trousers

[emoji106]

Opinion or ITK? Cheers

At least Portsmouth 2012 have got to Wembley on merit unlike their Fratton Park predecessors

Leicester miss a great opportunity to make it 3-1

Gonna be a half empty stadium given how many of them have previously decried the competition

Your wish is granted

Newcastle 2 Burnley 0

Newcastle 1 Burnley 0

Everton! Get in

Cardiff close to going 1 up in first 2 minutes. Gonna be one of those nights

This has got 0-0 written all over it

That's fair enough, although the 3 senior players that left (Gabbi, Cedric and Hoedt) didn't really feature during the Ralph renaissance period, so, to my mind, there was every reason to believe we could continue the revival without those three players. Yes, I get the 'new manager bounce' phenonmina, but I genuinely believed we we're witnessing a new dawn under Hassenhuttl, given the performances he was achieving with what are, admittedly, average players. I guess that makes me a tad naive and/or overly optimistic on reflection. If we don't get 3 points on Wednesday vs Fulham then consider me a recruit to the "we're doomed" brigade.

I find this game they call 'Football' baffling at times... There we are in January... Hassenhuttl has successfully instilled his high intensity methodology into the team, we look confident and are 5th in the form table with manager and player of the month nominations in the bag... Then, within weeks, and with the same squad, we're back into 'lack of confidence mode', with that new found intensity and desire seemingly on the wane.... Baffled: That's me.

Tick

Congratulations. One of these days I'll know what it feels like to be triumphant on an internet football forum

Ok, fair enough. Some of us felt optimist, some of us didn't. C'est la vie

You got me there

When we were in excellent form, my belief was that we would/could continue that form. Your belief was that said form wouldn't continue without injection of new players. Fair enough, you got it right, I seemingly didn't. It's only football, life goes on.

A few weeks ago we were 6 points off the top half of the table and 5th in the form table with games versus Crystal Palace, Burnley and Cardiff to come. Are you suggesting it was unreasonable to believe, given our form at the time, that we wouldn't get more out of those games than we did, regardless of what happened in the transfer window? Without the benefit of hindsight, I would venture there was every reason to believe we'd get a run of decent results in those games.

We were in top 6 form during the January window. RH was nomiated for Manager of the Month. Ergo, there was every reason to believe at that time that Hassenhuttl was capable of getting a decent outcome from utilising the players he was choosing to play. Yes, getting 1 or 2 players in during the window would have been a welcome bonus, but our form suggested that it wasn't essential. I admit that I'm not blessed with the powers of hindsight that some of the self appointed SWF intelligentsia have, but our current dip down to 10th in the form table (results since RH arrived) could just be a blip or it could be a sign that the results RH was getting in December/January was a false dawn. We won't know if the January window was a 'disaster' until the end of the season. Even then we won't know whether new players would have changed things, although I'm sure the Mystic Megs will tell me otherwise

Time will tell, but hunch is yes

Textbook. That's so good I reckon it'll even go over the heads of the mods on here Anyway, enough bites from me for one evening. Don't want to get you too aroused

At least you get to play one of your "told you so" cards though. Every cloud...

Good to see you back on the forum Robbie. Been missing you since you last posted on 3rd December....

Indeed. We're 10th in the form table under Hassenhuttl. I'm sure most on here would have been happy with that run of form if asked back in November.