Who is brushing it off? Its football.
Just about everyone who claims the injuries are not an excuse.
Liverpool lost their entire spine under Klopp a couple of seasons back. Was really hard for them, but they achieved top 4. Their football was nowhere near as good, they scraped results together. The coach rallied them. They had no centre backs, Fabinho (their best midfielder/DM/anchor of the side) was playing there instead, Alisson was crocked. They also had other injuries.
Mate, seriously? A couple of seasons back they lost VVD to his ACL injury. Alisson was out for 1 game. Konate and Jota were their longest injuries at 13 and 18 games respectively. Apart from VVD, the longest injury any of the rest of their "spine" suffered was 5 games. All their other injuries were to secondary players like Ramsey, Jones and Oxlade Chamberlaine. You might include Diaz, who was a new signing or Matip, but as part of their spine? Not a chance.
We had more than some poor results. We started the season off with a 'meh' draw to Leicester then battered an absolutely shite Everton before back to back 'big game' losses to Woolwich and Newcastle.
Both of those were close run games. That happens at the top of the table you know. Fine margins against teams a fair bit further along in their development than us.
Then we had an awful Palace result, beat City but then lost to fucking Ipswich at home (remains their only away win all season)
No argument there, Palace we were powder puff and Ipswich really made me angry. I've never offered an excuse for them.
and even prior to major injury issues the Fulham, Roma, Bournemouth performances etc were fucking crap. This was with a couple of defensive injuries, not some unprecedented club crisis. Before that point we'd only had one truly impressive win in our season: The city game.
No, not particularly impressive, but hardly disastrous. 2 draws and a loss. What happened after them though is what I was talking about. The injuries mounted up with another long term injury virtually every game after that. That's when the wheels fell off and the relegation form started. Before then, the complaint was consistency. You don't find consistency when the treatment table has more players than the training pitch.
They're 2nd. They finished 2nd with injuries. And Arteta does still get criticised correctly. And of course Saka makes up a 'spine' ffs - he carries their offensive threat entirely !!
Saka is a winger. You've got a bad case of scoliosis if your spine includes your wings! Either that or you don't have a firm grasp of what entails the spine of a team.
Yeah the issue is we were underwhelming pre injuries and disastrous with injuries. This season was meant to be the one we built on finishing 5th. We had a terrible finish to last season under Ange (with no injuries + one game a week) and then a 'meh' start to this season. We then had some adversity and collapsed. That's such an extended period of being either meh or total rubbish that its totally understandable people doubt him, or don't buy the whole "just let him get the players back" stuff.
I've never really argued against that viewpoint, it has merit. However, citing the extreme adverse circumstances as a big part of the reason has just as much merit. The problem here is that whilst there are those that can accept the former, there's a large contingent that refuse to accept the latter.
I have no doubt we will finish the season better with some players back. I'm not seeing the 'football' improve much (Brentford and Utd were crap footballing performances and Ipswich wasn't that much better until late) but results are happening which is always the priority.
You don't suddenly start playing champagne Football when you come out of a losing slump, of course the performances left much to be desired. You have to build on that and the Football gradually improves. That's simply a fact.
I do have doubts we will ever be the team we were promised under Ange or build on a 5th placed start, with or without injuries.
I feel you, I really do. It's been a hugely depressing season. I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that we haven't really had the opportunity to see what we're capable of with a settled team. Someone posted on here earlier about the multiple combinations we've been forced to play because of our injury issues. You can maintain momentum if you're losing the odd player in certain positions, your bit about the filth reinforces that, but lose key players long term, then see their replacements lost long term, being forced to play youngsters in positions they're not used to (Christ, Gray has played in every position across the back and he's a midfielder), and all whilst playing a game every 3 days for months?
Frankly, I'm amazed that this is so hard to see.
Then again, this is TFC, so it's not that amazing really.
