Dan

People sneer when they read Albrighton's name but I'm 100% having him on the pitch over McAteer even at this age.

The very existence of this thread is sort of the proof of it. It's habitual. It's expected. The fans, the players, we all know it's coming. I'm trying to avoid the Spurs tropes but it's becoming increasingly difficult. There is something psychologically wrong at this club. It's been the case a good 3 years now. I do think how long we tolerated him for has had an impact. It set a really bad standard. This side for me is just simply much more talented than pretty much all of the league. When we're challenged though, the red flags appear. The manner of that collapse tonight was an absolute embarrassment and a disgrace.

Obviously Nunez is better, in a better side at a higher level. It's a similar situation though.

His subs weren't great but the problem is I don't see what the obvious moves are. I don't think our depth is quite as great as we imagine while our XI is obviously excellent. There aren't great like for like options without a substantial drop off. I'm finding it hard to go mad at him over this - that second half is truly up there with the most bizarre I've watched. One of the best halves of the season and we've come out of it ****ing losing 3-0!

We have an embarrassment of riches in some areas, but you can't deny that we're weak in others. Our winger options are increasingly looking a problem. We'd have a real issue if we lost Mavididi or Fatawu to a bad injury. Midfield as well - we lack options to properly rotate. We're putting a lot of mileage in the likes of Winks and KDH because we can't not.

Every ****ing week. They're just so awful.

The situation with Daka is not dissimilar to Darwin Nunez at Liverpool. I think he's a net positive on the whole but he can have some moments where you can't excuse him.

Honestly I've defended him but what the ****. How?!?!?! Saying this though - interesting he went off at 0-1.

That's up there with the biggest three points dropped I've ever witnessed. They weren't even any good. We've not only let them off the hook but we've then imploded AGAIN. There is something fundamentally wrong psychologically at this club.

1st but we have a real problem in these games and you're a fool if you can't see it.

Beat them.

It's not just this game but it's their next few games after it compared to ours. If they beat us they genuinely could win 13 on the bounce. While our March is probably our hardest month of the season. I just feel like 13 in a row is too many though. This is feeling a little like one of those situations where lots points to a Leeds win so that it doesn't happen. We'd won 9 in a row going into the loss at home to them, they've won 8 in a row going into this.

I sit somewhere in the middle of the debate on it to be honest. I hold both views that it's probably overreacting to think we'll collapse again and treating this game like it's unwinnable, given that we'd be 6 points above them even if we lost (having lost twice to them!) is silly. But I think even this season, I can't totally shake this idea that we're just a bit too good for anybody 7th down (bar Middlesbrough who have some sort of juju over us this year) and that in the face of proper adversity we have been found a bit wanting. But that is to be revealed for certain by the end of the season. It's probably where the Burnley comparison becomes fairer too. What I'm saying is this team needs a really defining win. People can talk about Coventry on the opening day but we have a better team than them. I want to see us go to a genuinely tough game and do it. For what it's worth the Bournemouth game can probably come under this category too particularly given Bournemouth have no reason at all to not go for that game. I want to see that this style of play and this team can genuinely come up trumps against a comparable outfit. Can punch us above our weight, if you like. Which I appreciate given the nature of how we went down is extremely hard for us to actually do. We need an attitude shifting win. I think there'll be a collective bullishness if we go and win at Leeds on Friday.

I quite like caring again after the misery of Rodgers' last 18 months to be honest, even if our record is still bugging me a bit.

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/craig-pawson/bilanz/schiedsrichter/2289 Interestingly he's refereed us more than any other team. https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/craig-pawson/bilanzdetail/schiedsrichter/2289/saison_id/0/heim_gast//verein_id/1003/wettbewerb_id//funktion/1/plus/1 seems like not far off all of our wins with him as referee came behind closed doors!

Another reason I wanted Rodgers out quite a long time before it happened is that it fully immerses you in this mindset. Rationally we will win this league still, but Rodgers' era truly could make the unthinkable happen and not in a good way.

£92 to Bristol. ****ing hell. They deserve every fare dodger they get.

£75mil for KDH that's a Forest take sorry. He'd obviously go for substantially more than Whittaker though if we are promoted - the same way we got less than Maddison / Barnes true values because we were in the Championship.

We lost twice to Southampton. It was a pretty mad run totally at odds with everything we saw. We actually looked semi organised. Quite impressive to have that run and still go down.

There was a fair bit of talk around that game that he was gone if we lost wasn't there? It was in hindsight the worst fixture we could've had. That run we had in October will forever be bizarre to me. How did we manage a run of 4 wins in 5 games with Ward only letting in 1 goal? Like how did that happen? All just contributes to the perfect storm to relegate us idea. It was like no matter what happened we would revert to being terrible anyway.

I wonder where we'd be if we'd lost at home to Forest in October 2022.

That's annoying about Beale. I had that down as a comfortable win whereas now it becomes a trickier game I'd say. He's turned out to be a huge dud. Remember that furore about how he nearly ended up at Wolves? What a bullet dodged by them. Just seems an odd bloke. Some of the stuff he's been coming out with at Sunderland implies he wanted paying off ala Rodgers.

You are right, but we do have a recent history of blowing the improbable so I think you can forgive the fears. I think it's just simply a quite extraordinary season. The fact one of us, Leeds, Southampton or Ipswich has to miss out is unreal - possibly even two if the playoffs are cruel.

To think that cretin has a cup final next week is incredible.

One of the most memorable home games in 2013/14 when we got promoted was that 2-2 draw at home to Watford when we equalised from 2 down. It ended a winning run of 9 games and yet it was still great, so I completely get you. It definitely had a better atmosphere yesterday. Once again I have to stress that the majority of our home games have felt like cup games against lower league opposition and I'm not saying that to try and be a dick.