Dan

I thought there'd be more of a drop off this season. As said elsewhere - expand.

Crikey

The club is completely screwed until the ownership changes. Pick the bones out of everything, this is the final box on the flow chart. No matter how you dress it up.

He should be but this is the thing with Soumare - the idea of him is so far detached from the reality.

Hard to imagine we'd be this bad for it under say Danny Rohl. One thing I'll say for Fiorentina though is they were dire, well behind us in preseason scheduling and they've made their worst start in about 50 years in the league too so I'm not sure it was a great barometer. That being said we definitely haven't taken the same approach, it's dropped back into pretty laboured stuff.

Both of these takes are a bit silly if true. I've seen maybe the odd hyperbolic reactionary "we'll go down again" but never thought anyone 'really' thought this was likely. Equally poor judgement if people think this squad is anywhere close to the 2023/24 levels which quite honestly could've broken the record if not for that late drop off. This side is missing basically five of the best players of that side.

Mission creep is a thing and so many miss it. They never introduce these things radically (with the exception of the ridiculous super league a few years ago, which got totally buried as a result) but they will just gradually feed these things in and normalise them so that there's less pushback. Gradual managed decline. Serie A and La Liga are a disgrace for this. As far as I'm concerned the seasons have an asterisk by them. Barcelona win the league but basically played 20 games at home and 18 away. I don't think the Spaniards will be as up in arms as they should be but will be interested to see how the Italians react.

I'm convinced if it had a less nerdy name it'd be accepted by the vast majority.

We've got to improve. We will pay for this over a whole season.

It reeks of Norwich. Manning's made a shocking start and I think they would look to his ultimately successful Southampton season in the Championship as good enough justification. Used to play for them as well.

Pretty sure over this unbeaten run they got fewer points than we did. It's hard to bash him in that year as he ultimately got promoted but he was abject, terrible in the Premier League and his stint at Rangers is up there with as bad a tenure as I've seen at any club anywhere. We've hit a point where Rangers not beating Falkirk and Dundee is of no surprise. The Brugge games too they're far better than this.

What I will say is bar the centre back situation (which is ridiculous) he's at least starting to put some of the right players in. Was worried that Ayew and Soumare were simply being rested v Wrexham due to the schedule but pleasantly surprised that neither started at Swansea. The centre back situation is a red flag though. Been done to death but Nelson not even being in the squad is so poor.

He's so bad. Unconvinced by Cifuentes so far but thank god we dodged this one. For now.

my Dad hates them over the same game.

We're a huge outlier - bottom half for both chances created and denied. Stolarczyk going under the radar. Possibly my POTS so far.

Got to be looking to win this really. Do rate their manager though.

It's a plus on Cifuentes that he's ditched the Ayew experiment. Daka isn't ever going to be the answer in the long run but we're better with him on the pitch for now.

Only just signed for them as well, but I do like the look of him.

Brought us Nigel Pearson. That was a turning point for us.

A left back for sure.

No sign at all he'll get in either is there. Wasn't exactly a water tight defensive display either.

Still not really played enough minutes to write him off but think there's a very real chance he's 3rd best too.

It's mad how many of the supposedly better sides have been this bad as well. Not remotely convinced by us, but we've been better than most of those.

Thought he struggled tbh, but then BDCR was pretty bad after a decent performance the other night.

Genuinely don't see a single weakness. Just a very good all round midfielder.