Coca Cola leagues
The first of a series of blogs looking at the goings on in the Coca Cola leagues…if you’re not into that sort of thing, do join us anyway…it’s a magical land of goalmouth scrambles and ageing old footballers looking for a last pay packet. I’ll buy you a Toffee Crisp if you come along for the ride…good, thanks for joining me. You look very nice today.
Championship
It’s all going on in the Championship as Colin “Tinkerman” Calderwood plays a genius master stroke. Gone from The City Ground are the likes of the pacy Junior Agogo along with bullish front man Grant Holt. Rob Earnshaw could provide a few goals but Cole’s signing stinks of a desperation move. He could prove me wrong but with the influential Kris Commons gone from the squad we could learn a lot about Calderwood as a manager this season as he takes charge of a side that isn’t going to walk a league that easily.
Down south, Southampton are set to get a big windfall from any possible sale of Peter Crouch from Liverpool to rivals Portsmouth. They could get a figure as high as £500,000 to make Crouch’s move more bearable for Saints fans. In a time of rebuilding under new boss Jan Poortvliet it’s all change. Letting go of Inigo Idiakez will alert several Championship sides.
Crystal Palace have netted what could be one of the free transfers of the summer in signing Daryl Flahavan from Southend. The goalkeepers helped the Shrimpers into the playoffs and is a rock solid stopper with a good few years in him yet at the age of 29.
Everyone likes the return of an old head to start their weeks with and Ipswich have added the legend of Panini sticker albums Chris Kiwomya to their backroom staff as a reserve team development coach. It’s good to see old boys returning to their roots and at least Kiwomya doesn’t want to play again. Yet.
QPR are fast becoming this season’s Manchester City as they sign unknowns from around the globe for their new revolution. Argentines and Italians have arrived already with more expected. The influx of new faces worked for Sven last season right away but there will be question marks from R’s fans as to whether it’s going to work for them.
Wolves have been in the news (well the BBC website news anyway, if you look close enough) as they’ve dropped their reserve team for next season. It seems a bit of a silly move to deny a lot of players the chance to play football but it could well open the floodgates in loan requests for their talented reserves. Daniel Jones and Mark Little were on loan with Northampton last season and they did enough to prove to us at least that they can be lethal weapons at League One level.
The new boys in the Championship are trying to mould their sides to be able to compete next term. Doncaster are most people’s tips for relegation straight back down with Forest and League One champions Swansea City likely to try and “do a Bristol City” and compete in the top six. There’s plenty of good quality coming down from the top flight this time around though and the usual suspects should be about to show the new sides what the Championship is all about.
