League 2 preview

I was wondering how to approach the whole season preview thing and thought the best way to deal with everything is work from the bottom up, so here goes...

I've decided that Accrington and Macclesfield will face the perilous drop into the Conference National, mainly because both teams struggled last season. The automatic assumption that ex-players with a high profile make good managers almost rang true in Paul Ince, but he's earned himself a nice little move to MK Dons after doing a fairly decent job in keeping Macclesfield up last season. To be fair, they looked dead and buried in October, but by December they overtook Torquay and going into the New Year they were out of the bottom two. However, they failed to keep up their good form and basically played out the rest of the season like every other relegation-threatened team around them, and only secured safety on the penultimate weekend, which makes me wonder whether Ince was all that great. A good start, yes - a great manager? We'll see. And I guess we'll find out by seeing what MK Dons achieve this year.

As for Accrington, well... if they sort out that breeze-block wall down the side of the pitch and make more of an effort to look a league club then maybe that might rub off on the players and fans. They stayed up last season courtesy of a fairly decent start, but they showed no real signs of quality and I'd very much doubt whether they've brought any in over the summer. I'd like to see them stay up but I think they'll just be relegation fodder.

I can also see Mansfield and Hereford struggling a bit, so I wouldn't be surprised if either of those two teams got involved in a scrap at the bottom. And Bury are just Bury. How many seasons is it now that they've continually finished in a lower league position than the season before? Keith Alexander might bring a bit of experience to the camp, seeing as Chris Casper is the league's youngest manager. I think Alexander and Casper is a clash of styles; we all know what the former achieved at Lincoln, where the ball spent more time in the air than on the ground. I remember Casper's side trying to play nice, neat football last season, albeit with no end result.

Looking towards the top end of the table we'll see at least two of the four teams that came down from League 1 last season. Bradford, with a popular manager in Stuart McCall and 14,000 fans at Valley Parade each week, will be the favourites. I'm not sure. The expectation on McCall's shoulders may just force him to buckle, and I'd like to see them finish in the play-offs. I'm not sure how I feel about Chesterfield though. Some suggest that they will go straight back up too, and they've bought well (Jack Lester from Notts Forest being the pick of them) but again, I don't see it being easy.

I think Rotherham will do well to make the play-offs. They're still in financial trouble and have a relatively new manager in charge in ex-player Mark Robins. They may surprise a few people but I reckon mid-table for them. Brentford could do what Walsall did last season, but I'm unsure as to how much quality they have in their team. Peterborough have Barry Fry and his money, along with a manager that constantly has the cameras following him because his Dad is doing an alright job with Manchester United these days. From where I'm sitting, the club has the money and resources to expect promotion now, and although Darren Ferguson did a decent job after taking over the managerial hotseat last season, it wasn't enough. Will he have the tactical brain to secure success this time around? If Daddy helps him then he might. But that's cheating.

MK Dons, or Bastard Franchise Scum FC as they're known in some quarters, will be expected to push for promotion on the rather flimsy excuse of having Paul Ince at the helm. They lost their top scorer from the past two seasons in Izale McLeod, although they did receive over £1m for him. How wisely they spend that cash remains to be seen. Personally I'd like to see them relegated but as much as I want my dreams to come true (and if they did then John Barrowman would have a golf club rammed through his oesophagus) I have to face grim reality and say they'll be in the top seven.

And despite just being bitten on the nose by a pesky fly I shall endeavour to continue my League 2 preview. Now for Dagenham and Morecambe... I think Dagenham might do well, although relatively speaking that's probably mid-table. Morecambe may struggle a bit more, so I'll say bottom six but they'll survive.

As for the rest, well, Chester are a bunch of thugs and are going nowhere, Barnet are a nice tippy-tappy side with no killer instinct but an experienced manager in Paul Fairclough will keep them safe, Darlington and Notts County will (once again) under-achieve while their fans will constantly insist that they deserve to go up on the basis of their ground having more concrete and plastic in it than other clubs' grounds, Wycombe will disappoint again, but I'd just keep an eye on someone like Rochdale - they finished last season on good form and clearly have an astute manager in Keith Hill.

And if I haven't mentioned the rest then clearly you're in for a season of being tantilised by the play-offs, threatened by the drop, or only interested in whether you'll be on page 3 or 4 of 4 on BBC Ceefax page 326 each week.