NorthernOwl

We were crap end of story. It has nothing to do with our players attitudes or how much they care. I doubt they would have played so nervously if they weren't bothered.

Indeed you do and the fearlessness and confidence in his own ability in such an important game was mightily impressive. That was in stark contrast to our players who seem seemed mentally weak, nervous and overawed by the occasion. Probably a hangover from 2 consecutive playoff defeats.

From what he's said in the press he's been fairly clear that he has final say. It's never really been clear what the process is before that point though.

Sorry I see what you mean. Your sentence could be read a couple of different ways!

Hooper has scored in 5 in 5 so we must be creating something.

On what grounds do you think he wasn't up for it? He had a poor game for sure but that's completely different to not being up for it.

This is Owlstalk though. One crap game and you are written off. Plenty saying Van Aken not good enough too desipte only playing 4 games for us.

Westood has been a top, top player for us though his recent form is a worry. You just worry about his mentality sometimes – I think O’Neill has alluded to it a couple of times in terms of why he doesn’t pick him. Think its probably the reason he isn’t a premier league player. Lees again has been a great player for us but his is not a leader or an organsier. We saw it last year when he played with Hutch at the back. He’s needs a Loovens type beside him telling him what to do.

There's no getting away from how poor yesterday's performance was and obviously the gravity of the game makes it hard to swallow. That being said we were building up a nice head of steam in the games preceding the derby and in my opinion were starting to look the real deal. I have mixed feelings about Carlos but I can certainly see that there are upsides to keeping him on.

What a stupid post. Van Aken has played 4 games and was receiving rave reviews after the first 3. To suggest that he's not good enough based on one admittedly very poor performance is ludicrous.

Particularly in the aftermath of a derby defeat. If the poll had been done the day before I'm sure the results would have looked a bit different.

Good balanced post. Think this sums things up perfectly.

Seriously?? I know derby defeats hurt but come on.

Personally think we will get 6 points. Yesterday was too bad to be true but I'm confident we will bounce back.

I'm sure you are right but when the best people can suggest is McCarthy or Megson you start to wonder.