Reality is transient and football is no different. A couple of seasons ago, I was livid when we lost to Stoke and blew our chance to cement a top four place. This year, it's a new reality. McLeish is not to blame even if many people on here want to make him a scapegoat.
The stone cold reality is that right now we are just not very good. We tried a couple of things, especially in the 2nd half, but when you're putting out a a team of whom at least 50% are Championship footballers at best, you're not going to get very far. Even if we ship out the deadwood the reality is that the kids just ain't that great and as things stand, I'm not convinced many coaches could polish a turd and we're a turd of a team.