Antti Heinola provides his usual talking points from the weekend's thrashing by Man City, including the declining form of Yun Suk-Young and Joey Barton's pre-match finger pointing.
Still, given those limitations, most of us could have picked a similar team, seeing as our bench was made up of three youngsters, plus the terminally ineffective Kranjcar (who must be incredible in training to get the plaudits other players give him), the terminally ineffective Hoilett, and the terminally ineffective (except at winding up our own fans by being terminally ineffective for a longer period than either Kranjcar or Hoilett while picking up bundles more money), SWP - or 'Sweep' as he's cutely known to people who once saw him look vaguely like a proper footballer. Only five years ago he was in the England squad in South Africa. And that tells you all you need to know about that particular debacle.
Anyway, it was a brave choice and it would have been nice to have seen some of that devil-may-care attitude in the far more pivotal West Ham game, when two strikers with a number ten behind them would have been a welcome novelty. Away at the second best team in the division, though... well, let's say we paid the price.
It wasn't just the line up that caused that though - it was mostly our horrific, abject defending that did for us. Everything we've said all season about this team's inability to defend was laid bare on Sunday. A goalie that rarely helps his defenders when balls are played into the box; some awfully old, slow players; a lack of ability to defend as a team; and, worst of all, persistent, lamentable, individual errors. It was all there. City scored six, and perhaps only one of them were they really made to work for. Pathetic.
Again, it showed up the same issues we've had for at least three seasons: a profound lack of pace and a dearth of midfielders who will run past the forwards. Barton and Henry have, under the circumstances, both had decent seasons, but their inability to be involved in very much outside of the middle third means we don't attack or defend properly as a team. We need more athleticism, more support for both the defence and the attack. Fer at least offers a bit of that if we could get him playing in that position on a regular basis, but it seems likely he'll be sold.
We'll need him next season, so I hope he can put his game back together again. Not a brilliant player, but good enough for the league below and in a more confident side he's not a bad player to have around in the Prem either. Sadly, his career at QPR has been blighted by injury, lack of belief from Redknapp, and then playing as part of the worst defence in the league. Not a great combo. Still, no excuse for not trapping the thing.
The excuse about team morale was bad enough two years ago, but this time it simply doesn't wash. As a collective we weren't good enough - the only player, in my view, who could say he's been a Premier League standard player consistently this season is Austin. Maybe - maybe - Rob Green, who I don't think has been half as good as his fans make out - not that he's had much protection, but defenders do need a goalie they can trust and I don't think any of them truly trust Green. They're never fully confident in him and they certainly can't rely on his kicking.
So to start laying the blame at the feet of (presumably) a couple of players who have barely played, seems like bullshit to me - no one in our squad could've saved this mess. And for Joey to go on about bad eggs when his red card at Hull was one of the pivotal moments of this season - ruining a promising start by Ramsey and forcing us to pair the limited but willing Henry and the limited and half-fit Sandro for three consecutive games, all of which we lost - is a bit rich.
There are dozens of reasons why we're down again, but it's not Joey's job to start pointing fingers and talking about if he was in charge and apparently absolving himself of blame. Everyone is culpable, from the chairman downwards. I do think that this time the players at least tried and it's difficult to pinpoint any regular in the squad who you could say doesn't care. But that wasn't enough. The truth is, we never had a squad good enough to stay up, mainly because years of short term thinking meant we haven't had what you might term a settled squad since, what, the end of the Holloway era?
Summer starts now. It is a job as big as the one Olly faced when we dropped to League One. He had Kenny Jackett to pull some strings and get in a few Watford stalwarts to steady the ship. Do Ramsey and Ferdinand have that kind of knowhow? This sort of opportunity for a clean slate was possible two years ago and last year and we didn't take it. This time we absolutely must. We cannot start next season relying on 34+ year olds and one fit striker. If we do, we'll be in League One before Charlotte has her first birthday.
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