Long first post incoming...
I think the players have not adapted their mindset this season the way Poch has. He's not wearing the training tracksuit anymore, he wears a suit every game, he is reintegrating all the players who were on the transfer list, he is not sugar-coating his assessment of performances. We are not a young up-and-coming team anymore, we are a top 3 regular and it's time to become serious contenders. It's time to win trophies and not just gloss over defeats and dropped points by saying "massive effort, maybe we deserved more, etc".
Of course we are still not in peak physical condition after the WC but there should still be an intensity to our performances. When a team like Watford just sit there and stand still for 45 minutes like they did in the first half, we should be going all out to kill the game. Poch is absolutely right that the aggression wasn't there, and when Watford eventually decided they would try and win the game we were stuck in flip-flop mode. You can always lose a game of football but you should never lose because of a lack of effort. Was that really the best offensive play we could muster in the first half? Were those two easy headers lost really the best we can expect from 3 top class CBs?
Long-term this silly result might help us but only if the players are serious about competing for the title. It takes blood, sweat and tears to do that. Talking about the title after winning 3-0 at Old Trafford is all well and good but it makes you look like twats when you throw away a win against Watford 6 days later. Like Poch has been saying, perception and reality are often very different and on another day we could have lost all the matches we played this season. In every single one we had the ball hit our woodwork, opponents miss open goals etc. Our current level of performance is not going to be enough, the players must give much more if they want to be contenders.
