The third sentence clearly isn't a fact, especially when you consider his general composure in front of goal. Equally that both teams equalised is also a fact. So I don't think facts support that it was the right decision. Bare in mind too that they can only score - lucky or otherwise - if they are near our goal! Our third of the pitch. So if they hadn't been sitting so deep inviting pressure they'd have struggled to get lucky.

The reason the relationship hit rock bottom was Tuchel wouldn't let the owner and a bunch of friends into the dressing room at half time! That's just sheer lunacy on the part of the owner driving out a very good manager for the sake of his ego. That's a massive criticism and idiocy by the owner who deserves everything he's getting for such incompetence. That can't be held against Tuchel at all.

Excellent post. One of my main worries. Clearly something JDT has inherited but equally something he hasn't tackled. Perhaps unfair to sort in one season, given its deep rooted nature, but how long should he have? Had hoped for improvements in this area but in fairness it's a big ask to change a culture in a year. If it's not tackled over the summer and a marked improvement seen by the halfway point of next season I'd be worried he can't change it or hasn't seen the danger.

A far from ideal result for us. Not that you can rely upon other teams doing it for us. Tell you what this season shows though - can't compete because of finances is bull. Sure top 2 were parachute payments but look at the make up of the playoffs. At least 1 probably 2 plus who have smaller budgets than us. Y

Agree. Very surprised Bournmouth will be staying up. Had them and Leeds as going down with Southampton. As we near the business end of the season I'm feeling that my predictions are as accurate as a Hedges shot. It's a tough call. Leicester have a softness i've not seen in a long time, despite some very talented players. Everton are toothless up front and have a horrific run in. Leeds were for a while playing well and still losing, which is a very worrying sign. (For them that is, I mean I rather like it.) They've picked up some points but had heavy losses of late. Forest fluctuate from showing the quality of their expenditure to looking like a disjointed thrown together mess, both of which seem true. Never sure which one will turn up. Blimey you can make a case for any of them. Will be fascinating to see who goes down. Incidentally I think Palace were wrong to get rid of Viera when they did. They'd had a tough run of games and had some winnable ones coming up when they sacked him. I feel they'd have done similar to how they have done with or without the managerial change. Other end of the table City must be sleeping well knowing big clubs like manure and spuds can't mount a challenge. (spurs aren't that big, but you get the point )

Another factor to add in is previous form to this season. Prior to then Pears looked very weak whereas Kaminski has looked solid if not particularly special. As Bereton has shown us anyone can have a decent run of games but form is temporary and all that...

Positives: Luton aren't that great and with playoffs secured whether they rest players or not you feel they won't be at full throttle. Other than a midtable team with nothing to play for you can't get a better ask for a game. Well maybe a relegated team, but even so, it's the kind of game you want at this stage of the season. I also wonder if it not being in our hands will help our mentally fragile team. Pressures off with it being out of our control. Negatives We are toothless. Bereton can't be arsed, Dolan and Hedges industrious but limited. It'll be hard to get the goals we need to win games. The horrible run we are on combined with even fewer options available from our very limited selection leaves us struggling. I've no idea what team to play. Bereton deserves dropping for phoning it in yet no one else is fot and can play striker. Maybe Leonard up top with Dolan and Hedges on the wings. Far, far from ideal but feel the other options are no better. Best hope is a tight game that we nab 1-0.

It's a shame there's so few games left or Lampard didn't come in a few games earlier because on current form they would get dragged into it. As it is there's too many points gap and too few games for it to go from funny to hilarious as they get embroiled in a relegation battle.

Is it no goals and no wins for Lampard now? I get 2 games were against Real but even so it's pretty poor going. He's making Potter look good there and not even a modicum of new manager bounce. Refs still want Liverpool to get into Europe. City are strolling to the title. Good win for Forest as it's really hotting up in the relegation battle. A much needed win.

For me there's a number of people to blame for this year likely falling short. TM leaving us a bunch of grafters with no end product. Dolan up top only works Vs nervy defences, prefer him on the wing. Lad has energy but less end product. Hedges can do some really good stuff, till it gets to the box. Gally too falls into the grafter over clinical if you have to put him somewhere. Teams need graft but they need end product. Nothing wrong with having one of these players in your team, teams need energy and graft. A couple or all three and it unbalances it and leaves you with very little goal threat. Likewise at CB. Carter and Wharton have made some errors but I do wonder what would have happened if we had a seasoned centre back who played over half the games. In Ayala we've been paying good money for very little leaving us overly reliant on young players coming through. Then there's Bereton - don't know whether it's TM, Broughton or Venkys but not selling him and watching him coast has cost us a decent transfer fee and meant we've had a player at half his effectiveness. Last season part of the reason Bereton got so many goals was he worked his socks off. Without that he's not got enough talent to influence games. Then there's Broughton. Any fool could have seen we needed strikers and goals. We get none. Vale and Hirst clearly weren't good enough and yet no effort is made whatsoever to get in a decent striker. Words fail me on this one. It's the biggest negligence for years even in our club. Even when we did make an effort, of kind, with the Forest lad, we still criminally arse it up. What's galling about this is that even with his negligence on the striker front, even just a seasoned quality pro in midfield could have massively been the difference. Not hard to imagine with him in cm we would have held on in at least one of the Preston or Coventry games. Every little hinders seem to be our motto. My other big worry is how mentally fragile we are. A hangover from TM days, because we are a young team, something else I'm not too sure. But it is a very worrying trend. The quarter final loss has knocked all stuffing out of the team. The fact we took forever to get a point from going behind. There's a fragility about us which I find really concerning. As for JDT I fluctuate. On one hand with what he was dealt, the squad he was left with and Broughton messing about, you can only praise him. I do however have big reservations about how we have sat back on leads at times, his use of Morton, and the daft passing it round the back needlessly. All are worrying signs. Not sure why I'm more reflective on the season than the game - probably because I don't want to think about another, and unfortunste, loss to that lot. An undeserved loss and painful seeing them do well. Strangely I've far less time for this iteration of the Dongles than the lot under Dyche that we played. A win or even a draw would have been a consolation to a disappointing end to the season. Think playoffs are gone now as too many teams need to mess up. But stranger things have happened so I'll keep hoping.

It's one of many muck ups this season but undoubtedly one of the biggest. There's been a fair few others mind but the negligence regarding the squad, especially up front, has to be one of the biggest contributors And yet despite all this we still have a chance that isn't reliant on other teams.

It's still in our hands. Can't ask for more then that.

We are really fortunate that despite slip up after slip up that we are still in with a decent shout. Last 2 games are ok ones to have. Millwall are feeling the strain and in poor form - albeit with a lot to play for so not ideal - whilst Luton will definitely have an eye on the playoffs making it very winnable. What's keeping me going is how many teams are flopping just as much as us, and may well carry us through.

Overall a good set of results for us. Millwall losing is massive as it could have taken two good results to catch up with them had they won. Feel like their small squad is feeling the strain now. Norwich blew any chance of getting in the mix. Only negative result Coventry but we were in a better position starting this round of fixtures than them, so it's not the worst thing in the world, if not ideal. We couldn't rely on every result going our way.

Nice to see there are some bigger bottlers than us. Not a fan of Arteta and City always winning puts paid to the idea the Prem isn't skewed to favour the big clubs. Entertaining game mind.

Surely there's still the requirement for this sort of keeper to y'know catch the ball or stop a shot on the odd occasion? Given Steele can do neither I'm a tad surprised he's in. Mind you his kicking was pretty poor as I recall too. Remember number of goal kicks/clearances going out for throw ins.

Of course he can separate the situations! He knew exactly what you were saying but chose to WUM and pretend he didn't. It's why in pretty sure he's just on the WUM, of which the blind defence of Lampard is probably part of it too. From the context to the language used it's obvious it's hypothetical. He'd have to genuinely not understand concepts around words such as "if" and "want" to answer as he did. He'd also have to have zero appreciation of context given the conversation is clearly talking about managerial ability rather than a non existent managerial hunt. It's a sneaky, weasely answer imo and very poor form.

I'll be honest, gutting as it was I'm even more convinced we will make the playoffs and get battered in them. Not because we didn't throw away the win, ably assisted by the ref, but because everyone else is bottling it and capable of a poor performance. I'm pretty certain one of the teams we are still to face will have an off day. Preston are more than capable of a poor performance and don't score many either, Millwall are having a wobble at the wrong time, and Luton will rest players. I think we will get one win from those 3 which should be enough to limp over the line. Add in that draws Vs our remaining opponents also is a help, as was last night's albeit a big missed opportunity too. Draws Vs those below us leave them with the task of still overtaking us with one less game to do so. Draws Vs those above mean they aren't getting away from us. Of those chasing, Norwich and Watford are both capable of shockers on a regular basis (Watford had one last night) and so I can't see them picking up too many more points. Even West Brom who I think are the biggest threat were bemoaning blowing a chance to get in the playoffs just a week or so ago after drawing 2 winnable games. Not a guarantee obviously and the lack of goals alarms me hugely. Our form is really poor and no denying we are doing ourselves zero favours. That said I think with so few games left that one key win (with a draw somewhere too) may well be enough to get us over the line.

That's a good point, well made. However to not bring in any replacement, not even on a free, was foolish indeed. Surely we could have avoided having nobody? Surely there was a bit of wiggle room to bring in a striker. Also that was 4 windows ago and he hasn't been replaced, so they haven't looked to do it even when things were less financially pressing.

Not the same as investing in the squad though, by a long stretch. I mean not letting contracts repeatedly run down might be a start. Owners are culpable on this from blocking sales of players (Bereton) through to having mugs in place who let contracts run down en masse (last season). There's stacks of examples where the squad hasn't been invested in. Could pulling in £10 mill and spending £250k on transfers, not replacing Armstrong, using loans to patch up a defence for years, not spending in January when we were in a good position (twice!) Hard to say the squad has been funded adequately. You could argue it's those below then but given they don't seem to care and allow them to continue, it's hard to say it's not the owners fault.

As for the game/team my thoughts (albeit second hand due to sickness) are 1) The cup loss has knocked all the stuffing out of us. Most results since then have been lower than the likely outcome from how the game has gone. Hudds should have been a clear win, Stoke a draw, yesterday it seems pre QF loss might have been a scrappy win. Certainly Hull don't seem that good. 2) We have a lot of very average players who consistently give about a 5/6. There's no superstars in the team, and we aren't getting more than the collective sum of these parts at all. The players may produce the odd 8 out of 10 performance but these are pretty rare. With no stars and a weak bunch of water carriers we are struggling. 3) Has there been a team with fewer decent attacking options? Struggle to think of one in our Championship career. Even the train wreck under Coyle had 4 striker options (less.said the better about the rest). Given how crucial goals are not strengthening there and having Gally and Bereton coast about doesn't help our cause. No plan B or viable options is killing us. 4) On the last point this goes for most of the team. Centre mid Buckley or Morton are similar (Wharton is in the cold for some reason and even so that's a lot of responsibility for the lad.) Out wide it's Dolans pace in an average player Vs Hedges presence in an average player. Up front its Gally or Vale who in ap perveresely impressive way makes Gally seem decent. Where are the options? Only thing I could potentially think to try is JRC further forward and Brittain at RB. Mind you this is what years of underfunding gets you.

Spot on. West Ham are a massive example of this. Did well the last 2 years playing on the counter. Switched to play out from the back and "playing between the lines" (?) and have massively struggled This one-way,right way to play football ideology is hurting the game.

Cracking idea by Chelsea to rehire a guy they sacked who wasn't good enough. And who had since been sacked by Everton for not being good enough. And whose sole other experience is doing no better or worse then the other Derby managers of that period. Potter on paper had a much more successful managerial career than Lampard, so you have to see it as an utter head scratchers.

Interestingly the rules have now been changed (although not retrospectively) so only 5 years of a deal count towards FFP.

Over the 90 minutes we deserved that. Brilliant result! Best I've seen Gally play in a long time. Also was impressed with Pickering who I often don't rate but thought he was excellent. Subs really didn't help us Brittain was poor when he came on for JRC. Vale offers utterly nothing. Morton is always involved but loses the ball far too much and does more harm than good imo. If we play like that more often playoffs are very much on.