S-Clarke

That's the thing - it's all nearly goals which make you think ''hmm, could he have done better?'' ''should he have saved that?'' - there's more of those ''hmm'' moments than ''What a save!'' moments that's for sure. If he'd have got to at least one of those goals tonight it would have been a ''what a save moment'', which is kind of what you need your GK to pull out every now and then - but he doesn't seem capable.

What's any of that got to do with Willcox out of interest?

It's a strange one because individually he doesn't play badly, but I do agree that he has unsettled a structure since he's come back. We did see the benefits in transition effect with Stephens role today, but ultimately we did let in 3 goals (again) so questions have to be asked. We do concede a lot of goals when he's on the pitch.

I appreciate that's the chain we're in, but he's only just got the job and you'd think we'd have sounded him out a bit more before giving him the brief of how to develop us over the next 5 years. I'm very sceptical of SR's decisions because none of them have gone right yet, and they've been in charge for quite some time now.

The thing with Bazunu is if we're talking about metrics and the passing of the ball etc, he's right up there. One of the best. But if we're talking about shot stopping metrics, which he really should be judged on before anything else, he's at the bottom of the list by a distance.

Just to put our collapse into some context, this was the table just 9 games ago after we'd beaten Huddersfield 5-3, all on equal games. 9 games later...(or 6 in the context of our games in hand) That's as big a fuck up as Leicester in my opinion. It was in our hands, we had all the momentum and once we got there you thought we'd grab it just like Leeds have done. The GD is the most telling thing, look at how Leeds and Ipswich have charged on and we've meekly surrendered.

They were both similar goals, low shots which trickled in - no massive pace on them, should have been blocked - but even if they weren't, I'd have expected a GK to have got a touch on them.

Shocking that. I do think Brooks has massively unsettled us as an addition. We've got so much worse since we've had him in the side, which is weird to say as he's a PL player. Only Southampton could have done that to Brooks, we have a knack of it.

We played well, I think most people will say that - but we lost, at the end of the day I couldn't give a shit about how well we played...we lost, again. Since February it's not been good enough and we threw our chance in the bin. Nothing to be proud of right now, I just hope we regain some momentum for the playoffs as it all feels a bit stop-start at the moment.

But even in that Swansea away game, in which the first half was stupidly dominant, we still let them back in and in the 2nd half hung on a little bit.

I don't think it's fair to say we've been embarrassed as you put it. That's totally downplaying Ipswich who have been unbelievable this season, their achievements should not be discredited. I'm sure WHU fans said the same about us back in 2011, but it wouldn't have been fair or right. We played well tonight though, so we weren't embarrassed - just the same old issues of having a GK who doesn't save goals.

We're not really having a great deal of luck with these roles are we? Not picking exactly loyal people, Shields first and now this guy. More question marks over SR's decision making for me. God knows what they'll do next.

That unbeaten run was good, but it doesn't really mean anything. Another new record for us though, the only team to go unbeaten for 5 months and not achieve anything. (that kind of suggests there were too many draws mixed in tbf). It's not been a bad season by any stretch, but ultimately we've failed on the number 1 objective which was auto promotion. Winning the playoffs is the second route to it, so that will remain open...but we're incapable of keeping clean sheets against any relatively decent side, so we're going to need to outscore everyone in the playoffs by some margin - not sure it's sustainable or doable. We'll see. The frustration for me this season is that we caught up at Christmas through to the end of Jan - that run brought us right into the mix. We used the window to add PL quality in Brooks to the side, didn't lose anyone (bar Charly) and we looked set to give it a good go to the death. But since February we have absolutely bollocksed it in the worst way I could have ever imagined. I knew we'd lose a game again this season, but we've dropped so many points in the last 8 weeks which has killed our season dead before the run-in had a chance to start. We did all the hard work and then lost the plot. Certainly need to understand WTF happened during February to derail us as badly as we have been.

Shit show from him for a while now, he had a good spell this season and he didn't deserve any criticism, but at the moment it seems as if every shot on target is a goal by default. The game was summed up by the keepers tonight. At 2-1 their keeper made a decent save from Bednarek, not a worldie, but a good save he had to work/move his feet to get to. Our keeper let in their only 3 shots they had on target and didn't look capable of getting to either, where you'd think most keepers would have got something on it. The 2nd goal to make it 2-2 was an absolute howler by him and that killed us.

Those last min wins are coming to bite us hard now, we got them all at the wrong end of the season when they were irrelevant. Played well I thought, but the key thing is that we give up 3 goals a game so we need to score at least 4 or 5 to comfortable win. That's not sustainable. This run is now obviously nothing, more a case of 8 games to keep fitness/maintain fitness for the playoffs. Our form since February has been unacceptable really, we sank when we should have done what Leeds did and grabbed by the scruff of it's neck. Lots and lots of weak characters in this side and there always has been. Playoffs will kill them before they even start.

You're right, I was having a maths brain fuck as usual. We wouldn't be equal with everyone until after we've played our game in hand against them though, we'll only have 2 games left after that - that's what I was clumsily trying to get to.

They have a game in hand too, against us.

Ah didn't realise they'd dropped him, that'll please their fans. He's a decent young keeper to be fair, but similar to what we did to Bazunu we just threw him into the lions den too soon.

Just to put some context on it, 'if' Norwich were to beat Leicester and we won our two games in hand (including against Leicester) we would still be 2 points behind them with a far inferior goal difference and just 2 games to play.

Norwich scream Play off winners to me. They were nowhere near at Christmas, but haven't stopped winning since. So much momentum at this stage which is hard to stop, I saw them as a challenger for the Top 2 at the start so once they've got their shit together they are pretty formidable.

Great story for him, he's definitely played a part this year - albeit somewhat bit part, but he's fully integrated into their squad and has contributed some big moments. I'm so glad he ended up there than fucking Burnley.

Burnley are an interesting comparison for sure. Kompany as their manager would have brought a Man City-lite approach with him, i.e their pass, pass pass last season in the Champ. They used this summer to hoover up talented young players from around Europe, including rather oddly....another £15m young keeper from Man City, who their fans don't rate but has kept his place no matter what. Some interesting parallels for sure. They've spent a lot of money, £130m ish, but are too inexperienced and the style they are trying to implement in the PL has left them too exposed. And this is a team who stormed to 105 points last year.

Anyone see the stupid Lallana pre-match interview today? He was on the bench for Brighton, but was talking about how good it was to ''be back home'', it's like 'I've never been away''. ''I'm desperate for Liverpool to win the league'' Brighton fans didn't take too kindly to it, but this is Lallana all over - self indulged and a bit of a wet wally it has to be said.

Let's not forget we've got 19 goal Adam Armstrong in attack for us, Ipswich don't have an out and out prolific forward - neither do Leicester or Leeds, it's not about that in my opinion. We always score goals, but when you look back at some of our wins or defeats (4-3, 3-2, 4-2, 1-4, 0-5 etc) we give up way too much in most games, so we put ourselves in a position where we constantly unrealistically need to hit more than 2 goals a game to have a shot of winning. That's what's done us in my opinion, scoring and chance creation wise we don't have a problem. We just give up way, way, way too much against everyone we play - not so much individual limitations, more so the aggressive tactical approach and how often we get countered on. We concede opportunities to the lesser sides, but they're not as good defensively to repel us in attack so we can get those 2+ goals we need to ultimately win and no one has a problem. Against the better sides though it's not realistic to expect to have a chance of winning if we're giving them 2 or 3 free goals in the game.

That game summed up the PL this year imo - the quality level bar this year is very, very low. I'm sure we had Sky Sports say ''this is why the PL is the best league in the world' at one point or another though.