Yes. The only nonsense being spouted on this subject is by Cass.

The board and manager need to have expectations, so that they can plan accordingly. It’s not our job as fans to EXPECT anything. Only to have dreams and hopes.

I’m not really sure sure what to expect from this season. Mainly because I haven’t actually seen any league 2 football for the last 3 years, so really can’t sensibly judge the standard of opposition we are going to come up against. For that matter, haven’t seen 6 of our new signings (half the likely starting 11) either.

And that’s before we even know who we are going to recruit to replace 2 of the most senior and influential players from last season’s squad. (Raglan and Norwood).

Compared to the squad that finished last season on a high, we now have:

Daniels > Hobson
Hannant > Kitching
Woods > Evans
Morris > Pritchard
Hawkes > Lundstram
Payne > Rossiter (or Gardner or Worthington)
Stevens > Yoganathan
Drummond > Uchegbulam

Barely seen any of them bar Payne and Drummond who we had earlier last season, so only really know of them by repute.
Would rather have retained Pritchard than either of the latest ex Tranmere recruits, but otherwise, on balance, would say it’s a marginally stronger (and better balanced) squad in those positions now. But very little in it. And a hell of a lot depends on the quality of who we manage to get to fill the final 2 places, vacated by Raglan and Norwood.

Comparisons with either Stockport or Wrexham are facile. They both went up from NL as champions. We finished the league campaign 30 points adrift of Barnet. I don’t reckon our squad from (the end of) last season was as strong as either Notts County or Chesterfield, when they got promoted from the NL. And neither of those have exactly set L2 on fire.

Luke Rothwell says we have a “very competitive” budget for L2. Which I would take to mean probably top half. But nothing like the money Wrexham (or Stockport) had available to strengthen.

A more realistic comparison might be to Grimsby (finished 11th then 21st, then 9th in L2 since promotion) or Bromley, who finished 11th, last season.

So far, this season, we have seen Barnet (runaway winners of NL last year) just about scrape a draw against Newport (22nd in L2 last year) in the league cup preliminary round. Which flimsy evidence suggests that we may find this season hard going.

I’m cautiously optimistic that the squad overhaul will result in us playing better possession type football this season, rather than hoofball. Hopefully a better watch. As for finishing position, that’s anyone’s guess. I would be happy if we end up with more wins than losses.