Been like that for as long as I can remember, even pre-Venky's going back to the Souness days. It's the same across pretty much every club, too, and across multiple fandoms - so I think it's just a psychological thing for certain people to want to get on their high horse and belittle others. I'm sure there are a myriad of reasons as to why that behaviour develops in individuals, but it just seems now more than ever people crave these dividing lines, even within groups that are supposed to be united.

After over a decade of failing to get into the playoffs, and actually getting relegated during that time, it's not hard to see why people would have a glass half-empty view at this point. Especially with our current form being so poor, our strikers being so woeful and our football fluctuating between being very good and utterly appalling. With that said, I agree that we are where we are on merit. After 41 games we aren't 6th by fluke - we're 6th because, so far, we've been the 6th best team at gaining points, no matter how it's been done. It suggests neither the manager or the players are really as bad as is being made out in certain quarters - or that the rest of the division is simply even worse. Either way, we've shown we can scrape points despite having a very lacklustre set of attacking options. Whether we can stumble our way into the playoffs remains to be seen. I'm not remotely optimistic, but the possibility does still exist. Lose on Wednesday however and I suspect that will be that. Since we threw away the quarter final in the last ten minutes our form and confidence as a whole has taken a big hit. They need to pick themselves up though, and fast, as we're running out of games to get our momentum back.

Tbf to Diaz I wouldn't put him in the same bracket as Gallagher. This season he has double the goals (14/7) and assists (4/2) and last season over double the goals (22/9) with the same amount of assists (3). Even in 2020/21 Diaz only scored 1 less goal than Gallagher (7/8) and had 1 more assist. Keeping in mind also that BBD is 4 years younger than Gallagher, who should be in something like his "prime" now - although if this is it, lad has done very well to make a career out of football. Whilst BBD's form has gone off a cliff in 2023, he's still our top scorer and one of our highest assist makers (only Dolan has more, with 6) - so what does that say about the rest of the team?

Interestlingly when you look at the table after 23 games a lot of teams around the top end of the table have collapsed, even worse than us, whilst the teams who are now right up there and challenging were very much in mid-table. The playoff spots at that time were: 3. Rovers +1 GD 39 points 4. Watford +8 GD 37 points 5. Norwich +5 GD 35 points 6. QPR 0 GD 34 points As of now Watford are 12th, Norwich are 10th and QPR are 20th. We've fared the best of all of the teams at the half way point by some margin. QPR have only gained 9 points from 19 ganes. Meanwhile, Millwall were 9th, Boro were 13th, Coventry were 14th, Luton were 15th. At the time we had a gap of 7 points on Millwall and 9 on the other three. We were more or less equal on GD with all of them, but our GD is now -2 whilst Boro (Carrick's first management job) are now on +28, Millwall on +9, Coventry on +9, Luton on +17.

I don't believe there is a good excuse for finishing below either of those teams, considering where we were at the mid-point. You obviously do, but they haven't had piles of cash or top tier players to call upon to close the gap, so for me yes, it would be considered a failure. Not "because 1995", just because we'd let a huge gap between both teams narrow to nothing. It's all hypothetical at the moment though, and I really hope we can pull out of this nosedive in the remaining few games. Over a decade and we haven't been in the Championship playoffs once. I don't think that's entitlement, it's something systemically wrong at the club which still hasn't been addressed. Whether JDT is the man to address it still remains to be seen. It may be beyond him or any manager, ultimately.

It's nothing to do with divine right, that's just a lazy cliche used to avoid engaging properly. People make excuses about ffp, the squad, parachute payments, but none of them hold up when you look at many of the clubs around us who are in similar positions - Luton, Millwall, Coventry, Sunderland. They've adapted to their situations and made progress. If we go from being 2nd midway through the season to finishing below them I don't see how that can be spun as anything other than failure, but it was done often enough with Mowbray so I'm sure it will. That's not to lay the blame solely at the feet of JDT either, significant amounts of blame lie with the players, many of whom have track records of wilting under pressure, and our recruitment team who let everybody down in a massive way in January. There's still a chance to salvage the season. We're clinging to 6th despite losing momentum. Wednesday is now critical.

Would certainly be something if the team who sold us their top defender because they were in dire financial straits ended up pipping us to the playoffs. No excuses about ffp, parachute payments or anything else can paint that as anything other than a huge failure. I don't even want to consider that Mowbray's Sunderland might finish above us, although I imagine some people would be fine with that. I like JDT but we have no excuse for finishing below the likes of Coventry and Sunderland (who have an even worse striker situation than us), so let's sort this out on Wednesday before the season becomes another crushing disappointment.

Ah, yes, it was Sherwood. I can remember as a kid feeling utterly robbed when that was disallowed - still pisses me off now, despite knowing how that season ended.

United essentially cheated to beat us in both league matches in 94/95. The ridiculous sending off of Henning Berg in the first match and Shearer's goal being inexplicably disallowed in the second. The final day of that season, even though we lost, was justice being done.

12 goals conceded in our last 6 games in all comps is our problem. It isn't bad luck, it's poor defensive work and a major issue when we don't have any decent strikers at the club. We're down there with the lowest scorers in the division so we simply can't afford to have a leaky defence.

The referees at the WC showed how it needs to be done. Add on as much time as is needed, even if on the surface it looks ridiculous. As for why referees here don't do that... I'm sure it all circles back to where the money trail leads.

Probably would have concluded with them making it 3-1 anyway. We know the script. Maybe this will work in our favour.

Hopefully a sign that the clock is ticking on Gallagher's time here. One of the first that needs to be shown the door in the summer, even if we make a significant loss on him.

Just unfortunate that we've given ourselves a huge mountain to climb again. That defensive solidity that fuelled our playoff charge has evaporated recently. Puts too much pressure on our weak frontline to score goals, which none of them have been especially good at since November or so.

We all saw this coming. Club needs a proper clear out of Mowbray's rubber dinghy men in the summer. I'm tired of these players mentally collapsing over and over again. Problem is the budget probably isn't there for such an overhaul.

Hudds have only won 7 out of 20 home games, but we've only won 6 out of 20 away games... so ultimately two poor teams scrapping it out for the points. Think it could go either way, but after yesterday's abject surrender I'm expecting us to finish outside of the top six regardless now. I just don't think we have enough in attack to get us over the line.

Think this is it for us. Awful result at home against a team directly below us. At the very least this was a must not lose. Failing to secure O'Brien and a striker was a killer blow, as most of us predicted it would be.

Appreciate this thread is pretty much dead nowadays, but it's been a wild few days so posting my thoughts into the void regardless... WM Night 1 - fantastic show. Logical finishes, well paced, great matches. Excellent job all around. WM Night 2 - killed all momentum. Brock/Omos was actually alright. Women's tag sucked. Lashley appearing for 20 seconds to carry his pointless trophy was idiotic. Reportedly he and LA Knight were supposed to have a segment but it was cut at the last minute. I wonder who could have done that? Three way for the IC title was awesome. Bianca and Asuka's match was fine, but Bianca winning again is extremely boring. The Shane/Miz/Snoop segment was a car crash. HIAC match was good, even after Balor got busted open after Edge yeeted that ladder at him, but I question Edge going over. Main event was great until the ending, which was a complete joke and wrecked the story they've been telling. The Bloodline storyline peaked at Elimination Chamber and they weren't brave enough pull the trigger on Zayn. Momentum was still there for Cody but they passed on that too. Now I just don't care. WWE then announces it's been sold to Endeavour, UFC owners. Pretty much comes out of nowhere. WWE is officially no longer owned by the McMahon family - however... Vince is now back in charge, fully. He most likely was the reason WM Night 2 sucked, and is conclusively the reason why last night's Raw was 90% shit. By all accounts it was back to the bad old days all around. It's been a good run for the past 6 months, for the most part, but that'll be me done with WWE again. AEW may not be great right now, but I appreciate that it's there.

No they definitely need to keep him. Keep up the good work Potts.

Not a surprise. Give us a lot of possession and we tie ourselves in knots. We're far better when it's the other way around. Not sure if Brum did it on purpose, mind, as with an actual striker on the field we would have won today.

Game was over as soon as they scored. We still lack that strength to fight back when needed. When you look at our GD compared to the teams around us we'll have done amazingly well to get 6th if we do scrape it.

Tbf we rarely respond to going behind so it's par the course. Much more likely to finish 2-0 than 1-1, although I'm hoping this comment will prove to be a bad luck charm for Brum.

I'd keep Dack for an extra year if possible, as he has that special something - even after his injuries - which can turn a game out of nowhere. Obviously a lot depends on where JDT sees Dack fitting in, and where Dack sees himself fitting in. There would obviously be some risk in triggering the extension if Dack wasn't happy with what our plans were for him next season. Imagine what could end up on Twitter 😨 As far as Ayala is concerned, we'll be fine without him. Big wage, spends at least half of every season injured or otherwise unavailable. He's been decent for a free transfer, but best for all parties to move on.

Only one word can sum up Coley's time here...

It took disastrous foreign ownership reducing the club to a zombie-like state and parasitical agents leeching the club of everything decent for Burnley to finally claw themselves above us. If they want to crow about that then fine, but if that was how I'd gained superiority I'd probably keep quiet over what would be a hollow victory at best.