When Smith comes on board, it's my job as a fan to support him wholeheartedly. But today I want to let my feelings of negativity out. It's therapeutic. Feel free to ignore me. Or tell me to get a grip. I think this is the end of 'the project', because the club is irrevocably split. It's possibly split within, with a small group of disgruntled young players who have switched off, who knows? But the crucial thing is that the fans are split, too, and a lot of us don't believe any more. The Farke decision split us, then the Lampard nonsense split us again, now it's Smith we're arguing about. If Webber had done his job, we would now have a continental manager no one had heard much about, and we could probably all rally around him, at least for half a season. Ignorance would be bliss and there'd be hope, even if it eventually turned out to be misguided. Webber has failed us big-time IMO. I'm open-minded about Smith. I doubt he'll keep us up, because I doubt anyone can, but he might manage it, and that is our only hope now. If we go down, I don't think we'll bounce back up because there won't be the same belief in the plan anymore, among either the fans or the people at the club. This time next season I expect us to be roughly where Sheffield United are now. We'll hang on as long as we can to Smith but eventually sack him and lack of money will mean that Aarons, Cantwell, and probably Omo and Tzolis will be gone. Webber will desert a sinking ship as soon as he decently can: he didn't seem to have any contacts in continental Europe when it came to potential head coaches, but I'm sure he'll manage to find some who are looking for a DoF. The fabulous roller-coaster of the last few years will be over and we will be a mediocre Championship club again. I know this is defeatist, but it's what I honestly believe. I really hope that a few months from now, you guys will put this up on the board and mock me when we have finished 14th and look set fair for the years ahead. And after Smith is in position, I promise, no more negative posts.
We have been in much worse situations than this and with football especially managers and players are constantly changing. Winning 1 Premier league match out of 21 is not good enough and for many of those defeats the players looked like they had given up. When things go badly things are said and some players get blamed. The club spent enough money to improve the squad but we have looked worse, probably because of the tough opposition. I'm not thrilled to have Smith but at least we have tried to stop the rot . It's a bit daft writing the manager and team off especially forecasting doom for years to come . We are still favourites to be relegated but we were favourites to be relegated the day we won the Championship because we don't have a pot to piss in and we are the most relegated club. If West Brom and Fulham go back up they will also be favourites to be relegated. Clubs like Leeds and Brentford tend to do well in the first season because they surprise established teams only to hit reality the next . Just like Sheffield United did . I'm not going to get too carried away as we don't have a divine right to be in the Premier league and feel extremely lucky that we keep going up with our limited resources in comparison.
