Concerned - No, Bored and bit downbeat - Yes.
We will be okay this season, but to me our season finished tonight. We appear to of given up on a european push in the league, i think a lot of the players feel the seasons aim of staying up (which is usually banded about as our seasons aim) is now complete and i just dont see the same desire and passion to win games anymore, going through the motions. The manager also has to take some of the blame as we make at least 5-6 changes a game and its a lottery who plays.
As i say our seasons aim was to stay up and so its job done, as a club where we are is great, never had it so good, etc, etc but as a fan i just think there is 5 months left of the season and after the local derby saturday, what we got to look forward too? If you are challening for promotion, fighting relegation, pushing for play offs or european places then its something to look forward too, as we are its just a bit of playing out the fixtures.
To me its all thats bad with football that finishing 7th in a league they cannot win is deemed more important than winning a cup, i have always said it, i would love us to win something and if it means finishing 17th or getting relegated so be it, at the moment we are playing in a league we cannot win. I said in previous posts years and years ago, the general opinion was the aim was always for us to become a midtable premiership side, great, but where do you go from there? Midtable clubs gates tend to fall because they arent playing for anything and my fear is thats how we will end up, what is there to look forward to achievement wise for us this season? No days out at wembley, excitement, tension and build up, or medals handed out for us to finish 7th in the league.
The way the season started, i knew we wouldnt finish top 4 but certainly felt we could go for top 6, as the premiership has got worse and we have got better, but also thought we had targeted the cups, yet we have played 3 matches in total in the cups this season and lost 2! So that early season excitement to me has gone, if the players really believed and had the desire i think they could push for top 6, but i dont think they or maybe the manager want it, as a fan i do but i cannot control what happens on the pitch, so i think for me our season is now done.
The above probably comes across depressing and i hope in may i can say i was completely wrong but sadly i think we will be talking about a 9-11th place finish and no excitement to the season end.