Football Season Guide

Scunthorpe are coming from yet another disappointing season, as they made the play-offs, only to be beaten in the semi-final by Rotherham. It was the second consecutive season in which the Iron made the play-offs only to be beaten by eventual winners and they seem like a club on the right track lacking just a little something extra to make the Championship. Nick Daws, who had several spells as caretaker and lead them in the late stages of the previous season, was named their new permanent boss, a decision that was hailed by the majority of their fans, as he has been at the club for years. The Iron used the summer to get rid of several players who played bit-part roles last time around, with the two players to have left that they would have preferred to keep being Murray Wallace, who joined Millwall and Ivan Toney, who is back with parent club Newcastle. However, the core of the squad is still together and there was little surprise that Scunthorpe opted against bringing in more than a few new players. Stephen Humphrys, who impressed on loan at Rochdale last season, joins on loan from Fulham, while the other new arrivals are pretty much stabs in the dark, as none of them has any previous League One experience, apart from James Horsfield, who had a brief loan stay at Doncaster a few years ago. While there is uncertainty regarding their new signings, what is clear is that Scunthorpe have not changed significantly over the summer and there is no reason to believe that they will done any worse than they did in the previous two seasons.