S-Clarke

I'm trying to scrape the barrel here, you're not helping

I can see why people can see comparisons, but that's just because we're losing every single week and the last time we did that was under the Dutch duo. So that's an easy comparison to make. As a club, we are on a whole new level since then. The management know what they're doing, and I still trust them. I don't think they'd have been able to get 2 successive promotions based on not knowing the game.

Frustratingly, we have played well for periods of games. We've looked the better team on occasions, even against the Manchester clubs. Our constant errors are our Achilles hill though, and my only hope is that we will now start to face a ''lesser'' quality of attacker, so our mistakes - which will probably still happen - aren't going to be punished as frequently.

I think he's more than just pace, seems to have a good brain and movement off the ball. I've only seen glimpses of him, but they've been positive. I know he's been nursing a knock the last few weeks, so I'd hope based on his sub appearance that he's nearing his full start.

But to be honest, even a half-fit, 1 legged Dawson is better than anything we have at present! A 6 month loan is a no brainer if available.

Guly isn't actually 2 bad as a central midfield player, I know people will argue that. I think he's more effective through the middle than he is out wide for instance. But I agree with your sentiment on Cork, I was a big fan of his last year - and even before he came here, I think he'll add a calmness that we sometimes seem to lack.

To throw a bit of a positive spin on this. After 17 games, on 28th December 2010 Blackpool were 8th in the Premier League with 25 points. Wolves were bottom 10 points away from Blackpool. 5 months later, Blackpool were relegated and Wolves survived. What I'm trying to get at is the PL is a long, hard, slog. Teams will have good runs, bad runs, and inconsistent runs all throughout the season. I think we'll improve, heck...that's all we can do from here, so on that basis we still have our best run of the season to come. Nothing is decided after 8 games, and as shown in Blackpool's season - not even 17 games. There's not much we can do until January, but we have a bunch of fixtures coming up which we need to take the most from and things may start to look brighter come January.

Personally I think it's time for Mayuka to be given a run. I'd say up front, but obviously seeing as Rickie will play there, he'll go out on the right. I would play... Gazzaniga Clyne - Fonte - Yoshida - Fox Davis - Morgan Mayuka Lallana Puncheon Lambert

I'd be surprised if we have a cats hells chance in signing Enrique.

You need to remember that JWP is a young kid, and throwing him into our current setup probably isn't great for his progression, let's be honest. Great player though he is, I think we've taken him out of the fire for a reason.

If I'm honest with you Alps I trusted our players too much. I ignored the failings towards the end of last season and brushed them under the carpet, the obvious reality is that those failings weren't fixed and are now being shown up in the big league. I'm personally gutted by our start, I knew we had a tough start on paper...but I thought once we got through that, we'd start to look competitive, but we look anything but. I want to be positive, I want to believe we'll stay up and I believe we will as that's my mindset, but that will come about due to a change in January to certain positions - something I must admit should have been done in the summer (I even felt disappointed we didn't get the LB and 2nd cb I felt we needed - but I didn't imagine it hurting us this much). I think we'll still be in touch come Jan, mainly due to us having games against the teams around us - so if we can avoid losing to them, then we can keep them all within striking distance.

I must admit, I did think along the same lines as you until the Fulham game and Saturdays result. It probably wasn't a 4-1 win for West Ham in terms of the game, but they won 4-1 because we made horrendous errors. Everton won 3-1, because we made horrendous errors. Fulham scored 2 goals against us, because we made horrendous errors. It's a theme, we can play well and dominate possession but if we continue to make errors, which looks very likely, then we will continue to lose. Saturdays result has really really worried me. Certain players are letting this club down massively and they need to have a long hard look at themselves Worryingly though, in certain positions, we scream lower-league. And we can't do anything about that until January. So all we can do is hope to god that we're still in touch come January, and we can then get some quality on board.

Probably about right though, I think Guly could be a bit higher though, but we're scraping the barrel here. It's incredibly depressing at the moment.

To be honest, if a squad gets in a rut then getting a double relegation is as likely as getting a double promotion. If, god forbid, we have a season where we get less/similar points as Derby then we will end up back in the championship with the biggest losing hangover ever. Our ''better'' players would leave, and we'd be left with a shell of unmotivated and un-confident football players. I'm not getting the view that we will bounce back up, if we go down we will not have it as ''straight forward'' as we had it last time in the NPC.

Who would you prefer over him then?

Are you having a laugh? What as fans, do we want exactly? Pique? Ramos? I mean, come on. Dawson for us would be a bloody big coup, and he would be an enormous upgrade on anything we have.

I do agree with that. 1st should have been ours, done and dusted if we're honest. The better teams beat us quite comfortably towards the end of last year too. (Blackpool could have had 4 or 5 for e.g). So I think we ignored the problems, in some cases we as fans put our heads in the stand as well and thought it would all be fixed in the summer. But alas it hasn't been, and everything at the back is almost identical which isn't a good sign.

Probably Leonardo or something

I think you're on the right lines with regards to having a settled side. Unfortunately Adkins hands have been tied somewhat by injuries, but he has made changes which he hasn't need to (i.e the GK today). Seeing as our back 4 is so creaky, you need to keep that as settled as possible. So inviting your 3rd goal keeper of the season to have a go, isn't the greatest preparation - so for me, that's an error.

I thought it was all Guly's fault?

TBF you'd have to say Pardew was probably their ****test ever manager.

At CB he's looked pretty assured, very good on the ball, nice turn of pace and comfortable on either foot. He's looked bad for the last few weeks because he's out of position and isn't given any protection. He's not a world beater by any means, but he's a hell of a lot more mobile at CB than Jos for example I agree that we didn't get the CB's we really wanted, but I think it's harsh to say Yoshida was a panic buy I believe he is a CB we've been looking at for quite a while.

I think Rodriguez has great movement, he gives us a bit more mobility up front and works the channels. But Lambert really should have started yesterday, against a physical West Ham team I think it's pretty important to try where possible to match their strengths.

But the worry has to be that the one game where we played a bottom half team, we looked lost, short of ideas and pretty inept. Wigan came out very comfortable 2-0 winners, and they are a pretty abysmal side. There are no 2 ways about that as their results since then have shown. I must admit, I'm starting to get very, very worried.

He was at fault for at least 2 of the goals, and for the 2nd was totally taken out of the game by an horrendous error. He's definitely not a full back, that's for sure At the end of the day, if you perform well enough for 70% of the game yet give away 2 goals through your errors, then you're not quite good enough in that position at the end of the day.