How depressing has it all become?

[The Left Side]

I believe we will be ok, it will be a rollercoaster but we will stay up.

[Legion]

I believe we will be ok, it will be a rollercoaster but we will stay up.

I totally agree with the honourable gentleman. It will be difficult and I can see us in the drop-zone for a while leading up to Christmas but it will all come good.

[PeterWithesShin]

This season: stay up
Next season: kick on

That's the plan.

I'm sure that's not what Lerner was hoping for when he appointed Lambert and gave him £20m to spend.

What did he think he was going to get for 20M in this day and age? Champions League?

Well, we are talking about Lerner, so who knows?  But I'm sure that having got rid of McLeish who kept us up, that he didn't expect to appoint a supposedly better manager and give him £20m and then see results get even worse.  Some of the perfomances so far have been just as bad as anything last year, eg against Everton, Southampton and West ham.

Results aren't actually much worse though.

Everton (h) 1-1 vs 1-3 -1pt
Newcastle (a) 1-2 vs 1-1 +1pt
Swansea (h) 0-2 vs 2-0 +3
WBA (h) 1-2 vs 1-1 +1
Spurs (a) 0-2 vs 0-2 0
Fulham (a) 0-0 vs 0-1 -1

3 points more than we got last season. Always look on the bright side.

[silhillvilla]

Clever you missed out the west ham & Southampton defeats ??
Last season we can say comparable with QPR & Swansea away ? So a further -2 points

[Chipsticks]

I believe we will be ok, it will be a rollercoaster but we will stay up.

I totally agree with the honourable gentleman. It will be difficult and I can see us in the drop-zone for a while leading up to Christmas but it will all come good.

Patience is going to be vital, and unfortunately we're not renown for being very patient...

[PeterWithesShin]

Clever you missed out the west ham & Southampton defeats ??
Last season we can say comparable with QPR & Swansea away ? So a further -2 points

How is it clever? We didn't play them last season. Can't compare them with relegated sides as Saints and West Ham still have the buzz from promotion that the relegated sides didn't have.

So if you do want to compare them to promoted sides, then it's still +1 from last season. And it's still not much worse results.

[cheltenhamlion]

Why are people shitting it about November by the way? Under the previous twat we wrote the games off as we set up as a damage limitation exercise.

I bet we get an unexpected win in those games due to our trying to play, just like Norwich on Saturday in fact.

Leave the knife and the wrists alone for a while yet.

[Toronto Villa]

Why are people shitting it about November by the way? Under the previous twat we wrote the games off as we set up as a damage limitation exercise.

I bet we get an unexpected win in those games due to our trying to play, just like Norwich on Saturday in fact.

Leave the knife and the wrists alone for a while yet.

completely agree Chelts. I firmly believe this season we'll win games we as fans to lose, and lose games we expect to win. What I do know is that we'll try and win all of them.

[rob_bridge]

Why are people shitting it about November by the way? Under the previous twat we wrote the games off as we set up as a damage limitation exercise.

I bet we get an unexpected win in those games due to our trying to play, just like Norwich on Saturday in fact.

Leave the knife and the wrists alone for a while yet.

completely agree Chelts. I firmly believe this season we'll win games we as fans to lose, and lose games we expect to win. What I do know is that we'll try and win all of them.

Agree and I do believe we already hold a victory over one of the Super Clubs in another competition this season.

[Salsa Party Animal]

I think we need to find our Dave Mackay (Which Brian Clough sign for Derby to help his very young team and then end up champions) This mean a proper midfield general and a wonderful winger.

[eastie]

I think we need to find our Dave Mackay (Which Brian Clough sign for Derby to help his very young team and then end up champions) This mean a proper midfield general and a wonderful winger.

Nail on the head there sals- a midfield general is a must.

[olaftab]

Last season was depressing.  This season is frustrating.

Next season will be fulfilling!

[Rip Van We Go Again]

I believe we will be ok, it will be a rollercoaster but we will stay up.

I totally agree with the honourable gentleman. It will be difficult and I can see us in the drop-zone for a while leading up to Christmas but it will all come good.

Patience is going to be vital, and unfortunately we're not renown for being very patient...

Are you sure about that?

McCatpiss was cut an awful lot of slack last season, it was very late in the day before the home crowd turned on him.

[robbo1874]

H

I think we need to find our Dave Mackay (Which Brian Clough sign for Derby to help his very young team and then end up champions) This mean a proper midfield general and a wonderful winger.

Have you just watched the Damned United by any chance?

Great film.

Edit: as an aside - Dave mckay's son, Murray was a couple of years above me at my school.

[brontebilly]

Our squad is poor and you’re right that you can’t polish a turd. However, we can go down with a whimper as we would  have done under TSM, or we can try and rebuild from scratch under Lambert.
Right now it’s a bloody long road back to 6th spot, but I’m convinced that if we can survive this season that we will start to make the slow climb back up there.

Agree with that Neil, but it's the big "IF" we survive.  If we don't, I really think we'd be in the mire for a long time.

Its a gamble, but I'd rather take the gamble than simply die slowly. If you buy into the risk we're taking its anything but depressing. Frustrating yes, depressing no. Under McLeish it would simply have been the latter.
And for the record if this experiment does go utterly tits up, I think we'd be in far better shape to come back stronger than we would be under many other managers.

If McLeish could keep us up, then if Lambert takes us down with the same squad and having added £20m of players to it, I wouldn't give him the chance personally.

Neither would I. He's bought too many lower league players who just haven't performed because quite frankly they're not good enough for the PL.
saying that though, we'll continue to unimpress until Lerner realises that have to invest in top players to perform in the top division. That means paying PL wages not lower league wages. His continuing cutbacks will eventually cost us our Premier League status.

Far far too early to cast a judgement on the players who've come in this summer.

Lowton looks good enough for this level, as do, in my opinion, Vlaar, KEA, Benteke and Holman.  Bennett needs time with the squad (he's similar to Lowton but without a summer at the club) and Westwood and Bowery can't be judged either way yet.

I firmly believe the ability of the players who've come in isn't the problem, we're just an inexperienced squad with 2 options to get that experience:

1.  We buy players who been in and around the premier league for a while, with relatively high fees and wages.
2.  We stick to our guns and trust that the talent will shine through sooner rather than later.

I choose 2 as 1 is what we did under MoN to start the whole mess off.

I'd prefer something in the middle though.

Early days but I dont think Holman is good enough to be starting on a midtable EPL side. A poor man's Ji Sung Park. Jury still out on Lowton too. The new signings arent the problem though they havent improved matters all that much. The likes of Given, Delph, Nzogbia, Ireland, Gabby, Bent dont seem up to it either and most of them havent been for quite some time. Lichaj, Baker, Bannan, Westwood, Herd, Albrighton - are these even good enough to be playing 10-15 games this season?

Our manager is struggling at the moment a little too. We are in trouble frankly.