Woodcote Royal Maguire I reckon the 25 day gap between games coupled with Federici's bizarre loss of form is what started the rot.
Never mind the goal against Stoke, if he'd kept out Gary Cahill's very saveable effort at Stamford Bridge then we may well have left with all three points and the season would've turned out differently.
We then had the huge gap which meant we had to go through the whole first "game of the season" thing again and turned in an abject performance against Tottenham. It's been downhill since there.
Clearly the biggest problem has been the failure of any of the summer signings bar Shorey to establish themselves as regular first team fixtures.
Then like a runaway snowball the problems have grown to the extent that the team look beaten before they even start matches these days.
Have to agree with a lot of that but, as ever, those who love to start polls prefer to provide just the options that suit their purpose or, are just too blinkered to see the alternatives, one of which I would see as bad luck.
In my view, we are only in the best league in the world because Brian McDermott has got so much right since he's been in charge. Many of those slagging him off would either, never have dreamed 12 months ago that we would be where are now and/or, are only interested in the club when it's in the top flight and don't care what risks are taken with it's financial future in order to avoid relegation.
Southampton have spent £30m so far this season but this is the club that was almost sunk by the cost of it's new stadium and have only arrived at this point following a spell in League One, along with administration and points deductions. As someone who will renew his season ticket regardless, if the Reading way means not doing things the Southampton way and they stay up and we don't, that's fine by me. For long term supporters, being a fan is about a lot more that one season in isolation and the last 20 years have seen us progress to a point where the club is unrecognizable from the form it took throughout the vast majority of it's history.
On this basis, our amazing run to promotion was always a win/win situation providing the huge financial windfall was not squandered but used to progress the club over the
FIVE SEASONS that we will benefit financially from one season in the top flight.
Who was to blame for all of McCarthy, Morrison, Karacan, Guthrie, HRK, Kebe, Pog and Roberts (almost a third of our allowed 25
) being unavailable for Sunderland? 4 of that list are not just certain starters but had been missing for the previous month or more. Clubs with far bigger budgets than ours would be struggling with an injury list like this.
Frankly, I'm sick of hearing Guthrie's name. Jem Karacan (who is more likely to run through a brick wall for this club than refuse to travel to an away fixture
) is our best central midfielder, Kebe our best winger, Morrison the best centre back and McCarthy is light years ahead of Federici. No one gets everything right but, in my view, Brian's biggest error has been in placing too much faith in the limited ability of Adam Federici. If Taylor is not the better 'keeper why are we paying him what must be a very substantial wage?
I would contend that our best side is at least the equal of our main relegation rivals and wise investment of a further £5m next month would certainly have the potential to lift us out of the drop zone, but I wouldn't like to see us risking much more than this.
What I have in common with those who insist on posting so much nonsense on this board as to render it no longer worth the read for some of us, is that I'm hating this season just as much as they are. We both want to see RFC established in the top flight and I've seen nothing to the contrary from anyone at the club.
However, I don't believe chucking the kitchen sink at a "survival at all costs" approach is the best way to achieve that end and throwing McDermott out with the Premiership bath water could be the biggest disaster of all.
Had we been enjoying 4 years of parachute payments prior to this latest promotion, I doubt Brian would have been forced to sell the like's of Long and Sigurdsson and we would most likely have been promoted with a far stronger squad and the very real prospect of a soft landing in the top flight. Well, if one thing is certain going forward it is that we would be assured of this huge advantage in the next four Championship season's.
Furthermore, in McDermott, whose other major "crime" was to get us promoted on a shoestring, we have the man who has shown time and again his talent for scouting and developing much of the young talent directly or indirectly responsible for our 2 promotions to the promised land.
If we can't survive this season, no one more than Brian McDermott deserves the chance to build and keep a team fit to grace the Premiership in a manor that most of us would enjoy and, frankly, some of our blinkered fools should be very careful what they wish for.
