I imagine we all need a bit of cheering up and encouragement after our first two games, so I thought I'd start a thread where we try to find some positives to keep us warm for the long season ahead. I'll kick off. We are now one of five teams on zero points after two games. I know our goal difference looks shocking, but after two games we are theoretically in a better position than the other four teams since we have played Liverpool and Man City, who may well finish #1 and #2 in the league, and will certainly be part of the 'Big Four' (Chelsea & Man U making up the other pair). In contrast, Burnley have played Liverpool, Arsenal have played Chelsea, while Newcastle and Wolves haven't played any of the Big Four. This should mean that while they are getting beaten by the Big Four, we will have either one or two free hits to get above them. Call me Pollyanna (and no old music-hall jokes please, replying 'Hi, Pollyanna').
I like the tone of your post, Gozo. Nice to have some positivity. However, you can rule Arsenal out in terms of the dogfight. What I find myself doing almost daily is looking up and down the table for 3 sides weaker than us. Struggling to find 1 at the moment, but perhaps as the season evolves we will find a better position. The crunch games really will be critical as at present we just can’t compete with top 4 / top 6. Let’s hope we can compete with the others when we (hopefully) bring in a CD and DM and maybe CF and reassess then.
Maybe not CF, but I’d like to see someone other than a clearly drained Pukki with a serious goal threat at the sharp end to freshen things up.
Southampton, Burnley, Newcastle all have issues, Palace might take half the season for their squad to gel, too early to say if Watford and Brentford are able to make the step up. Leicester have confirmed that Vestergaard and Bertrand are likely to miss the NCFC game, so they could have an inexperienced backline.
Worried that they will be fired up though - I can’t see Ndidi having another game as badly as he’s played today…
I thought this was a thread for positive thinking, not gloom-mongering ......... "Leicester will be quaking in their coloured boots. To quote Rogers: "Norwich will be smarting from Saturday and we can expect a reaction, especially in front of the Carrow Road crowd."
I might be a minority of one but I find it difficult to be cheerful that somebody, who those in the know say is a very decent bloke, has lost his job in a very public manner.
With the money he got, I don't feel too bad for him. But I'm happy he is gone, because he was dragging our team down.
Without being pernickety about it - there is a lot of difference between not feeling too bad and being cheerful. I agree that he had to go as the atmosphere had got toxic but only time will tell whether it was him to blame. It will be interesting to compare where we finish at the end of the season compared to where we were when Smith left.
No good crying over spilt milk I know but the sacking of Farke is looking a worse move the longer we go on. We couldn't have finished lower than bottom last season and I don't think we would have been lower than 11th now.
We don't even know that DF would have had the appetite to go through it all again, never mind how he might have done.
We will never have the money to make Farke's style of football work in the PL. Wagner got unfancied Huddersfield into the PL and kept them there. If he can get our present players to come together as a team and make his style work then we've got a chance.
I don’t feel bad for Smith, but I also won’t celebrate him leaving. I’m hugely disappointed it didn’t work out with him, because he’s a decent guy, I think he’s a good coach and all else considered I would say he’s the perfect sort of manager for a club like ours in terms of temperament and “fame”. With a bunch of different players I think Smith could have done well with us, but he just wasn’t flexible with the squad design we have and the steady erosion of faith and confidence meant he was doomed to fail no matter his skill because there wasn’t time or credit in the bank to allow him to reform to his style. We move on. I think Wagner is a great choice, but nothing is guaranteed.
