Len

Martin''s not the only one who has regularly turned in poor performances at this level, you''ve also got Ruddy, Whittaker, Bennett, Johnson, Hooper, Wolfswinkel....we needed a summer clear out in order to survive.

Looking at the big picture the referee has had nothing to do with the failures of the owners and management. If anyone deserves a red card then it''s Delia Smith, David McNally or Alex Neil.

Southampton buy players and then sell them to the top clubs for millions. Norwich is a where players come in for big money and then leave in order to bring down the wages bill.

I''ve seen our opponents have a bad performance but I''ve yet to see us have a good performance. As the season goes on we''ll be dragged down by repeated bad performances and end up back in the Championship.We''re simply not good enough to be able to compete in this league.

I don''t want to single out Whittaker when half the team are just as bad. It''s simple, we are going to get relegated.

If our Scottish management/coaching team can''t improve on Hughton then we should have a complete clearout. At the moment we''d struggle to beat the likes of Celtic and Aberdeen.

We''ve hardly threatened. Is our new wonder manager really any better than Hughton?

Spend some b100dy money or we''ll get relegated again!

People ought to moan at our club''s board instead of the referee. We need to stick the ball in the net and stop conceding but our club don''t want to spend money on a top quality defender and striker to help us do this.We lost not because of the ref but because our bargain bucket team is NOT good enough.

We needed to sort out the right back spot and we haven''t done this by signing Wisdom on loan who had previously failed at West Brom. Either him or Whittaker illustrate how we''ll get relegated because the board refuse to loosen the purse strings.

I fear we''re going to go for another cheap option. So we might see a couple more of these statements as McNally and the manager scramble to get a striker in on loan.

The first signing upon promotion should have been a new manager. Instead we''ll almost certainly stick with our budget choice all the way until relegtion (and probably beyond).

[quote user="Thetford Yellow"]After a summer spent patting ourselves on the back for scraping out of the championships and when designing new kits clearly took precedent over player recruitment, is anyone really surprised that we were so effortlessly rolled over by Palace on Saturday? Our defending was comically poor and surely it is now obvious to everyone that our forwards are not up to the job. Does anyone - apart from AN - seriously believe that our current squad is good enough to avoid total humiliation this season? We need 7/8 quality signings and, sadly, we lack the ambition to fund them, the scouting network to find them and a manager this type of player would want to play for.[/quote]The big problem is McNally. He''s a socks and bloomers man by trade, stick him in a football club and he''s more worried about selling apparel than how we perform on the pitch. He''s also the one who pushed out our best ever manager for daring to want to take the club forward.

Yes RTTB I was at the game today but felt the same as the motd pundits ie we were good in spells but lacking in defence and not ruthless enough up front.Alan Shearer had it spot on when he highlighted our weaknesses as being typical of newly promoted teams. Blame the ref if you must but you cannot deny we missed good chances and fell asleep at the back.Our PL experience seemed to count for nothing today almost certainly because we weren''t very good when we were there previously.

[quote user="Russell Martin Peanut Smuggler"][quote user="juicy plams"]You might laugh now but the chances of us staying up with our bargain bucket squad are extremely thin. We''re bound to hear about bad refs and be cursing our luck all season long, but we are simply NOT good enough.[/quote]We''re hearing about bad refs now because there were two demonstrably poor decisions which could have lead to at least one and possibly two goals for us. Or is it your contention that the quality of refereeing is inversely proportional to the strength of one''s squad?[/quote]It''s about perception. Those that think we''re the bees knees will curse the ref and claim that we''re unlucky. Those who understand that we''re not good enough will realise that we need to make our own luck so that we don''t need to worry too much about referees.We need to get rid of the dead wood and buy at least two more quality players.

[quote user="Carra Rud"][quote user="juicy plams"]People need to wake up and stop making excuses. Last time in the PL fans often rued being so close to getting a point and ended up blaming the referee. But in truth we weren''t good enough.We''re still lumbered with many of the same players that got us relegated last time. We''ve again failed to back the manager in the transfer market.Now it''s a case of a long, long wait to be relegated.[/quote]Were you "watching" it on the radio by any chance?[/quote]You might laugh now but the chances of us staying up with our bargain bucket squad are extremely thin. We''re bound to hear about bad refs and be cursing our luck all season long, but we are simply NOT good enough.

The positives are that today''s performance might just jolt McNally into loosening the purse strings enough to buy survival. It''s a choice between spending £15m and losing something like 3 times that amount.The negatives are that the we''re getting treated to cheerful charlies like the OP who choose to look on the bright side while the club sleepwalks into another relegation. Wake up!

[quote user="mrs miggins"]We also have to hope that one of these two signings that AN has said doesn''t include the 3rd choice GK that we''re in for...[/quote]An extra CD or striker, yes. Another GK, no!  I think this might prove to be a big error.

People need to wake up and stop making excuses. Last time in the PL fans often rued being so close to getting a point and ended up blaming the referee. But in truth we weren''t good enough.We''re still lumbered with many of the same players that got us relegated last time. We''ve again failed to back the manager in the transfer market.Now it''s a case of a long, long wait to be relegated.

The op has got to be a binner?

Going into the season with a team made up mostly of championship players was a BIG mistake. McNally needs to get the checkbook out NOW!

I think you''ve lost the plot entirely. With our squad it''ll take a miracle to finish above the bottom six.

I don''t see the first game as being crucial to our survival. Far, far more important is that we sign a minimum of two top drawer players - a striker and a central defender. If the transfer window shuts without having achieved this then it''s going to be like watching lambs go to the slaughter.

It looks like we need to sell before we can buy. If we don''t get rid of deadwood like Lafferty, RVW and Grabban then we''ll be buying nobody, at least nobody good enough for the PL. We should have sold them as soon as we won the playoffs.It''s like a repeat of 2005. We get promoted, but end up getting relegated because we failed to spend in the summer.

The only reason he''s still here is because we were relegated. No?