alienating players, poor defensively & no plan b are some of them. but lets not get in to another debate. agree to disagree. poch can do no wrong.
Do you believe Poch dropped players for no reason? Or because maybe they weren't all pulling in the same direction? Maybe they were causing trouble? Maybe they were going against the grain? Or maybe Poch just wanted to see how well he could do with 16 players. Yep, that's it.
Funny, because had he played those players and their performances weren't good enough, you'd have slated him for picking those players! He's the manager. You have no fuckin idea why those players were dropped. Don't make assumptions and use that against him.
You'd be hard pushed to find someone who could defend our defensive record this season. Definitely where most work is needed, for sure.
No plan B - yet we managed to win how many games late on? I'd suggest we changed our game plan somewhat to win those. It's no coincidence it happened time and again.
Its a similar argument to the one used by idiots who claim we only finished 4th because Liverpool were shit and City weren't City.
Wonder if any of those idiots will claim we only finished 5th this season because liverpool are shit, i doubt it
That is a mental argument. Liverpool weren't shit, after all they finished 6th - but they did underachieve.
I'd dread to think what our fan base would do if we went from 2nd to 6th...
Think about it: 57 points is one game outcome away from 55 points. I don't think it's conclusive at all as to whether we made progress. As Scott pointed out, there are so many random factors that can explain that thin margin...
No two seasons' results are directly comparable, so it's pointless trying. But what we can do is use results, performances and points tallies to loosely compare managers - and in that respect Poch has done very well in his first year.
We're mentally stronger as a team, and we have the foundations now to build a decent squad with some clever buys and injection of more youth players.
The turnover of players (and managers) the past 24 months is huge - yet we have managed to remain pretty consistent in that time.
What other club can say that?
Fulham went to extra time against Atletico Madrid in the EL final 5 years ago...they barely stayed in the Championship this season.
That's how quickly things can change. Our consistency is quite incredible.