Yeah...but you've written off Doc and Guedes as well and as we have seen, both have made telling contributions in the last 3 games. Dawson was played on the left today...not a familiar position for him and I think something is going on with his fitness. OK, he's 35 soon but in this day and age, it doesn't matter a lot. What he has lost can be gained with experience and reading the game. That said, I hope we recruit better in the next couple of weeks. We have to start defending corners and set pieces much better.
After he started and played well against Forest there were comments on here along the lines of 'why does his age matter when he's our best centre half?'. This is why. Father Time is undefeated
Most on here thought we’d go down because GO had made them look so poor. The turnaround is remarkable. Did you really envisage the team we’d seen up to Ipswich could perform like they have in the last three games? Nearly everyone thought we’d do well to limp to January and hope reinforcements could make a difference. We clearly still need reinforcements but we’ve won about 5 more points than seemed likely with the current squad.
Different though aren't they, both are not as old as Dawson. Also Doc and Guedes have been impressive for a couple of games,we'll see if they can maintain that, hopefully they do.
Players have always been fine for mid table. The manager was shocking, atrocious, and no surprise a competent professional has us looking immediately better. Still outperformed most expectations given his lack of time to do anything, but that just underlines how poor GON and the decision to allow him to continue was.
I think you’ll find that his continued importance was all according to the plan
That was your point 2 though which I didn't think would happen. I've always been consistent that the squad as a whole is better than that. A good manager would coach around the defensive frailities but ultimately that would limit the ceiling to lower mid table.
I’ve been ringing the “Gary’s fucking these players over” bell for a minute but even I didn’t think they’d just remember how to play team football overnight.
Or before reinforcements.
I guess I’d begun to question whether the players were good enough for mid table. I agree entirely GO was dreadful - it looks like he was even worse than most of us thought which is quite remarkable.
Just to state the obvious but scoring 7 and conceding 2 in those three games is very impressive after the omnishambles of 2024.
With a half decent CB, a competent back up LB and most important an experienced, competent coach, I always thought we could be comfortably midtable. Our squad is much better than the current bottom 3, Everton are hard to beat but can't score for toffee
don't think West Ham or Palace are better than us.The monumental and mistaken arrogance of such clubs. In our 7 visits since were promoted our record is W4 D1 L2. They can do one, Tim Sherwood at the front of the line.
