two hypothetical questions

[Beijing Villan]

1.  Where would we have finished ? Who knows ? But I agree with others that we would probably have had a better defensive record. But our poor position resulted in the purchase of Bent which will be a positive for this season.

2.  In the modern day game, when players want to go then they usually go. So hanging on to Ashley and Downing was never going to happen. Had we kept them for the first couple of games and then they sodded off then N'Zogbia may not have had a run out. And clearly he needs some time to get fully match fit and learn how to play with his new teammates. He's had some time to adjust now and so we should be a better team for that.

Agree with the comments from The Zogman. AM has not lost a competitive game yet despite losing our two most dangerous widemen. We appear to have tightened up our leaky defence in double quick time. More work needs doing with our midfield and attack but it's early days.

Fortunately we have a relatively soft start to the season in terms of opposition and this should give AM and his team time to make the improvements that are needed.