No bad thing losing today. That should hopefully put to bed any nonsense about the play offs and put the focus on our shortcomings and where we need to improve to make a challenge. When you have to resort to Taylor and Nouble in the attacking positions and bring on a defensive midfielder to recover a two goal deficit it highlights that the chequebook needs to come out in the summer. A few more wins this season and a sixth placed finish could easily have glossed over that fact.
The plays offs were never a realistic proposition when you consider the total lack of interest and investment shown by the invisible one! It's just been nice to have a season where we haven't been looking over our shoulders!
Play offs appear a distant dream at present, however, sod it I'm sticking with being optimistic. Correct me if I'm wrong, but are we ( don't ask how as I do not have any idea as to this ) still ONLY four points off the play offs with 12 games to play!? I cannot pretend I'm happy we lost 2-0 today, but Brighton/Reading drew, Blackburn and Wigan didn't play. Granted, the two latter sides each have two games in hand, yet games in hand do not equate to points on the board. I am going to keep the glass half full approach until after we play Yeovil and Wigan for sure. Lose both of them, with 10 games to go then it will be almost impossible. Six points on the board would be a different result. Time will tell. Do I think we'll make the play offs? Not at all. But we're still in the mixer, so come on town, lets get three points at Yeovil Tuesday please....!
Westy you forget that other teams around us also have games in hand. It will be a minor miracle now for us to climb into the playoffs and to be brutally honest we just aren't good enough!
" Granted, the two latter sides each have two games in hand, yet games in hand do not equate to points on the board. " No I didn't Agreed, we're completely not good enough. Not without any shadow of a doubt, I will not argue with anyone who says we're not good enough, we're not. Realistically, this team should be 11 - 17. HOWEVER - SOMEHOW we're in with a sniff ( albeit a very THIN AND SMALL ONE ) of the play offs. I am going to keep blind faith, until it really mission impossible. Currently, I think there's around a 12% or something to that effect chance of us reaching the play offs. I think I'm just having a nervous breakdown that our season still has some meaning, we're not fighting relegation and things are for the most part going alright! Lets bounce back Tuesday. Mick usually gets a response, and are Yeovil capable of two wins on the bounce?
Which makes it even more annoying Westy when you think what if Evans HAD backed Mick with some money back in the Summer!
I don't give up as easily as the rest of you......so it's not over yet. But realistically it could have turned out better but it could have been a lot worse also.......it's certainly been a massive improvement on the last few seasons.
Obviously investment helps but I'm not so sure that it would make a huge difference under Mick. It's plain to see that he has his favourites and I can't for the life of me understand what he's doing with four CM's in a 4-4-2 but that's the way he plays but would it really change that much if he had cash to spend? I have a feeling that he would just buy better defensively minded players than we already have.
It's been a very good season compared to the last few. Looking up and not down has made a change and my neck doesn't hurt from the constant looking over my shoulder. I'm with Westy and will remain optimistic that 6th can happen until mathematically it can't. But also Warky and most of us,would've liked to have seen ME open the chequebook and give mick a hand. Or is it a once bitten thrice shy after the inept keane/jewell investments. As long as we finish top 10 ill be happy,but we need/must invest in some quality thru summer to make us that bit better. Sadly we are not the attractive proposition we once were so the deal makers have their work cut out tempting top level players to us.
Finishing as high as possible in the table will help attract players, if only we seemed to be going all out to achieve the best finish.
I'm just so fed up with all the negativity to be honest! We have one of the smallest squads in this division and yet people still expect great things. We are not the Ipswich of even ten years ago let alone the burley years! Evans has been a disaster for this football club and we will always be struggling to compete so long as this clown is our owner.
I've said stuff about Marcus' time here before but it is not him that selects the team or tactics from what's available. We will all continue to have this conversation after every match until the transfer window opens and we see what our owner and manager get up to. Only Mick can change things until that point.
It is the run that Middlesbrough were on that makes this result so frustrating and so utterly predictable. But ah well, onto the next game, I just hope we don't throw away a top 10 finish.
And I see you're not the most popular It does seem as though more are getting frustrated by Mick's tactics though.
