Still in there fighting - and we WILL improve results.

[king canary 7,604]

31 minutes ago, Hoola Han Solo said:

I often worried about the way we defended last season, but we were winning so no one dwelled on it. I’m really proud of the way we continue to play football, but we’re simply not good enough at the defensive side of the game, coupled with the fact it’s a lot harder to outscore most of the teams in this division, compared to last year.

I slightly hate these ‘nobody complained when we were winning’ as I’m sure anyone who did would be accused of being a binner and not being able to just enjoy the wins by quite a few on here. Damned if you do damned if you don’t.

[hogesar 9,658]

1 minute ago, king canary said:

I slightly hate these ‘nobody complained when we were winning’ as I’m sure anyone who did would be accused of being a binner and not being able to just enjoy the wins by quite a few on here. Damned if you do damned if you don’t.

As always, depends how debate is presented. Problem with when we are having a bad spell is a large group of posters return and fill the board with OTT **** and it becomes harder to have genuine debates about the good / bad aspects of the team. I'm sure it's not just this board that has that problem, though. Although we are probably one of the only boards where every loss results in increasingly long threads about how crap our owners are without anyone bothering to try and do anything about it!

[Mason 47 1,379]

Farke is doing a fine enough job with what we have at our disposal and I think he'll be here in a years time regardless of a roaring comeback this season or not. There are of course criticisms, for me especially his squad and game management, but for the most part he's doing ok.

Just a few weeks ago we looked like a deer in headlights every time the opposition came forwards, which we actually don't now despite losing Godfrey and having to sub in the much-maligned Hanley (who I must say is looking the leanest and meanest I've seen him in yellow), so there has been some progress made; but with the absolute best will in the world no set of fans (or players IMO) is ever going  to be completely satisfied with constantly losing out, even if it is 'only just'.

Where it gets to me is the rhetoric being drilled out of the club that we're just really unlucky, and that we can only try our very best to beat all these unimaginably rich teams and we should consider ourselves lucky to even get to watch our team in the PL. Apart from the occasional genuine twist of fate, in sport (and for a lot of life) you make your own luck- Luiz' goalline clearance yesterday wasn't luck, it was a Premier League player recognising the danger and dropping off to cover the line; Heatons' saves are what you get from a PL goalkeeper. It's just an example of the harsh environs we find ourselves in at the moment and only we can take the responsibility for trying to find a way to get around the hazards.

I won't have it that we can't criticise the team because they're 'almost' doing enough- if we aren't endeavouring to self-assess and improve then we might as well not bother playing.

[Feedthewolf 4,846]

16 minutes ago, hogesar said:

As always, depends how debate is presented. Problem with when we are having a bad spell is a large group of posters return and fill the board with OTT **** and it becomes harder to have genuine debates about the good / bad aspects of the team. I'm sure it's not just this board that has that problem, though. Although we are probably one of the only boards where every loss results in increasingly long threads about how crap our owners are without anyone bothering to try and do anything about it!

I think there has been a lot less knee-jerk sh*thousery than usual this season. Loads of good debates on here at the moment, and far fewer mud-slinging episodes. A lot of 'negative' posters are making negative posts in perfectly reasonable ways, and a lot of 'positive' posters are being a lot more accepting of differing viewpoints too.

Personally I think it's disgusting, and everyone needs to just f*ck off a little bit.

[hogesar 9,658]

1 hour ago, Feedthewolf said:

I think there has been a lot less knee-jerk sh*thousery than usual this season. Loads of good debates on here at the moment, and far fewer mud-slinging episodes. A lot of 'negative' posters are making negative posts in perfectly reasonable ways, and a lot of 'positive' posters are being a lot more accepting of differing viewpoints too.

Personally I think it's disgusting, and everyone needs to just f*ck off a little bit.

Yeah less than usual I guess but I think alot of it is them hedging their bets after being so, so wrong about Farke last season.

[Indy_Bones 441]

Until it's mathematically impossible, then we have a chance, albeit a very slim chance, but a chance all the same.

To those saying we should have spent more, you only need to look at teams like Fulham last season (approx 100 million), and Villa this season (approx 134 million) to see that spending a fortune guarantees absolutely nothing, Villa are a mere 6 points in front of us (with a game more played), with the key point being that all spending needs to be focused and relevant, rather than spending for the sake of it, a problem which is exacerbated further if your owners simply don't have that level of finance available anyway, and then risk the future of the club by gambling on loaning money and putting assets on the line - e.g. Carrow Road/Colney etc.

We've also suffered through an unexpected injury crisis at the back for the majority of the season, and I fail to believe that some of the defensive errors that cost us points would have happened if we'd had Zimm or Klose alongside Godfrey throughout those games, which hypothetically could have us on similar points to teams like Villa, Bournemouth and West Ham - all of whom are currently (but barely) safe, without them.

It's taken Buendia longer than expected to get up to speed and perform to his best at this level, yet if anyone had watched the past few games, you'd see just how much better he's been, in fact, he was utterly unplayable against Wolves, yet sadly, Pukki and the other forward players had a real off day, and we should have been 3 or 4 up by half-time if they'd been firing on all cylinders.

The signs are clearly there that we're really starting to play better overall (even if we still look somewhat powder puff at times defensively, especially against set-pieces), and if players like Pukki can get their mojo back fully, if Buendia keeps his form up, and if our midfield can start providing more of an attacking threat alongside them, then more results will come.

As for whether all that would be enough? Who the hell knows, but it's still better than the dross we had under Hughton, and remember that we don't need to be challenging the top 4, we just need to have been better than the other worst 3 teams at the end of the season, which means we need to get a few good results in the next 4-5 games to even realistically think it will happen.