S-Clarke

I thought our performance against Cardiff was just as dominant, a 4-0 wouldn't have been an unfair result that day. We're getting better, goals are coming from all angles and from the subs which is great to see. Genuine strength and depth that only Leeds and Leicester can compete with if we're honest.

Good post, thanks for putting it together. It really is a bit of a freakish season. We're kind of performing exactly as you'd expect an auto promotion aiming team to perform, like you say we're pretty much on target of our actual promotion season - yet somehow still 10 points off. Let's keep going though, see where it takes us. I reckon we'll end up with quite a sizable gap between 4th and the rest though, the order of that 4 still slightly up for debate. We'll know for sure after the Christmas games if it's 'game on' or not for the 2nd half of the season.

Well that was enjoyable, reminded me of the games at home in our promotion seasons - so dominant and never in doubt. I thought we were a bit slow in the first half, it was turning into a bit of a frustrating game until Edozie popped in front of their goalie to stab that in. That changed the entire complextion of the game, it's a great time to score. We came out in the second half as good as I've seen us all season. People will speak about how 'poor' Blackburn were, but we didn't give them a chance to do anything. We were all over them when we came out after the break, penned them in and pressed them like animals. Their goalkeeper was their best player in that second half, and they still lost 4-0. The best player on the pitch was Stu, he was full of energy and his touch and movement on the ball were way too good for this Blackburn team. They couldn't get near him. He did tire, which he sadly seems to do, so the sub was a fair one. Now onto the subs....they all added some extra to us and impacted the game, that is a mega positive for me. Fraser is turning into a bit of a Super-Sub, I'm sure he won't like that description of him, but having a player like him on the bench to come on against tiring teams is brilliant. It's not just his pace/movement, but it's his speed of thought which catches teams out who are tiring. Alcaraz was a bit of an idiot with the penalty, he'll never do that again, but in terms of what he brought to the game he was excellent. Pressing, energy, winning the ball back, playing on the half turn - and eventually a goal to top it off. Pleased for Mara as well, he probably should have had one before that - but it's nice to see him on the scoresheet. We do seem to have some genuine depth when we can bring onto subs who also go on to score. I still stand by what I said the other day - the September defeats have skewed our season, in terms of GD and how far we are off the top. But in any normal season that September wouldn't have been as damaging as it has been, so putting all that to side I think the run we're on now and how we've recovered from September is nothing short of amazing. None of these players deserve any criticism right now as they are playing as well as this football club has played for many, many, many years. 14 games undefeated, 5 wins on the bounce at home, 42 points, joint third. In any normal season this is comfortably auto promotion form, but sadly the two top this year have set some freakish targets. Let's keep going though and see where it takes us. You can see the league almost starting to take shape though - a gap is starting to form between 4th and the rest, Ipswich being the anomaly in all of this though.

Maybe, but it's not like we were going to pay him peanuts. 100k p/w on the table for him.

Ing's is another player who thought the grass was greener at Villa. Didn't work out for him there, hasn't worked out for him at WHU. Sometimes players have a level where they fit and I think we were that level. I'd welcome him back but he should have just signed the contract when he was offered it and we'd probably still be in the prem with him a massive fan fave. It would be typical though, we've spent the last 3 or so seasons trying to replace him (Armstrong, Broja, Stewart), yet there is a genuine possibility we're going to just circle back on him, in a lower league. Not the best show up for our scouts really.

It puts some perspective on it for sure, but look at the GD - even ignoring those big losses, we're still way down in terms of scoring enough in my opinion. Points wise we're in the usual ball park, but we simply don't score enough. Defensibly we've improved ten-fold in the last 13 or so games, but too many 1-1's and such in that run.

Exactly, September killed us and was a horror month. It couldn't have gone much worse. Our recovery from that has been amazing though, some disappointing results in amongst that lot for sure (Rotherham at home, which was a freak result) but overall the recovery cannot be sniffed up. Due to the level the top 2 have kept though we have been unable to recover from our bad September, not for the want of trying, but it's not to be.

Bit of a comedown for Newcastle. Massive fanfare before their first Champions league game against PSG, fireworks, drone displays, Champions League theme being played around the City. Fair enough they beat PSG, but they've ended it by not even being in Europe in any competition in the 2nd half of the season. No surprise when you look at how stretched they are though - no Pope, Botman, Tonali, Willock, Barnes etc. They were always going to start slipping when they had to call upon Lascelles and Dubraka again.

I think a lot of the over reactions right now are because of our run in September, had it not been as bad as it was we'd have been right in there - and that's in a season where the top 2 are setting records, so in the general context we're doing as you'd expect a promotion chasing team to do - it's such an extreme top 2 though that we just couldn't afford the September we had, in any other season that month is probably recoverable from but this year it won't be.

Reminds me of us when we got promoted from L1, they're just riding on a crest of a wave with some good young players who they have moulded into a really, really good team. Not sure any of their players will quite got onto the hights our team did (International honours etc), but they're using all that momentum right now to sweep aside anyone. I reckon Leeds will pip them to 2nd though, just a feeling I have. Might face them in the playoffs.

Any mentions of his save at 1-1 to get us that point? It was excellent. I think he's having a good run with us at the moment, certainly improving in my eyes and one of the key reasons (arguably the only reason) we're unbeaten in 13.

It was a massive gamble in a position we've rolled the dice on since we sold Ings. We didn't need to roll the dice again, Piroe was there on a plate for us to get. Need to fix that in January. Adams is done here as far as I'm concenered, get Armstrong and a proper CF together in the attack - but we need to play quicker for that to actually make a huge difference.

Cov aren't a bad side, they were a play off side last year and have strengthen in the summer (minus Goykores). These two away games aren't bankers by any means. It's not a bad result in our aim to finish in the playoffs, that's all we're doing - so save yourself the disappointment by continuously looking at Leeds/Leicester and Ipswich's results - they're gone and away into the distance, no catching those guys. Just need to make sure we're the best of the play off teams when we get there. It's disappointing because we could be doing better, but that run in September pretty much killed any auto promotion hopes stone dead. Our recovery since then has been promotion worthy, but the damage has been long done. I don't think we're playing badly at the moment, we're just not going to be able to recover from September. Manning though is probably the worst LB I've seen us with in many, many, many years - truly dreadful footballer, I don't know how this guy got into the team of the season. He is awful in all aspects of his game - touch, positioning, passing. Error strewn mess. Just play Bree, but priority for me in January is an actual left back. Adam Armstrong had a really poor game tonight, he's set a high standard this year though so we can probably excuse him this one - but he was really poor. Blackburn on Saturday, they're not doing too bad at the moment at all, but if we win that 5 from 9 points in a week is 'ok', not ground breaking but it keeps things ticking over. Big Christmas coming up to create that gap to 7th.

A strategy needs to be about more than signing 'young' players though. Players should be signed to fit a playing style, fill positions you have a shortfall, improve starting quality at x or y etc. They have literally just gone scattergun at highly rated young players, in all different positions, in some cases totally ignoring what they already had in their academy. That is not a strategy to me. We went about it in the PL last season, a somewhat lighter version of it, but a similar scattergun approach on young players whilst failing to fill the obvious holes with experienced proven quality.

I think Chelsea have proven quite emphatically that who spends the most isn't guaranteed to get success. There's no point in going around with a billion quid and just signing up anyone who can breathe, they've had absolutely zero strategy with their recruitment - it is an absolute shambles what they've managed to put together and Poch has been sold up the river, some of the young players they've signed will never reach the heights they could have (I worry about Lavia). Newcastle have money, but if you look at their signings they've been much more measured and sensible (down the spine). I have no idea what world Chelsea's owners live in, they're very arrogant to think that just money without any thought will get you any success.

More wonderful wisdom from Charlie.

I don't particularly think it matters who we have up front, if we spend 80% of the game passing between our CB's and our midfielders in the oppositions half then we're not going to score many goals.

It is a freak season, in a normal season the run we're on and the points haul we have would likely have us top 2 or very close to it. The top 2 this year, and Leeds chasing them, have set the bar very, very high and I don't think our style is going to allow us to jump over that bar. We're doing alright, just not the barn storming level we hoped we'd show.

Not so much writing it off, just being realistic really. We're on one of our best runs in over 10 years and we're still 10 points off of 2nd. (11 if you include GD) We're going to hit a patch where we lose a few games before long, and that 10 points off will stretch to 15 and upwards. People may be correct in that Ipswich will have a wobble, but for me Leeds are best placed to pounce on that - we'd have to overcome them as well. It's a tough ask and I think it's just realistic to assume playoffs. It's not really acceptable with our squad mind, but that's what we've got to deal with.

I don't think it's as simple as that really, we have strikers who will score buckets of goals at this level - but we don't play to score buckets of goals, as illustrated by our goal difference. We don't go for the kill and that has been what has hamstrung us and why our GD, for a team in the top 4, is pretty horrendous.

I see it as a 2 horse between Leeds, Ipswich for 2nd place. 1st is done so that's not even worth debating about now, Leicester will be home and hosed by March. I think it illustrates how hard it's going to be to overhaul them above - we've won 8 in 12, unbeaten in 12, and we're still 10 points behind Ipswich.

He's had a great 6 weeks, stepped up to the mark. He has let one in at the end, but why go OTT over it? Without him today that is a defeat 9/10 as Watford deserved that. It was only because of him we went into the 95th min 1-0 up. I have full confidence in Bazunu and I felt he was starting to really build a rapport with the fans. He's not perfect, he's still got to improve in aspects, but he has been getting better and no one can deny that.

Oh for sure, we've had some great last min times this season so far - it was always going to bite us on the other end at some point, at least it wasn't a defeat.

Needed to win that with the other results, it extends the run sure, but that pretty much puts the final nail in any automatic promotion hopes - however slight they were at the start of the day, and that for me will always be such a huge sickener for me this season given the players we have. We need to at least keep the momentum going so we head into the playoffs as the best in there. Bazunu had a great game in so many aspects, without him that was probably a defeat so seeing him being dived on at FT is a bit weird but somewhat not surprising. Onto Wednesday, need to win that - open up as big as a gap as we can from 7th.

An incredibly comfortable and controlled performance, there was never any drama. We strolled that from the start to the end. We have the players to play those quick 1-2 movements, and at this level no team can deal with that - we saw that yesterday, whenever we played quick and short in and around the box Cardiff were lost. We can play like that and if we consistently start doing that in the final third then not many teams will have an answer to that. The run we've been on since the Boro game is exactly what was needed, but it's a bit sobering that even after 8 wins in 11/un beaten in 11, we are still miles off the top 2. I still think we're a nailed Play Off team but we've been incredibly unlucky to be in a season where two teams just continue to Walz away at the top. Special mentions y/day to Manning, who has been really poor, but put in a good shift yesterday. I'm a huge fan of Downes and I think he's the best CM at this level by a mile, such a class act. THB is just there, you never end up talking about him as he strolls games at this level. We actually have a real spine down the middle of this side now and it makes all the difference. Watford away will not be easy, they've picked up a bit but they do strike me as a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde team.