murphy

I'm not giving Rodgers credit for Tielemans, so let's look at the other three. Castagne? Ho hum at best. Inadequate Chilwell replacement and part of our relegation team. Justin? Terrible. Fofana? Actually a terrible signing in hindsight. Left us in the lurch twice. Once through no fault of his own which led to us buying Vestergaard as a replacement and then downed tools the following year to join Chelsea leading to us buying out Faes. When you take off St etiennes sell on fee, we made no money on him after wasting £30m on those aforementioned clowns. I'm not blaming our terrible recruitment on Fofana, I'm just saying that it didn't work out very well for us regardless of how good a player he was himself.

Ward, zieler, Bertrand, Vestergaard, hernandez, inler, Amartey, perez, soumare, Silva, iborra, daka, slimani, Musa, skipp, Ayew, Reid, diabate, kristiansen, Bennett, tete, souttar, Ghezzal and ward again. Have I forgotten anyone?

Danny Ward by a mile. Industrial sabotage that and will cost us a decade. The Bertrand and Vestergaard signing because you Could see it coming a mile off. What? Were signing half of the second worst defence in the league from perennial strugglers Southampton when we are chasing champions league qualification? The defence we put nine past? Right-o. What could possibly go wrong?

It absolutely has to be Alex Smithies. Despite the fact that he is no longer at the club, he is the best option for a protest vote. Vote Smithies!

Mass Hairmansen would be a more suitable name for Wout Faes. In fact I can think of several more suitable names for Wout Faes.

Now that really would be comedic. Perhaps with 'the entertainer' dubbed over it. The Les Dawson version. If I had to guess I would say that 2/3 cock ups were Justin related and 2/3 Faes related. Maths was never my strong suit.

Losing every week obviously has a demoralising effect on the players. Twelve games in, the players were not yet mentally defeated. There was still hope, if misguided. The cumulative effect of defeat after defeat creates a negative momentum and the players have become crushed and have checked out, hence we have a team unfit for purpose and weaker than the sum of its parts. This would have happened under Cooper too, I'm sure, but it takes time and is part of the reason that we have become worse under RVN. I can't accept that this squad, man for man, is as bad as we have shown. With the right mindset and organisation we should at least be more competitive. The other problem is that the squad is unbalanced with a lack of creativity and attacking intent. Our recruitment has not addressed that and that is largely on Cooper. He got his players in and failed to strengthen the team.

And they sign Danny Ward to play in goal.

You said it yourself. An incredible feat compared to RVN. But not an incredible feat in it's own right because we were garbage and horrible under Cooper and I don't think I will ever forgive him for his journeyman fetish that led him to bring in Ayew, Reid and Skipp and condemned us before a ball was kicked. We are 19th now, not only because we have gotten even worse under RVN but also because Wolves and Palace have got their shit together and left us in their wake. So who could have done it better? To answer your question, Moyes has shown at Everton what a well organised team can achieve and look at Nuno at Forest. Their limitations are mitigated by setting up to play on the counter which would also have been our best chance imo.

I don't have an issue with parking the bus when you have a limited squad like we have but I will never understand what was going through his head to bring in 'defensive' plodding geriatric wingers like Ayew and BDCR. If you're going to set up defensively you need an outlet and you need pace to counter. Tw@

There was nothing remotely comedic about this season unless you are a rival supporter or Steve Cooper. I think this thread should be renamed Infuriating moments of incompetence - volume one.

Of course it is.... The one and only reason is schadenfreude. Taking pleasure in their misfortune, having the bragging rights and for the piss taking opportunities. Personally, I feel as if I squandered it as Forest became so irrelevant that I forgot that they even existed.

So Derby's record is safe. Saints can only be equal worst and with them still having to travel to the KP, they will likely get the extra point they need. For the benefit of @Kp1984 that's a good thing by the way - local rivals, bragging rights etc... I'll let someone else explain it to you.

To be fair, not many teams Coukd survive without a goalkeeper.

The best goalkeeper named 'Ward' we ever had.

I think it is the very fact that we have traditionally been a yo-yo club that is the cause of such anger and frustration. We had a once in a life time chance to cement ourselves as a top ten Premier League club and blew it through sheer incompetence. To me it seems a very strange position indeed to use our modest history as a reason that we should just accept such mismanagement as a mere readjustment back to the status quo.

Don't you mean 5 minutes?

Oh yeah, they'll be queuing up for the keeper of the team that had conceded 70 goals and counting

He's a proven manager. Proven to be terrible at PL level. Russell flaming Martin I ask you. Bring on the dancing horses!

I think that Chelsea poaching Enzo did screw us, but not for the reasons you might think. After evading the points deduction we needed faultless recruitment and a plan. Unfortunately, losing Maresca led to the geniuses at KP towers to appoint Steve Cooper. That led to signing the likes of skipp, Ayew, Decorva Reid etc and that screwed us. I think we would have struggled with Maresca at the helm. When he left, we should have recognised that we lacked quality, bought in pace and set up to counter attack and mitigate that lack of quality. Cooper was never the answer and we then gambled and got even worse!

Did Barnes celebrate?

I've lost track. Is this 8 consecutive home defeats without scoring or 9? Anyone know the aggregate score? Must be 20- odd nil.

Your laissez-faire approach makes it sound as though our fall from grace was inevitable rather than as the result of total incompetence and mismanagement. That kind of thinking lets the club off the hook completely.

He has changed it. He changed formation recently. It doesn't matter. Shuffle the pack and arrange them into any formation that takes your fancy, the end result will be the same because the players are not good enough and they've been beaten into submission. As for next goal, it really wouldn't surprise me if it's next season.

I know I'm in a minority but this is why I'm against bringing in the kids for this season.