What HAS gone wrong??

Absolutely delighted.

 

I’m not disagreeing with this. I was simply dismissing the simplistic idea that ‘zonal marking doesn’t work’. It does, if done properly. We certainly haven’t done it properly.

 

There are fans out there who think we were just unlucky not to make the top three, too, and cited bad refereeing decisions (I hate that excuse...fair enough for one game, but over the course of a full season, I can't have it) as a reason for us missing out on the top three.

I think the only reason we missed out on the top three was because of Hughes and his reluctance to 'go for it' more.

Cook's outstanding season papered over the cracks for Hughes, for what was a season where we ultimately failed to meet our objectives. It was an awful division and any 'decent' team and manager would have got us in the top three last season.

For Hughes, whose entire managerial career was spent in the PL, prior to us, at clubs where floating around six or seventh would have been considered a good season, sixth wasn't good enough here.

Solid, steady and predictable isn't the approach we need. The same is true now, given we've given ourselves a handicap with the terrible start. Thankfully the board took action sooner than many imagined they would, and the division still looks congested. But fingers crossed our next boss is a risk taker and someone who quickly realises the way out of this division, with this squad, is to do everything to get the best out of Cook. Let's get more bloody balls sent into the box and up to him and get the pacey lads running around him and off him. Let's cause some carnage.