I'm not going to allow unrealistic expectations to spoil my enjoyment of following us.
My point is that it is not unrealistic to expect us to be competing in the top half of the league now. We're at worst the eighth highest wage bill in the league. If you're really saying that you consider that to be some kind of reward for winning the league which the players and staff can enjoy whilst not delivering on the pitch, then I think you'll be in a small minority. As soon as they started getting paid top dollar, expectations of them changed. So far, they are not earning this money.
We've made an identical start to the season as the previous Champions (Chelsea) did last year. They won two, drew two and lost three of their first seven matches. They were quite rightly regarded as a club in crisis by this point. We're nowhere near their level, but we are under-performing and we should be holding those that are under-performing to account for it.
Is any player currently at the level from last season? I think Albrighton, Okazaki, Simpson, Amartey and Gray can be given a green light. And the only issue I have with the new players is the fact that they've not been seen enough. The rest, either consistently or erratically, are not playing well enough.
Schmeichel, Morgan, Drinkwater, King, Vardy and Mahrez were happy enough to sign exceptionally lucrative deals in the summer. I'm still waiting for them to come back down from cloud nine though. Huth and Fuchs didn't sign new deals but both are far from the players they were last season too.
I do get the fact that there is a hangover effect. I also appreciate the fact that the Champions League will be affecting performances. But even so, we just haven't turned up in most Premier League games this season.
And the manager isn't immune from criticism either. He was amazing last season because he saw what was wrong so quickly and made it right so effectively. He's done feck all this season except send the players out on some kind of 'best of' tour.