Are We Going Down?

[Sniffer Dog (Admin)]

We are currently in the same position Crystal Palace were at the same time last season.

Say no more..............it is ridiculous all this panic posting and worrying.

Some significant differences with Palace. We are into our third manager this season with changes in playing style and preferred personnel that goes with that. They kept with the one manager. Their performances were improving and ours are going in the opposite direction. The performance at Bournemouth was in my opinion at least as bad as the thrashings we had at Fulham and Leicester under Cooper and also this season the promoted clubs are much better than those that went up the previous season making it much more competitive. Also Palace did not have the distraction of European football. Make no mistake we are in trouble.

Can we not embrace European football instead of calling it a distraction.

What is the point of our existence if we don't want to enter European competitions and try and win trophies.

Distraction my arse, f*****g embrace it and try and enjoy it.

[Cornish forest]

We are currently in the same position Crystal Palace were at the same time last season.

Say no more..............it is ridiculous all this panic posting and worrying.

Some significant differences with Palace. We are into our third manager this season with changes in playing style and preferred personnel that goes with that. They kept with the one manager. Their performances were improving and ours are going in the opposite direction. The performance at Bournemouth was in my opinion at least as bad as the thrashings we had at Fulham and Leicester under Cooper and also this season the promoted clubs are much better than those that went up the previous season making it much more competitive. Also Palace did not have the distraction of European football. Make no mistake we are in trouble.

Can we not embrace European football instead of calling it a distraction.

What is the point of our existence if we don't want to enter European competitions and try and win trophies.

Distraction my arse, f*****g embrace it and try and enjoy it.

That’s part of the problem though isn’t it ? 
We should be enjoying it, want to enjoy it. But it’s difficult when everything else in the background is seemingly S**t. 

What’s the point of getting past Porto, if it then results in the performance we saw at Bournemouth?
Not the result, the performance. 
I find it hard to look forward to Sturm Graz if it’s going to similarly cost us against Leeds in the following home game. We can’t effectively do 3 games in 8 days, it’s costing us. 
That isn’t a criticism , most teams see a drop of in their league form when in Europe, problem is most teams in Europe are up at the top end of the table. We’re not. 

I don’t see us winning the tournament, so why sacrifice our prem status just to get to the next round. 
I think our FA Cup run last season cost us the champions league place, and for what ? 
Of course you may think we’re doomed anyway, may as well go all out in Europa? 

Honestly not trying to be doom and gloom, but I can’t help the way I feel. Absolutely couldn’t give 2 shits about our next Euro game. And I feel terrible for feeling like that. 
Maybe I would feel differently if I was still up in Notts.

[Sniffer Dog (Admin)]

Not having a pop at you CF but we spent nigh on 25 years trying to get back in the PL and nigh on 30 years trying to get bqack into Europe.

We finally achieve it and now it's a distraction and some want us to get knocked out?

You couldn't make it up!

Thank God it didn't look like a distraction to the players and staff against Porto who absolutely lapped it up and loved it.

[Cornish forest]

Not having a pop at you CF but we spent nigh on 25 years trying to get back in the PL and nigh on 30 years trying to get bqack into Europe.

We finally achieve it and now it's a distraction and some want us to get knocked out?

You couldn't make it up!

Thank God it didn't look like a distraction to the players and staff against Porto who absolutely lapped it up and loved it.

That’s my point, I don’t want to get knocked out, I want to enjoy it. 
But I think getting knocked out inevitably helps our relegation fight. 
I think fewer games helps us, that’s why the Bournemouth performance was so one sided. 
It’s completely S**t I agree but we are where we are. 
You’re right it took us almost a quarter of a century to get back and at the moment we seem to be going down with a whimper. 
I can accept relegation when we face the inevitable squad decline like Wolves and arguably West Ham are facing now. I’m not stupid teams like us ( most of the league) will eventually get relegated, but not this season please, not like this. We’d be the laughing stock of football. Again. 
So yes I would reluctantly forgo euro to maintain our prem.

[Sniffer Dog (Admin)]

Is it really a distraction though or is it just a cheap excuse?

I mean lets be honest we have been shite since the last 10 games of last season when we had no European football.

[Salvatore Matrecano]

Ive loved the nights against Betis and Porto and wouldn’t change it for the world, you’ll remember them long after Sunderland and West Ham.

However the point is that game on Thursday clearly took it out of the team, energy levels of Anderson, Luiz, MGW and even Williams were way below vs Bournemouth, that would have been a very tough game with everyone 100%, as it was we got battered.

We were constantly told over the summer we needed all the incomings to cope with Europe yet many of them have hardly been utilised. Then when Ange did try to rotate he got slaughtered and people said he shouldnt change a winning team. So what do you want?

I wouldn’t be against having a different team we play on a Thursday but its very difficult to do effectively, Man City for example rarely rotate their team. Does a team of Kali, Bakwa, McAtee, Yates and Sangare get the same result? Probably not and there goes your European excitement. The other factor is that a positive result whoever its against breeds confidence. Getting beaten twice in a week definitely doesn’t. As you can tell I haven’t a clue myself what the answer is.

[JohnG]

Ange never got to change a winning team though

[Salvatore Matrecano]

Ange never got to change a winning team though

He made 5 changes to the team that played very well against Betis to the one that misfired vs Sunderland and everyone had a go at him.

[Paplane]

Garry Birtles made a valid point a month or so ago on the Forest Focus podcast. He said he understood the players would need to be rotated to accommodate the euro games to prevent them from becoming fatigued. But, that this was effectively still the beginning of the season and the players weren't likely to be feeling tired yet. He said Ange should have been sticking with his best 11 players initially and then rotate them later-on. It's probably the only thing he's ever said on there that I've agreed with.

[DR Forest]

Dyche can’t really be blamed for a lack of rotation - yet.
Firstly he’s still assessing the players.
Secondly, we’ve a hatful of injuries or unavailability to those players who might reasonably be in that rotation group which we hoped would allow us to rest players and not see a massive drop off.
Aina, wood, zinchenko, Bakwa, Mcatee, Hutchinson (not eligible for euros), Luiz (injury management) to name those I can remember off the top of my head. This has meant the regulars like Anderson and neco are carrying a lot of responsibility and fatigue may be playing a factor.


And then add to the mix we’ve double figures of new players settling in and thrusting kids like Jair and savona straight into the toughest league in the world.

Add in the chaos of Ange and it’s not hard to work back to the root causes of our current malaise.

However,whilst Dyche has a massive job to get it to gel together, he has the raw materials at his disposal and I think he can do it but we need to stay patient.

I think the next two weeks are massive and this is where he starts earning his corn.

[Sausage Roll]

Losing to Swansea might have been a blessing in disguise. At least there's no midweek game this week now.

[The reds]

Is 40pts from 29 games a realistic target? 11 wins 7 draws 11 defeats.