terrytini

I can understand why you’ve mentioned this but I’m not getting into the heavily subjective debate of who has or hasn’t been backed and by how much. I think they all have been fwiw.

Deano way out in front for me, and I agree we are where we are now because of him....but I’d disagree with your assessment that Bruce was part of our demise. We were still a basket case of a Club when he took over. In fact we hadn’t reached our lowest. We could’ve sunk without trace. I think it’d be a shame if his contribution to preventing that got lost.

And yet no matter what angle we choose, we can only ever see one side. Spooky.

The amount of players. Their ability ( in terms of fees and wages we were not buying at Harrods). Build up an understanding with players from all over. And.....those players having to debut in one of the toughest Leagues in the world. And....settle into a new country. In a matter of weeks. And the Coach had to manage this AND find out, on the job, while matches ( and injuries) came thick and fast. Who works with who, what triangles worked best, what set up favoured our best eleven, who that eleven was, which players could do 90 minutes mentally and physically....and which could do it week in and week out. Absolutely huge task.

Agree 100%. Very proud of the team and the Coach(Es) today. In particular, Smith showed again that whilst he can’t get the necessary level of performance out of the players every week, he can get it, and crucially he can get it after a dismal one. Like you I think we have the players...they are no worse than those in other sides, we clearly have character within us, we just somehow need to keep those performances levels up for the majority of the remainder of the Season. I think we will.

Tenner on Tyrone to score first and us to Win 2-1 at odds of a mere 750-1 .....money for nothing !

Yes. For all the debates and differences of opinion, this, in my view, is the one thing that’s killed us in those games we’ve got nothing from. Everything is possible if we compete, nothing is possible when we don’t.

Football doesn’t work that way though does it, which is why we all love it have Faith. If you hope for a Win, look forward to a Win, and we Win, you’ll have had a great build up, and a great celebration. If you hope for a Win, look forward to a Win, and we lose, you’ll have had a great build up !

Not all, some. No fear at all here, I’m confident.

Yes good old Frank did us a big favour there ...we owe him much

Who knows...but I’m as hopeful for a Win as ever. Why ? Whilst overall ability matters, Form doesn’t matter. Luck will matter more. Teams rarely beat opponents twice, let alone 3 times, in a season. Winning the League Cup 4 times in 5 seasons would be incredible. They are human. We are nowhere near as bad as some think. We have Jack. Deano does well in knock outs ( see last year). We Win League Cups. A deserved Win 2-1 in normal time, or if they scrape a jammy equaliser we will Win on penalties. Remember this Post, rePost it Sunday when we have Won the Cup.

Most certainly. We did it against their neighbours a few years ago. Anyone who thinks it’s a done deal can’t have watched much football over the years.

Nothing like a good trembler up Wembley Way as they say..

My guess is although they won’t do returns they maybe release any unused by players, staff etc ?

They aren’t accepting returns ....

So West Ham gave Liverpool a game ? So did we.

Alex Ferguson. Not much point in copying one bit of him unless you have the whole, incredible, package. As one simple example, Fergie terrified his players. He could do things with a raised eyebrow that other Managers could only dream of.

Yes. Different managers, different circumstances, different slatings for different reasons. In these circumstances I think it was worth saying.

The bottom 8 Clubs last 5 games each have produced just 6 Wins. Any side ( except Norwich) that Wins 3 between now and the end of the Season will almost certainly stay up. Weve as much and as little chance as any.

I don’t think it will adversely affect the players who matter. It might affect those who it’s aimed at, maybe some for better, some for worse. Jack, Tyrone, and a couple of others, might actually be pleased about it. In any event it can hardly result in a weaker display than we saw yesterday.

There are still 8 teams who won’t feel safe, from Newcastle down, and we have to play 3 of them. That should be / shoukd have been cause for optimism. Watford have done very little since the Pearson bounce ( so much for him being the type of guy who would’ve sorted us out ?), and Norwich are too far gone, in my view. Palace and Newcastle should be okay, but their recent firm is as poor as ours, so they can’t guarantee anything. Bournemouth are woeful. They’ve taken 6 points off us....reverse that we’d be out the worst and they’d be all but gone. Them, us, Brighton and West Ham are real candidates to drop. But only one of those 4 will. I think Jack, Mings, and McGinn are still capable of being the difference, and I think West Ham are in a worse state all round than any of the others. Its still the case, as it has been all Season, that we should be ok with 10 Wins. So three needed. For all I am extremely disappointed in the failure of the Coach to get performances from the players I still think we can get those 3 Wins. At around this time last season I confidently asserted I could see us getting in the Play Offs, and we did. There isn’t a lot of confidence now, but it’s still eminently achievable.

Right sorry I thought I was replying to a Post in the PL thread but it is in fact the Jack thread so that’s why it’s here. Makes sense now.

I’ve been confident all Season that we’d get 38 points and stay up. Im no longer confident. I’m hopeful. My confidence has gone because the one thing I was certain of was that the Coach would get the players performing at or hear their best especially against Lower Half sides, and he is now clearly failing to do that. My hope comes from the fact that we are capable of playing decent football, we have some very good players, one genius, and our rivals have just as many average players a# we do, and are all capable of playing badly aswell. Theres still nearly a third of the season to go. Anything could happen.

The bacon baguettes were top notch

We needed to be competitive against sides in the lower half. We managed that pretty well the first half of the season. The second half has largely been awful. Im sad to say we have now notched up too many performances lacking in character to hold out much hope for the remainder of the season. It will be that, rather than goals scored or Conceeded that does for us. We need a dramatic and unlikely injection of character and fight if we are to stay in the mix.