I do agree with much of what you’re saying, but not all. Don’t think anyone is suggesting that we don’t demand 100% from players. I’d also add that despite very poor moments- they’ve given 100% this year.
We’ve been unlucky with injuries this season, but we’re by no means alone in that. Norwich had some bad times. Bristol City have had it much worse than us. Don’t know enough about all the other teams, but we can be too blinkered about our own club.
We had some bad luck this year. Some terrible decisions / errors on the pitch that have cost us points. I expect there to be less next year, but we’ll still have some.
We’ve also had luck. Reading at home (their keeper). Derby away - we scraped a point in injury time after they missed an open goal a few mins earlier. Wycombe away- lino wrongly disallowed their equaliser in injury time. I look at other games like Huddersfield at home, Stoke at home, Barnsley away and both Birmingham games- I think we were the weaker team yet picked up a point in all of them.
We have a weak defence and are possibly losing the two best parts (McCallum & Osti). We’ll recruit to try to fix these issues, and more. Hopefully it’ll work. We’ve made good use of the loan market in the past.
For me the crux is, have we over-achieved this year and looking at the teams below us - will we be better than them next year? I think we probably did over-achieve by a few points in the end (probably about 4).
My biggest concern is expectations getting too high and then negativity setting into the whole club if / when we have a bad patch. We’ve seen people here calling for MR to go at times this year. I accept he cannot be immune from criticism. In March I was getting frustrated.
I’m looking at hopefully trying to achieve what Luton did this year, but being mindful that this is optimistic.
