Just Another Boro’ Season Preview…

Now, it simply wouldn’t be right if we didn’t throw our own Stevenage season preview into the mix with all the others – would it? And we’re getting in just ahead of time; the 2024-5 League One campaign marching down the tracks in a matter of days. Yes folks, it’s time for everyone all to erase the memories of the Euros; to reject whatever’s left at Paris 2024. It’s nearly the start of the English Football League season – and that, honestly, is the real quiz.

The standard ham-fisted questions will soon get their answers: ‘was that signing worth it’, ‘who will be the division’s dark horses’, ‘is Ryan Reynolds and the other one going to visit with Wrexham’… the anticipation. Oh lordy, yes; the anticipation. For us here at BoroGuide HQ, the intrigue is real. So too is the anxiety (a bit). This term is looking to be a devilishly competitive one. And you have to believe there are three or four big questions to answer.

1. Who will score the goals?

Let’s kick this season preview into gear with a look at who will get the goals this season. It was Jamie Reid who took up the lead marksman role last term. When the goals dried up in the back end of the campaign, so did our form as few others stepped into the void. BGR is out of action for the start of this season – and that means we either need someone else to do the gig. Or the team as a whole need to become prolific as a group.

You don’t need us to explain the craic if goals prove hard to come by from the off.

2. How will Revs fare as gaffer again?

The chance to learn from Steve Evans can only be valuable to Revs as he embarks properly on his second stint as boss. First time around? He picked up the fragmented pieces of that Covid-plagued, relegation-haunted 2019-20 season. Things looked better the next year. But the slide started again in 2021-2. Now with Evans having come and gone, the stage is set for Revs to show his stuff from the dugout again.

So, what did he pick up from the Scotsman – and how different will his second tenure be?

3. Are there at least four worse teams?

The short answer to this should be “yes”. We’re loathed to make predictions out of the fear we’ll look silly. But Crawley Town are making up the numbers. Many armchair ‘pundits’ have us down as picks for the drop. The betting market has us around sixth-favourites to plunge. Don’t get us wrong – we won’t be up in the promotion race this year. And the league is a lot stronger than last season. Even so, we’ll be surprised if we’re not safe by late March.

4. Will squad consistency help us?

This is a difficult one to answer. It feels that, unlike past summers, we’ve kept hold of many players. So, we have a firmly established group of players who ought to know each other by now. In have come a total of seven players at the time of writing, which certainly gives a lot more strength to what we had before. The main concern, however, is that all seven could be featuring heavily on the opening day due to the injury list we currently have.

So, yes – squad consistency is a big plus. But current absentees undermines that.

Though it should also be pointed out that our incomings look impressive enough too.

Season Preview: So, what…?

Boro’ are in a fine position to confound critics as we head into the forthcoming season. Our recruitment looks impressive on paper and our retentions is equally welcome. Our opening day fixture is as winnable as we could want it to be too (famous last words, eh?). But it’s not until we actually get started and a few weeks into the campaign that some of the questions above can be answered. And hopefully those answers will be to all our liking.

End of season prediction: 14th