Hard to put down to one thing. We seemed to make signings in the right
areas in the summer, but centre back Michael Turner has taken a long
time to settle in and replace Leon Cort, while we were without his
partner Damien Delaney for a couple of months as well. We've not had a
settled strike force either, mostly through injuries to various
forwards. Aside from that, Phil Parkinson seemed to lose his nerve in
going for the flowing attacking football he promised after it
backfired in the first couple of games and he unsuccessfully tried
playing it safe from then on.
Are you behind the manager? Or is it all his fault?
Phil Brown's made simple changes that seem glaringly obvious but
needed somebody in his position, as caretaker manager with only one or
two games to prove himself, to make. For example, identifying a
topheavy squad of strikers and lack of wingers to change from 4-4-2 to
an effective 4-3-3. We await to see whether he's in his honeymoon
period and he'll soon return to being the manager that had a
disastrous spell in charge of Derby last year, or if that experience
has made him into a much better manager. I don't think anyone else
would have done a better job in taking over from Parkinson.
Which will be the key games in your run-in?
All of our home games, perhaps most importantly starting with Southend
on Saturday. We can't expect much from our remaining away games
(Wolves, Stoke and Cardiff) so we need to be strong at home.
Predict how many points you'll finish on. Will that be enough to stay up?
Can't see us finishing on less than 50 points, and I'm sure that'll be
more than at least 3 of the very poor teams around us finish on.
Which three teams are going down?
Luton - things just keep going from bad to worse for them.
QPR - have been slightly worse on a more consistent basis than the others.
Leeds - you really deserve to go down, personal hatred aside, you've
just been plain rubbish, but I've got a suspicion you'll sneak out of
it and Southend would probably be the unlucky ones to take your place.
Will you be in another relegation fight next season?
Hard to say. The squad we've got looks great on paper but it's been
more or less them that's got us into the dangerous position we're in
now. If we can keep key players fit next season there's no reason why
we can't stay clear.