[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

Won and lost in the first half. 15 great minutes at the beginning, exactly what the doctor ordered, and we completely deserved the lead.

So what the cowin hell happened then? The team hit the reset button and returned to factory defaults, the way they do every single time. "We're in the lead! Hey guys, let's sit back and play like the away team till half-time!" For all Irvine's faults (and I do think failure to sort this problem out counts among his faults) this pre-dates him. They were doing it under Mel, they were doing it under Downing & Kiely, they were doing it under Clarke. For all that shite refereeing led to West Ham's equaliser, they deserved it because they'd been bossing the match, and they then deserved the winner we gifted them.

Second half, we threw the kitchen sink at them, as we should have done first half when we had the upper hand. Great showing from Varela - no excuses to not be playing him - though not convinced by Ideye. Dawson should have equalised, Anichebe unlucky not to. It would have papered over the cracks, though. You can't cede the initiative like we did and expect to not get punished.

Up to Jeremy now to judge how bad the rot is, and what needs to be done. All I'd ask is that if he does axe Irvine, then he doesn't stop there. These problems are bigger and deeper than AI.