That's very much the conundrum SW - you put it much better than me :)

9 points clear and if Norwich win their last 3 games they can catch us but we have a massively superior goal difference so basically yes

Norwich drew, so they would apparently have to make up a goal difference of something like 25 in remaining fixtures. So, in practice, yes.

The women, should they get promotion, will want additional funding to allow them to offer a decent challenge next season, the men’s team will require an increased budget to make us competitive and Michele will want her pound of flesh to pay the bills, who do we think will come out winners here?

Even papers must admit the women are up

Are the ladies now promoted?

Oh, found it. We won 2 - 0

Any news on how the women got on today?

To be fair the 3 game Curtis suspension has killed us if we could have got a result yesterday then having Curtis back and rested for the last 2 would have been huge. Think we were too reliant on the Balmer long throw yesterday especially as Bugiel is the only stripier who can head the ball

Yeah,don't expect too much next season,now the players looked bored with our style of play,probably why many have gone off the boil.

Bit like Hotel California .."you can check out anytime you want, but you can never leave"

I'll stick my neck out and say we won't be challenging next year. We have a £2m loss before fee income to make up, so don't expect a competitive playing budget

Still the only team to have knocked Coventry City out of a cup competition this season ;)

They could say that an improvement on last season is the first priority and then we will hopefully try to push for a playoff place from there. :-)

Surely most managers will say that promotion or playoffs is the “aim”, unless they’ve only just got promoted the previous season, in which case they might say that they’re looking to survive and then build… The alternative is just to say “I dunno Jeff, we’re just gonna take every game as it comes and see what happens…”. Imagine the reaction if they did that… 🤪

I couldn't spot the date of that article, but i bet it was sometime around July when the ST sales were going on

spartan - not necessarily you, but certainly some…

You always accept promotion, whether that is automatically or the play offs.

Because aiming for the playoffs is more realistic and then if we happen to get promoted, that is the bonus of getting to the play offs.

What is the point of aiming for the playoffs if you aren't aiming for promotion?

Maybe he should have stated that he was aiming for the piay offs if possible, which would've been a big improvement on last season and would've been more realistic and more acceptable.

*the way JJ plays does not benefit attacking play or attacking wing play or catching teams on the counter. He is happy to generally keep it tight at the back, for which the staff deserve credit, but it nullifies our attacking prowess. Stating the obvious, we need to try and outscore the other team to win games.

TSO - how enthusiastic would you have been about a manager pre-season stating that his target was mid-table mediocrity? Our aim this season should have been to be promoted, much as I'd have been astonished to achieve it. We have shown we can compete with anyone, we've also shown we can lose to anyone. I'd hope Jackson starts the next season in the same manner though again I won't be expecting promotion.

If JJ was a decent manager, surely he'd be smart enough to play wingers on the correct side of the pitch which favours to the by-line early crosses which would also benefit Kelly and Davison, and Bugiel, particularly for headers. We have the likes of Tilley, Neufville, Sasu and Currie who can beat a full back and get crosses into the box.

With regards to AAH leaving in January, maybe it was something to do with the deal itself. Ipswich may have added the promotion bonus to clinch the deal in January or we'd have to accept a lesser fee in the summer.