So you don't blame the players at all. Interesting.
De Laet is clearly out of his depth but he's being set up to fail. I don't think his errors are the result of him not trying hard enough, he's just not a good enough right back for this league. This isn't a retrospective comment either as I thought that he was very average at Championship level. His forward runs made people think he was something he isn't. It's not like we didn't know that Nugent wasn't good enough either. He's been here before and he's no better now than then. You must question the judgement of a manager that cannot see this?
Moore hasn't kicked on but nobody can question his desire. Ditto a few others who are either out of their depth or aren't grafting like they did last season. A few players are doing pretty well, Morgan is largely excellent for example. Knockaert is the only one I've seen this season that has been playing for himself rather than the team.
We have enough quality, with a couple of additions in January, to be fine in lower mid-table.
The reason for the issues we have are:
1. Our manager is tactically inept against decent quality opposition managers.
2. Our recruitment in the summer was largely ineffective.
3. We've rewarded the management team and loads of unproven players with big fat contracts dramatically reducing their motivation that was so key last season.
4. We've just gone from being about worst team at set pieces in the Championship to easily the worst team at them in the Premier League history.
I understand why we did the third point but it was foolish (four fecking years for most) if we aspire to stay in this league. The second point is a failure of the recruitment policy that has usually got a better than 50% success rate. But the main things are the first and final points and these can only improve if NP significantly alters the coaching set up or goes himself. I don't think there is a hope that he'll change the staff so that leaves him as the obstacle to progress.
The longer we go with him in charge, the less chance we've got of a) getting Pulis and b) giving him time to sort it out. That's why it has to be soon or not at all. No team that was bottom at the end of November has ever finished higher than 17th, except one:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/27253266
If you read and understand this article, you have to realise that we cannot wait around much longer. January 1st is too late. Xmas is probably too late. It's the next fortnight or we're accepting relegation.
