I can see why the OP was posted. But it is a good reason why the fans are not in charge. We are too reactionary!
Yes, you can say it’s been coming for a while or we’ve won games we didn’t play well in. But that goes for many Championship teams too. It’s a hard league. 26 wins stands up well no matter how they come or what order they arrive in. No team plays like 1970s Brazil each week. Wind back a few months and Burnley fans had had enough of Parker and he’s a good chance of winning the league.
We were on our arse at the end of last season. Most predictions were ranging from being grateful we didn’t drop another division, being happy to consolidate in mid table or perhaps the most optimistic squeezing into the play offs.
I think some 16 players left, many being those that helped us up on prior occasions. The wage bill must have been slashed heavily. Some of those were offloaded for decent cash.
We went for largely young players with a potential to grow like Burrows and Cooper and we blooded youngsters like Peck, Seriki, Oné and Arblaster some more.
Arblaster looked like he’d give valuable goals from midfield only to cruelly succumb to injury. Another cruel blow was Souttar having a season ending injury. All the time, we nurses Campbell and Davies through absences to name but two not to mention Souza. We’ve operated most of the season without our first choice midfield and half of it without our best centre half.
Despite this, on the field the players have achieved 85 point to date. Even with the -2, finishing on 95 points would make it more than a little interesting! It probably won’t be enough even to catch Leeds and Burnley. It’s been an exceptional year. United will win more than any team probably. Burnley will have the historical clean sheet record and Leeds will end with a colossal goal difference.
We have to look at the whole. These last 3 games have been sapping for fans, players and management alike. The win over Coventry took us top and we probably thought we’d done it. What came next was just unfathomable. But it’s just the Championship. Never any gimmes. But the season has been a good one. We may well even now exceed the points total of our prior three promotions; 90 in 2006/7, 89 in 18/19 and 91 in 22/23 even with the points deduction.
I’m largely against changing managers. It’s expensive and there are no guarantees. Hecky aside who also got us in the Play Offs, most of our managerial changes end up being duds. So please be careful what you wish for.
We are a better team than Coventry, than Bristol City. West Brom and Boro. Our results against them directly and the 19-23 point gap shows that. Perhaps we are only slightly ahead of Sunderland. But despite losing we kind of battered them in the away game, getting in their box more than they got into ours, having more shots and 66% ball dominance. In the home game they shaded some of the stats but we won. We will only play them in a one off game. We can definitely beat them. Their form has also fallen away over a more sustained period. They lost to Swansea yesterday.
Yesterday relieved the pressure. It’s highly unexpected we will go up automatically now. We may as well go at the final 4 matches gung Jo. We could at least give the others something to think about on the final day.
We’ve come a long way. We lost 3 or 4 at the start of the Wilder era. Perhaps at the end we will lose 3 or 4, but it’s the whole that counts. While there’s hope let’s not get too entitled and start throwing the baby out with the bath water in what can still be a 90+ point season.
UTB
