful to have the chance to come away, get plenty of work in and be involved in the Algarve Cup as well against good sides.” Adding that "the Rams are in the early days of working on how Pearson wants his side to play."
Vitoria have tended to treat all these warm up games serious and in the last two seasons have kept cleansheets against Betis, Sunderland , Braga and now Benfica in friendly matches and look big with the draw on their side tonight, especially given how much work County put in yesterday in training, in conditions they are not used to, whilst also trying to adapt to a change in style for their new head coach.
They kindly lost that 1-0 and followed up with a heavy defeat to Benfica the next day, we need not overly worry about those results, they will have come on considerably for those games and benefitted from the hot weather work they did in the Algarve. They got their four international players who competed in Euro 2016 back this week.......Richard Keogh, Jeff Hendrick, Cyrus Christie (Republic of Ireland) and Chris Baird (Northern Ireland), the quartet all trained Thursday and Friday and are being considered for 45 minutes of action today, anyone else who starts will almost certainly be asked to play at least an hour with boss Nigel Pearson having firmly begun the 14 day countdown to the new season. Things will start to get more serious today, there will be plenty of County fans here and they should be up to beating a Walsall team who have to deal with the disappointment of missing out on aa automatic promotion spot, then the playoffs and thirdly losing several key players over the summer (including prolific Tom Bradshaw and hugely promising midfielder Romaine Sawyers) and this might be a very difficult campaign for them, with an extremely young squad.
Swansea won 5-1, Forest 2-1 and Derby County 2-0 and that augurs really well for the next nine months , don't miss out !
Good Luck.
