DeePeeNCAFC wrote: March 16th, 2023, 11:50 pm On a more general level though, I feel the standard of all football from the Championship to League 2 has been woeful for 3-4 seasons now.

A handful of teams, 4-6, break away in each division each season but the rest of the pack are all capable of beating each other in any game. A few basket case clubs like Crawley, Hartlepool, Wigan and FGR buck the trend each year by being worse than the rest, but generally the leagues have been poor quality for some years.

I can’t explain why other than the Prem money and parachute payment setting up a few clubs for future success. There isn’t really a progressive club with a thriving academy except maybe Exeter, who churned out young starlets like Crewe, Palace etc did in the past. And it’s unusual to see a club with a 30+ goal striker these days. The EFL has just got really stale. In contrast, the National League has 5-6 clubs capable of holding their own in the division above.