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I don''t understand all of the negativity. Saturday was a poor defeat and in my book more worrying than the Newcastle game, but people talking about us already being down or even AN/The Board having to go, I just do not understand.

We''re not in the relegation zone yet, though the slide is concerning, and even if we end up there for a while, look at what Leicester did last year. Bournemouth, Villa, Sunderland, Newcastle look poor, Newcastle have the quality but character, I''m not sure, and the likes of Stoke and Watford could well get dragged into it.

The beauty of having a target of 40 points means that when you do have a few bad games it doesn''t kill you off, you can get results from 15/38 games in this league and stay up, the season will have peaks and troughs, but chopping and changing manager or chief exec won''t guarantee any alteration, plus AN has proved himself to be a good manager and hopefully will only get better with experience, this is his first time in the PL and he is learning, and before someone comes back with not wanting to be his stepping stone/learning ground, it is important to remember we very probably wouldn''t be here without him, and he has earned a season in the hot seat.

Even if we were to get relegated, if we can keep the core of the team and make some good additions we could bounce straight back, some clubs are ''yo-yo'' clubs before establishing themselves, a-la West Brom - not a best case scenario by any means but it has to be the contingency plan.

Should we have done more in terms of transfers? Yes. Do we have one of the weaker squads in the league? Yes. Will we be punching above our weight if we stay up comfortably? Yes. Would we all take 17th place right now? Absolutely yes, and remember, we''re still not in the relegation zone with over 1/4 of the season gone.

With AN at the helm I feel that we always have it in us to put together a good run. We will take spankings once in a while, but I expect a couple of unlikely/"surprise" wins this season too.

We have the core of a good squad (with weaknesses of course) we''re financially stable, we''ve got young prospects coming through, and 28 games of Premier League football to fight for survival. Keep it together ;)

[lake district canary 4,531]

Agree. Unfortunately, some people thrive on being negative - it is their default way of thinking. The only thing that will ruin our season is if people allow themselves to get dragged into the negativity that these people get off on. They maybe binners stirring it, or they may just be naturally morose and always thinking the worst. Whatever the case, being positive, even in the face of the hardest situations is the way we will succeed. We could be in the bottom three all season and pull clear on the last day. People have to start enjoying the challenge rather than crying aboit how bad it all is.