Current feelings

[NotTheMarketLeader]

I think 80% is harsh, I could point to plenty of games where we've been attacking and come away with nothing. Palace at home, Arsenal away, Spurs away being three of the more recent ones.

There will also be plenty of games where the opposition just doesn't let you play the way you want to. Stoke at home and even Hull who I thought were incredibly negative and just sat on the edge of their own box. We've always struggled against teams who are happy to do that. Our best form of attack is quick ball and space, when teams sit back and don't give us room to run into we don't know what to do, thus making us look negative.

Yes Pearson has made mistakes, he's buggered around with formations too much for my liking and struggled to settle a team down. Some of his changes (Stoke home, Hull at home stick in my mind) made no sense. But, we don't know if the final results would have been much different to what we've had.

The newly promoted teams have all struggled, QPR were praised for their summer signings on here and we could now overtake them. Burnley have been praised by most people this year and we could take over them as well. Hull and Sunderland have spent god knows how many millions on their teams and struggle.

Let's hope it works out anyway!

[Babylon]

Let's hope it works out anyway!

I'm confident about most games except Burnley away... probably because I hate Dyche.

[DANGEROUS TIGER]

It really doesn't matter who the opposition is, imo. Every side can play well, or play badly. We have lost to some poor sides, and to some good ones. I don't really hold with this, "Oh we should get three points here", point of view. We should all know how this is a worthless point of view.

 

What will be, will be.

[Ollie93]

IMO we are in a strong if not the strongest position out of the bottom 3, my reasons why;

 

We have won 2 in a row, no matter what anyone says that gives a side confidence and momentum.

We arguably have the nicest run in out of the teams.

We have 2 games in hand on QPR who are only 1 point above us. 

Our fan base is good, we are behind the team week in week out. 

[Kitchandro]

I still wouldn't keep Pearson if we stayed up. Even now his team selections are poor and we've won a couple in spite of his failures. How can you want him in charge when you watch us defend set pieces? The organisation cannot be that bad. It's unacceptable.

 

Watching us the last couple of matches just highlights how much we've underachieved this season. We're capable of winning matches when we go for it. If he stays, next season will just be the same. He's not learnt anything, we're only being positive now because we have absolutely no choice.

[Dan]

If he does keep us up and we do try to be more negative next year then I agree he should go. I think the penny's finally dropped with him.

[Fox Ulike]

I still wouldn't keep Pearson if we stayed up. Even now his team selections are poor and we've won a couple in spite of his failures. How can you want him in charge when you watch us defend set pieces? The organisation cannot be that bad. It's unacceptable.

 

Watching us the last couple of matches just highlights how much we've underachieved this season. We're capable of winning matches when we go for it. If he stays, next season will just be the same. He's not learnt anything, we're only being positive now because we have absolutely no choice.

 

I think it would be hard to get rid of him if he performs the greatest escape in Premiership history!

 

Pearson’s tactics this year have been pretty woeful, and continue to be so. You're right though: We won on Saturday despite Pearson’s team selection, not because of it.

 

But… there’s more to being a Premiership manager than just being a good tactician. In most other aspect of the job, I think Pearson is an outstanding Manager.

 

He just needs brainwashing away from 442…   Maybe we just needs a re-jig of the backroom staff and the addition of somebody with a little more tactical awareness at this level…?

[Freeman's Wharfer]

You'd have to hope that if we do stay up there is a recognition from both Pearson and the owners that we need to spend big on some real quality. We have the basis of a team that can work hard but we've severely lacked in quality all season.

 

If we stay up, hopefully that is one of the biggest lessons to be learned and what he has to do with this set of players (not try to be too defensive, go gung ho almost) will become redundant as we'll have a very new look squad for the start of next season.

[fuchsntf]

Yes one other being Burnley, who have all stayed behind Dyche this season. The team they came up with cost almost as much as ours did fee wise (not wage wise granted), until we spent a bit of cash in January we'd not really spent much more than they did in the summer. So why were the expectations of so many of our fans so much higher than Burnley's for our first season back in a decade?

They accepted it was going to be a battle and that they'd probably be down there all season, yet so many of our fans seem to think we'd be cruising mid table. In fact it's shown again in this thread with people saying we'd have stayed up "comfortably" if it wasn't for Pearson. There is no evidence of that, Burnley aren't anywhere close to staying up "comfortably" and they chased us all the way last season.

Well put, and for comparisons add Bruce of Hull who many thought, he was beginning to get it right.

Do Hull fans want also want to chase that dream there must be a top manager out there somewhere that can realise those dreams.

Many fans forget we arent the club we were, those 100 years before the MON era.That traditional club, with top class facilities, training programmes were light years ahead of the likes of Hull, Reading, even Palace. Those days are long gone, in fact we should be gratefull that we can try and compare ouselves with the likes of the pre-mentioned clubs, we lost it in the scares of Admin.

Some other clubs had the luck and found good backers, and could afford the better players, and dare it be said, used better the new generation of managers at the time.......This period and Generation of managers, Bruce, Pearson, include also, Monk, then Hughes, Martinez who are holding at the moment their own.

Clubs like Hull, Reading, Cardiff, Swansea, Palace, have in their recent history of ca 12yrs have evolved, or improved on or from their modern founding and making of traditions.We are trying to get somehow somewhere back there.We, like those mentioned including the likes of WBA, or Stoke could easily crumble, or hopefully ride it out and realise and create a memorable era.

Not forgetting the critic on managers choice of players, theres never been a manager who hasnt picked 1-2 players who became/become automatic write-ins of his own fancy, and fans find it hard to reason why.