Micky

I was thinking the same. They haven't played badly but generally just failed to finish good chances. We could be in for a drubbing. Hope our bus is big enough.

Not often you see KDB having a 'mare..

That is the salient part of your post unfortunately. I'm a big fan, was there at West Brom and was there at Wembley, like watching two different players.

Have just looked at Fulhams remaining games and their run in is brutal, I really can't see them getting more than 10 points between now and the end of the season (that's having them down to beat us as well). West Broms last games are slightly easier but only marginally so. I don't think there's enough winnable games for either to survive. Gonna be a low bar this year.

Free hit..... but we need respectability as a bare minimum. If we're not going to get anything from the game, let's make sure that we don't collapse and ship another hat full of goals. KISS concept - get out with credibility in tact and move on.

Got the job done, wouldn't go overboard about the performance though. They are absolutely awful so no barometer at all to measure premiere league quality. Massive 3 points though, gives us breathing space.

Garth Crooks saying Fleck should've seen red for the tackle on Che.

I think a big part of the game will be about who scores first. If we do, it might just give us the confidence to go on and win it. If they do, well we all know the script, there will be very little fight from us. Its totally set up for them now though, the pressure is off them, they are already down, nobody expects them to stay up. Of all the games they could've had after tonight, we are absolutely perfect for them, unfortunately. Sticking with my one nil loss prediction. Perhaps we'll win the next one.....

Let's not tempt fate, but yeah I know what you mean. That said I was up there last season when we beat them and Sharp came on for the last ten minutes and promptly got sent off. So some more of that wouldn't go amiss.

Given our current form I have no confidence whatsoever that we will win this one. I think they will try to keep it tight and turn it into a battle, which I see us struggling with. That said, if we play well we should be able to out-football them, and win comfortably. Tough one to call, but everybody wants to play us at the moment and they will be no different. I think they will do us in another scrappy one nil defeat. Taxi for Ralph incoming.

Well we've improved, only shipped one goal, but that was enough to win the game. I said after the Leeds game that we need to see signs of improvement, and to be fair there were small signs in the game. We didn't fold after the early goal and stayed in the game, I know we created fucking nothing, but for us that's not unusual. At least the game wasn't out of sight after the first half. I thought Stew, Moussa and Vest were good, after that we were poor to average. I don't normally dig out players, but as with everybody else, I just cannot see how Redmond stayed on the pitch for so long. I don't know if that was a confidence issue or what, but he was awful, we would have been better playing with ten men. Massive game coming up, lose it and confidence really will be rock bottom. Is there a 'Ralph Out' thread yet?

That's our own stupid fault. Playing them with nine men for over 20 minutes and failing to get anything out of the game is criminal. The next couple of games are pivotal for us, but can't see us getting anything other than more drubbings. The Newcastle game should have been at least a point and arguably three. Relegation scrap beckons soon. Wolves bailing us out, one one.

Watched him tonight, thought he did well. But he seems to play better when Grealish is in front of him. Decent player, our loss.

Thanks to those who posted the article. Very interesting, if accurate, it would appear that Ralph has the unequivocal backing of the club and will not be sacked no matter what. I have no problem with that, as it takes away any distraction to the players. They therefore have to understand that it's upto them to start performing and get us out of this. My only problem with this is that, historically, players appear to be quite blasé about relegation and only seem to react to the situation when we are knee deep in shit and it's to late. I hope that behind the scenes the severity of our predicament is being drummed home. Hopefully the clubs stance takes the pressure off of Ralph leaving him to plan a way out of this. But we need to turn the corner sooner rather than later.

It's a subscription service, what does it say?

None of those teams will be worrying about playing us, in fact they'll all have it down as a possible 3 points for them. Whilst we won some football matches early on in the season, we've won very few battles.

You're welcome. I have no issues with losing, more than used to that. But the manner in which you lose games is important if you want to promote recovery. Let's see what signs of recovery we show at Goodison on Monday. Thank you.

So what is the reality? Everything's rosy, our form is not bad, the players are full of confidence and this is merely a minor blip, it's all VARs fault, we are on track for a European place. Given the records that we are currently breaking you can appreciate why people go into meltdown. As a long time supporter I actually expect us to win nothing every season, not a thing. But ffs, at least have some pride in the shirt you wear, when it gets tough show some bollux. We are far too soft and right now everybody wants to play us because we are an easy touch. I don't actually think we will go down, but some of the performances and results have been nothing short of embarrassing. So I'm off to quietly meltdown until we are back to the safety of champion league places, and the elephant in the room makes a resurgence.

Don't think so. But it anybody can, we can. It's what we do.

To be fair, 'our early assault' was really nothing more than having possession 30 yards from their goal. We hardly fashioned a shot on target, did their keeper make a save? Nah, don't think we assaulted naff all tonight.

I really get very little excitement from watching us continually having the lions share of possession, whilst passing the ball aimlessly around, and creating absolutely nothing in the way of scoring opportunities. Nothing exciting whatsoever.

You're right it wasn't a three nil game. If it wasn't for a couple of smart saves from McCarthy coupled with some wayward finishing from Leeds it could've been 6 or 7 nil.

Richarlison will rip us a new one, every team and every premiership striker wants to play against us at the moment. If we can get out by only losing 2 nil that's improvement, that's how bad we currently are. Everton, Goodison Park, other than the cup when was the last time we......

If keeping the ball for long periods of time without ever looking like scoring is playing well, then yes, we did. We then went on to get completely out fought and out played.

Got out of jail a bit today, let's be honest that could easily have been 6, 7 or even worse again. For all of our dominance and possession in the first half hour we created absolute nothing. All our energy is put into the first half and we're blowing out of our asses in the second. Let's be honest, everybody wants to play us at the moment, we are an easy 3 points. You could see after the first goal we were shot to pieces, heads went down very quickly. I really can't see where the next points will come from, Everton and City will shit all over us, and I'm not sure who will win the battle with Sheffield United. I can't see Bournemouth being too disappointed that the have us in the cup as well, they'll fancy their chances. I haven't spoken about any players tonight because it's really not worth it, we have problems all over the pitch and on the bench. We are both mentally and physically weak as soon as things go against us, when was the last time we recovered from going behind, how many times have we lost from being in front? We were absolutely dog shyte tonight over the course of the game, but that unfortunately is now the norm for us. Relegation beckons.