Good post Jacko, last night was a strange one as its the first time this season i have actually felt we will be relegated (even after our start i have been confident) but i am positive about the future if that makes any sense?!
Last night was building up for a while and it confirmed to me that we are now approaching the end of an era with players who hit new levels for me as an Albion fan, i said in my pre match chat on paper we have a better team and squad than Villa, yet they are 5 points clear of us and took 4 points off us and the facts dont lie. There in lies the problem, i personally have looked at our squad and based my views on reputations, past performances and gave the benefit of the doubt, sadly its now becoming clear thats what a lot of these players now have, past reputations.
If you go through our squad for the last 16-18 months, you could say probably only Foster, Myhill, Jones and GMac have performed consistently well, Berahino has shown a lot of potential, but other than that if you list the players, who has actually played well in a number of games for a period of time, some have shown the odd good game but no consistency.
I would say the following have got worse - Reid, Olsson, Ridgewell, Popov, Mulumbu, Yacob, Morrison, Brunt, Long (when he was here) I think the likes of Dawson, Dorrans and Rosenberg have contributed little as they have hardly played, yet most of the time they have been fit and still cant get a sniff so that maybe doesnt give cause for optimism. Sess, Alfie, Anichebe, Anelka, Lugano, Sinclair and Vdrya all perhaps have a bit longer to prove themselves as they only joined 6 x months ago, but with most of them, it would appear the initial early promise has been knocked out of them and they are playing a similar level to the rest of the squad.
As i say that squad have provided some great highlights over the years, they have raised the bar and been good players and they did us proud, but 16 months of bad play isnt a run of bad form or bad luck, its they are not the standard they once were and its time to move on. I wouldnt be looking to get rid of all of them but certainly out our current 25 man squad i would be looking to ship out 12-14 and bring in 12 no matter what league we are in next season and start afresh.
I have seen enough from Pepe's 2 games in charge to see they we could be an entertaining side which i think is what most of us want, and i hope he is given the scope to bring in players he wants and begin a new era at Albion, it happened under Mowbray and set the tone for the next 5-6 years and i hope it does for Mel.
Heres to the future.