The standard of League Two

[DangerousSausage]

Before the season started we were given dark warnings from Mansfield fans that we (and Wrexham) would be shocked at how high the standard in League Two is. Now we're five games in, what are your thoughts so far?

Personally I've been less than impressed so far. Even Sutton didn't do anything we hadn't seen in the NL, we were a rabbit in the headlights that day and weren't ready. In the last three games in particular we've looked a class above the opposition. However, I think we've had a soft start - we've played three of the bottom four (and lost against one of them) and only one of the teams we've played is in the top half, and only just. The last two would struggle in the NL; Doncaster in particular were frighteningly bad and reminded me of us in our relegation season.

It's nice to be in the top four, but our next games are against the franchise (first) and Accrington (third). I think it'll take another month or so until we truly know where we rank and whether another promotion bid is realistic.

[Fozzy]

We won’t really know where we stand until around a dozen games or so and after a few weeks of the window being shut. Personally, I’m more than happy knowing that we will at least be better than several teams this season so shouldn’t go down, but I still feel we are seriously lacking at the back in the quality needed to challenge for promotion.

Baj is out for the season, Brindley and Baldwin are injury prone, refs will cotton onto Cameron’s Duffy dives and Rawlo is being caught out for his lack of pace. Tipton has become the Scarlet Pimpernel of the squad and Mahovo has been loaned out. This week will hopefully provide a few answers to this issue and the club will bring in a couple of players.

 

[liampie]

momentum is building nicely, it would be good if we can start keeping some clean sheets as that lifts performances naturally within itself.

i dont mean yesterday, that could not be helped but doncaster and certainly other games we should be trying to keep the goals out. i think the sutton game has become a turning point, in that the club did not want to fall short of the standards that luke williams has set. if we can maintain this level of form, we will be in a shout for promotion come the end of the season. issue is there is much that can change.

mansfield are unlucky to have such injury issues within their camp, god for bid that happens to us.

as we would struggle even with our depth to replace some of the key players we have in our team. if we took out palmer, bostock, jones, langstaff we would not be as strong imo.

[cheeky~k8]

Its too early to say on what the rest of this season will bring, for us and some other teams its a positive start though.

[Chris]

There's not much difference in truth between the National League and League Two.

It's mostly the setup in terms of how teams prepare, train and the standard of players being a bit higher in quality. I always felt that Notts would be able to keep their style of play. Some people have expressed that we have changed it completely, but I think some of the changes are minimal at least. It's the same approach to breaking teams down; the difference from the start of the campaign is the urgency and focus on keeping the ball moving into attacking spaces. Although, we did this very similarly against many of the National League teams.

We have played a couple of good teams, but sides which haven't quite found the same form we have.

Grimsby, Tranmere and Doncaster I feel will be much stronger when we next play them and this will show how different the league can be.

[OoooooTommy]

I think the football is better in League Two; you can see the quality in terms of step up. I did prefer the National League for the fact that teams tried a bit more than what I have seen. Even weak teams had performed better than Doncaster and Tranmere.

[Super_Danny_Allsopp]

The standard is higher than the NL.. Even the teams (and excluding Sutton here) that play more direct, can pass it around too. You can see the technical ability of the players, in general, is higher. That's not to say some of the teams were anymore effective than some we've played in the NL, but they certainly have the potential to be. Sutton gave us a thrashing, but they were far and away the worst technical side of the bunch we've played thus far and are very NL... hit it long, run the channels, big, physical, but can't string 10 passes together. 

Donny had something like 10 players out. If we had 10 players out, we'd be struggling to field a starting 11, let alone a bench. Morecambe, who we failed to beat, looked really very average. They then went and smashed Bradford 3-0.  Crawley, everybody's favourites for NL-hell next season, beat current league leaders MK Franchise. Just over a week later, they got smashed 6-0 by Swindon. Strange results like those are more of a common occurrence in L2 where the standard is much closer between teams than it was in the NL; ourselves and Wrexham were head and shoulders above most of the league last season, hence the point tally.  In 2020/21, we got to a playoff semi-final having given Jimmy Knowles 29 games that season. Mansfield wouldn't give him a game. That gives you an idea about the difference between NL play-off team and a mid-table, play-off pushing L2 side.

 

I've seen many a fan of our fellow League 2 sides who haven't started as well as they'd like, fall into the same logical trap; the table lies and isn't representative, but they've played sides that are in the top x in the table. You can't have both.

I do agree that the table lies in August. Donny won't finish bottom. Stockport won't finish in 19th. Wrexham won't finish in 16th. I think Grimsby were a better litmus test to where we are - they are probably a mid-table, upper-mid table, perhaps play-off push team. We beat them at home, albeit with a bit of a struggle. That's probably where we roughly are at the present moment. Any kind of decent test though, needs more than one run. I think Accrington on Saturday will give us another idea of where we're at. MK Dons the week after also. Get through those with 3 or 4 + points, and we can become more confident. Come away with 0-2 points, and it'll be a reality check. 

 

A long way of saying, 'not a scoobie'. 

[DangerousSausage]

Some interesting thoughts above, thanks!

To be honest I also haven't got a scooby. I feel reassured that we're going to deal with the league after the last four games, but it's too early to get carried away with our league position. Hopefully it'll give the team that bit of extra self-belief and help settle them down a bit, but otherwise it doesn't mean much at all this soon into the season.

We've got tougher tests coming up, and I'm fascinated to see how we'll do. We won't have it all our own way, but that's all part of moving up a division. With the injuries to Scott and Bajrami and the disappearance of Morias and Randall, the squad also feels a bit thinner right now and one or two new faces probably wouldn't hurt. The transfer window makes life in L2 a bit less forgiving - we can't just sign a player when we need one, as we've done over the last few seasons. That said, if we can address our defensive weaknesses without throwing the baby out with the bathwater, this squad has real potential.

There's one thing for sure though - it's a lot more interesting than hitting our head on the NL glass ceiling season after season!

[NiftyNick]

The difference between the National League and League Two isn’t that big. Some of the semi-pro teams in the National League perform better than your Walsall’s, Forest Greens, and Doncaster Rovers. The difference for me is the extra quality, but former NL teams that enjoyed a good season prior tend to do reasonably well in L2. It couldn’t be that much of a gulf if the standard was much higher. League One is where the gap is greater because there are many more teams who could be playing in the Championship. There are only a handful of teams in League Two that could adapt well to League One IMO.