Nothing's Changed

At all. Different division, same sh*t.

Same useless players putting in useless performances (oh... wow... I'm so surprised that the likes of Cleverley are still just as crap against Wycombe as against anyone in the Premier League, despite a number of our genius fans telling me he and others would be "more than good enough"), same awful recruitment, same toothless attacking play, same lack of organisation, same lack of fight, same lack of game management, same boring, aimless, negative football, same late goals conceded etc. etc.

Someone mentioned in the shoutbox that this season will likely go the way of the 07/08 season after relegation - a decent start before the obvious cracks and deep, underlying issues really start to take over - and it's spot on.

We've got an utterly clueless owner, a squad of players who don't want to be here or shouldn't be because they're complete turd, and a manager who is starting to look extremely limited too, although his hands have been someone tied by our moron board failing to even provide him with a left back.

Wasn't the Championship supposed to be fun? This may actually be more crap than last season, in some ways.

 

We have looked bad in all 8 games so far, had lucky wins and that was almost our full strength team.... Wycombe could and should have been out of sight

 

I’ve been thinking about how we have made a £40m asset look completely average in the Championship by playing him out of position. Is it Ivic being tactically inflexible and negative to boot? Or is it Pozzo utter incompetence in leaving us without a left back that constrains the manager?

I guess if we are in 12th in December Ivic will get blamed and get the boot but one has to think Pozzo is simply clueless. We are putting in underwhelming performances all season except Luton. Our league position will start to reflect that soon.

Maybe Hughes/Gray will make a difference but I also thought that about Capoue and tonight we were outfought by Wycombe and our passing was dreadful.

 

I’d love to see what you’d say if we weren’t in 3rd place. One bad result and you collapse in a heap of NathWFC. You must live a very stressful life.

 

The ONLY positives (other than snatching a point when it was totally and utterly undeserved, clutching at straws I know) was that we have Hughes to come back, and Gray, an actual forward, nearing his return too. But it rather underlines the point, we are so so vulnerable without certain players in the squad, feel someone like Perica (or even goddamn Glenn Murray or Troy Deeney) would have given us a bit of an outball, as it was, we just couldn't get Pedro and Sarr into the game at all. I've seen Ivic come in for a lot of stick, but he can't be blamed for Cleverley having one of those games, or the defense just being so, so clueless any time the ball went anywhere near Akinfenwa

 

Who cares if we're in 3rd? Look at the state of our performances. It's not going to last. We've scraped a few wins but still aren't improving at all and now seem to even be regressing defensively.

 

Oh okay. Thanks confirming it won’t last. I didn’t know that fact. I will stand down and give your the forum.

 

So my opinion based on our blatantly obvious poor performances and the continuation of a lot of our long term issues from recent seasons into this one holds no weight in your opinion, but you saying "but we're 3rd!" (with a number of teams beneath us with games in hand) after 8 games, which means precisely f**k all at this point of the season, should be seen as meaningful.

Lol.

 

Nath wont be happy unless we win and play sexy football at the same time. So plenty of stress to come methinks.

 

I think the left back thing is being completely being blown out of all proportion and is becoming a red herring.

We’ve seen enough of Kiko over the past few years to know he could do a serviceable but limited job out there. That Ivic is either too stubborn or not prepared to field him there because he wants him on the right is his decision. Maybe he’s decided that’s the hill he wants to die on - his get out clause to show he wasn’t given the tools he needed to do his job. Thing is, we could even shove a centre back out there against the lower lights in the division. There’s 10-12 clubs we dwarf because of our PL riches who I think it would be worth playing the odds and trying that against, if it meant overall we looked more cohesive. Remember the promotion season when we beat Rotherham 3-0 at home and Joka played four centre backs as our back four? That was a piss take but it meant he could still play the system he wanted.

 

Or at least just win, as we've already failed to do four times this season.

 

Can you please confirm why being being 3rd after 8 games means nothing? To caveat, we could slip lower after other teams play. I hope you can handle that.

I assume by the same token you would be feeling the same tonight if we were 24th after 8 games, which means precisely f**k all at this point of the season.

 

Tempted to agree. But I still maintain going into a season without a left back is utter incompetence. Losing faith in Ivic already I must say.

 

Lol

 

There's a vast difference for a club which is arguably the favourites to win the division between being 3rd and being 24th at any stage in the season. We are expected to be challenging right at the top, at the moment we are lingering around meeting that expectation but whilst putting in poor performances and showing no signs at all of improvement and now even showing regression defensively, which had been our saving grace up to this point.

Were we 24th we'd be performing an unbelievable amount beneath what's expected of our club and squad, so quite clearly that would hold more weight and be a more meaningful point of discussion after 8 games than sitting in 3rd.

I mean nice try to twist my logic on me, but a nonsensical, pointless one.

 

It's funny, similar things were said by posters like you after our performances were being questioned at the start of last season. How'd that end up?

 

Not that I'm implying you did believe that, but anyone who did has always been a smooth brain of the highest order. The only thing 'fun' about the Championship is when you get promoted from it, and even the rest of the season up to that point is really just fraught with tension and unrelenting pressure. Meanwhile, you spend all 46 gameweeks playing worse football against lesser teams with fewer opportunities to watch your team if you're not literally in the stadium. A laughable idea that it's some halcyon utopia of real football propagated by people who can't tell the difference between spending at the very minimum a year somewhere nobody really wants to be and the immediate aftermath of escaping it.

 

This really does come across as quite spoiled. I agree with you that performances haven't been the best, but from a results perspective, you can't really complain. 1 loss and 4 goals conceded, 15 points in 8 games. Stretched out over a season and that'll secure us top 4, at least.

 

Let's be honest though, last season was ******* terrible. There was an expectation of a release when we got relegated, that lessons would be learned, that heads would roll. That the club would rediscover a personality.

I don't think many people expected the true level of turmoil the last five years of inaction and terrible decisions would bring.

 

And similar things to the opening post were said when we lost 4 in a row in the 14/15 season. How'd that end up?

Also what happened to your character?

 

What I would say is that we're not necessarily 'lucky' to be 3rd, sure, we haven't been playing well, but even when we put out such unbalanced teams with key players missing, someone like Pedro or Sarr can still come up with a moment of magic to define the game. The target now is to get more control of games now, so that these aren't just flashes, and Hughes will be absolutely central to this

 

Where we are now.

 

No I agree, that we hoped lessons might be learned, but were probably still all suspicious that they wouldn't be. That said, it does seem as the summer has unfolded that they are even more stubborn than they appeared, as it stands. If they don't immediately go out and secure one of the free agent options at left back after this sequence of games, then we will know exactly how much they are once and for all.

 

Oh I was definitely being sarcastic. The (ridiculous, fantasy land) hope for this season was that despite relegation we'd suddenly be such a class above everyone that we'd at least be playing beautiful football and banging in goals left, right and centre, week in, week out as we walked to the title.

The unfortunate reality is that what we are really seeing is a continuation of last season, featuring the same horrendous players, the same horrible football, the same lack of goals, the same lack of organisation and the same lack of fight.

One poster insisted on calling the Championship "the best league in the world" and talking about how delighted they were that we were back in it during the summer. I wonder if they still have that opinion?

 

This makes so little sense man, come on you're better than this.

 

Performances are indeed the problem. Only 3 days ago people were posting “stretched over a season that will be top 2”. Now it’s top 4. If performances continue results will reflect it and it will be top 12.

The squad is performing way below par at the moment - points are higher than we deserve currently and will revert to expectation if we don’t buck up.

 

The Championship is more enjoyable in the sense that we're not losing every week (I mean...escaping with a draw from Wycombe isn't as bad as getting whacked 8-0 by City, is it? Or is it?), but there are just so many games! As soon as the last one is over, you can't relax because there's another one a few days later, and even when you're expected to win, they're rarely 'easy' (honestly, so few teams have genuinely 'pissed' the Championship, it's almost always a long hard slog). It would help if we played good football of course, praying to all the deities out there that it will come when our albino maestro from Derbyshire starts playing again

 

Bed wetting supremo

 

It's difficult to define you as a poster WT. It's like you agree with a lot that's said about the direction of the team but spoil for a row a lot of the time. As much as a 'character' as me I guess.

 

Yeah, but based on the performances - which appear to be getting worse rather than better - the chances of us stretching those ratios out across the entire season look extremely unlikely.

 

I dunno, I think our performance against Bournemouth was better than against Sheff Wed, for example. I don't think tonight's shitshow is enough of a sample size to show an example of a team in decline.

 

I’m not sure what your point is. I’m just trying to say after 8 games you can start to draw conclusions on how good a team is. At his point we are 3rd, and I caveat again we could slip lower after other teams play.

After 8 games last season I’m pretty sure we were last placed.We know how it ended up, and after 8 games it was the likely outcome.

so it ended up how it looked at the time.

I’m sorry maybe I’m missing your point, I assure you not intentionally.

 

Can it be denied that Foster has gone a huge way to saving our arse in recent games? Our base to build upon was our meant to be our supposed "solid defence", but we are now being battered with teams creating chance after chance against us and Foster keeping us in games, and haven't kept a clean sheet now in the last three.

We've had 8 games to start scoring goals and we still aren't and still look just as woeful going forward as we have done in every game, and now we are conceding goals and relying on Foster to save us over and over again. We were lucky to get a point tonight in the end.

 

That's the biggest concern, isn't it; that that looked exactly like watching us at pretty much our absolute worst and most turgid last season, and the concern is because the bad stuff wasn't some mega team banging 8 goals against us, it was that the attitude almost to a man was visibly terrible and the very basic fundamentals were consistently, embarrassingly neglected/piss-poor. Given what has happened over the past few months, we really shouldn't find ourselves capable of putting in an overall performance that bad, and yet here we are, already, and managing to produce it against the worst side in the division to boot.