In terms of his 'system', I think the lack of games in this respect has actually really hurt us. The long times between games has taken away any fluidity and players struggle to build relationships on the pitch. There's no substitute for game time. Half these players coming back from long term injuries playing 3/4 games a month is no good. They can't get rhythm. With Europe next season, more games and a solid 14/15 players playing regularly together, I think we'll see improvement.
It's certainly part of the equation. Momentum is huge. There have been plenty of ex players who've said that they never felt tired when winning, no matter how many games they played.
It's not the whole story though. We've been guilty of some awful lapses that have punished us severely, Udogie with 2 in one game as an example.
As with everything else, root cause usually tends to be human error, with other factors then exacerbating the problem.
I think AP knows this, and it's what he's continually alluding to. Discipline and mindset. If you were to cut the errors that led to goals from our season, and I mean the glaring WTF errors we've seen far too many of, then our season has a completely different perspective. I can't be arsed to do the research TBH, but maybe 6-9 points better off?
That's not even taking into account those games we lost when our squad was decimated.
When you take
everything into account, this has been a fairly decent season for us. We've blooded a virtually new team, using a new system. We've had some great performances, some awful performances and some meh performances. Virtually everyone is new to everyone else, with new players, new manager, new coaches and new upper management. Put all of that into context, and 5th is actually a very decent return, considering the state we were in last season. To do that, whilst overcoming probably the worst injury crisis we've ever seen at the club, just emphasises return.
There's a but there though, and it's our end of season form. Lack of momentum will have contributed to that for sure, but I don't think there's any excuse for our performances against the like of Fulham, that was just an extremely poor performance from any angle. Those type of games are where the discipline and mindset he wants went missing completely.
That's what he's looking to get right first and foremost, it's key to everything else.