StarkMallard

We've still got a major piece of the puzzle to fall in place, but I'll go for a place near the top end of the bottom half, occasionally looking over our shoulder at the relegation scrap but never quite slipping into it. We need more goals from midfield and I think we'll manage that, and in MP we have a manager who knows how to lift a team after a poor result.

!! HYDRATION BREAK !! Right, carry on.

The season is upon us and the squad is more or less complete. How confident are you all feeling? Are we going to take League One by storm or are we in for a grim struggle?

Ooh arr! I started my drinking career with cider but I really struggle with it now. Shame, as Frankfurt is a cider hotspot.

Welcome back! The proper football is finally back, and with it the prediction league. You are all welcome to take part, newbies and seasoned campaigners alike! This is how it works: At least two days before every matchday I will post a thread with eight matches to predict from the Championship, League One, League Two and the Conference. You then reply with your predicted scores. The cut-off time for posting is kick-off (in this case 3pm). At the end of it all I'll then post a table with the current standings. Scoring system: 3 points for a correct score and 1 for a correct result. So if you predict Swindon to beat Walsall 2-1 and they do, you get 3 points; if Swindon win 1-0, you get 1 point. Each round you can also choose one match as your joker - any points you win for that match are then doubled. As ever, my decision is final and no, you can't get a politician of your choice to ring me and change my mind 😉 Good luck! Norwich City v West Bromwich Albion Portsmouth v QPR Bradford City v Peterborough United Leyton Orient v Sheffield Wednesday Gillingham v Walsall York City v Bristol Rovers Solihull Moors v Boston United Southend United v Scunthorpe United

This one sounds promising, and it looks like he'll get plenty of minutes too due to the unexplained disappearance of Jones. Let's be patient with him and hope he's another loanee in the Iorpenda mould.

I'd been expecting another attacking midfielder as it looks like we'll be relying on them for our goal threat this season. Hope he does well! To be honest, I've looked at his record and it does raise a few questions. He's just cut short a loan at Wigan to join us, which is understandable as we're the greatest club in the world. OK. At the beginning of last season he joined Nuremberg II on loan in the fourth-level Regionalliga Bayern. German B teams are for players aged under 23, so are set up specifically to bring young players like him through, and the league they play in is a very poor one (National League level if that). Mustapha played just 100 minutes in half a season before his loan was cut short and he went back. He then joined West Brom where he also played very little. None of this indicates that he's a bad player - he's a 20-year-old taking his first steps in men's football. But he does need to settle down somewhere. Let's hope he can do that with us!

This thread is a right rollercoaster 😁 He seems a very highly regarded young player - an England youth international who Chelsea paid 4 million to get. It looks like his loan to Strasbourg never happened, he went to Swansea instead and made six appearances according to Wikipedia. Sounds like a talented prospect, but he'll be raw and will make mistakes. That's part of the deal with young loanees.

@theAnticlough My actual eyesight hadn't changed, I was just finding it harder and harder to focus on nearby things, like when I'm reading. I ended up just taking my glasses off constantly. So in theory, varifocals are great - they correct my short-sightedness while also allowing me to read things without taking them off all the time. In practice they're hard work, but it's early days. For the reading area, the part where everything looks sharp is much smaller than I expected, so I have to move my head constantly. Watching England in Argentina sounds... interesting! Did you identify yourself or stay incognito?

Hi @Fan of Big Tone, please don't ditch it! I didn't see it at all last week (probably due to me using the All Activity function and checking in later in the week). I'm going to be a bit more active from now on. I'm worried about the water situation too. We've had very little rain since March and it seems to be happening every year now. I've mown the lawn twice this year. It's now completely dead and I'll have to reseed it again in the autumn. But we do our bit by never washing the car - the "dusty" look is in this year 😁 I also picked up my first pair of varifocals this weekend and I'm still struggling with them. I can read things without taking them off, but it's just exhausting. Does it get better?

JJ has a big head compared to his frame, but that's ridiculous. And Grant appears to want a fight.

I feel much better after that! Very impressive to hold a team full of quality and with Premier League ambitions to a draw after 90 minutes. Also great to see Cal Roberts getting off the mark early, hopefully that'll give him the confidence to make the step up. It's a shame we went out with the PL teams joining in the next round, but before the game I'd have settled for avoiding a spanking. Now we have something to build on ahead of Leicester.

If he's a left wing-back it would make sense (whether Jones stays or not), but I read elsewhere that he plays in Bedeau's position. Let's wait and see what happens. I'm expecting the remaining loanees to be attacking midfielders or maybe a striker, depending on whether we fill the vacant number 9 shirt.

Oh no @PON_News, League Two again? And there I was thinking we'd escaped it 😞 Joking aside, I'm very curious to see what side we put out and how the new signings look in serious competitive games. It's a bit weird to start with our League Cup run, but at least it gives us competitive match practice before the season proper begins. We might even win! Not expecting us to progress, but I hope to see a good, competitive performance, a narrow scoreline and a goal for us.

I suppose you could argue that promotion came too soon for us - ideally you should already have a squad capable of being competitive in the division above and be able to add extra quality and depth on top of that. This time, only seven members of our promotion-winning team are still with us, a couple of those are injured or possibly on the way out, and we don't have a proven goalscorer, so it feels like MP has a job on to make us competitive. I felt more confident in our ability to compete after our last two promotions into L1 than I am now. However, squad fluctuation is generally greater now so maybe this is just the way of things. I like the sound of most of our signings individually, but we'll just have to wait and see whether they can cope with what is for most of them a step up. I think the owners and RM are largely sticking with their guns this summer. They've been proven successful so far, but I have the feeling that they're plugging gaps rather than complementing what we've already got.