[Thequietwatersby]

I feel theres a lot of frustration in our fans at the moment, yes we have been off the boil for some time now but we are so quick to get the knives out. We are only 4 games into our season and i feel like we still have a fair bit of gelling to do as a team. We aren't by any means adrift, and we got a well fought point at Southampton. Ideally we should have 4 from our first two, but thats just the way it goes. I saw some good play down our wings today, ok we weren't overly clinical in the box but we still created some good chances. Maybe its just me as the optimist but we have enough fight about us to be competitive in this league. For those who may say im shortsighted i attend a lot of games so i see for myself but maybe I have just that bit more belief we can be ok come May. I feel that people are just waiting for a defeat so they can vent their anger at Irvine.

Sorry to say this Andy, but I am not waiting for a defeat to vent my anger at a manager.

Turn the clock back to the reaction when his appointment was announced and a massive section of our support were in disbelief in such an underwhelming head coach being given the role. It's not surprising that we're not as patient with him as currently the performances are exactly as we had feared.

Add into that he's been given nothing but 100% support by JP with easily our most exciting summer transfer window in the premier league era, where we have brought in a wide variety of bargain signings and also a very good in my opinion £10 million Striker.

These players aren't being used to their full potential and as a result we're turning in absolutely shocking performances. And the Head Coach is the man in charge of that. A big decision to be made by JP in the next 3-4 weeks. Stand by him or get rid?

I can hazard a guess at what the majority of us are thinking.

You have some fair points, i was pretty fuming when it was first announced and i checked out his CV; with his record at preston and wednesday, but in fairness we played well in our first 2; just our most recent 2 have been disappointing. You have to ask yourself though; is it the coach or the players? We struggled a lot last season and seb larssons late equaliser on the opening day of the season was nothing new. Therefore, there are almost certainly some of our players not playing to their best. I don't want to name names, but there are some outstanding candidates there. Brunt, Olsson, Fozzy today, Dawson. These haven't been good enough in recent games. However Irvine hasn't covered himself in gold. His substitutions aren't very well timed at all, and on top of this, we keep playing our weak links. Where do we go though? Who do we get to sort this mess out? Pulis seems a good candidate, but i'm not sure he'll come to us :/ For me, its a mixture of players not pushing their weight, a lack of direction at the club, and Alan Irvine not being the motivator we need.

That's a good summary.

I don't think any of the starting 11 bar Pocognoli covered themselves in glory, but would we have been better suited to play another system to include our new signings?

Going on the players that were available today I think a 352 would of been better.

Wisdom isn't a natural RB and I think his best performances would come at CB. Poco on the left and Gamboa on the right as wing backs would give us some much needed width. Lescott when fit and McAuley or Olsson would be our best defence imo. This would of made up for the fact that Mulumbu was out and we REALLY missed him today. Everton could break on us much too quickly when we lost the ball without that holding midfield player to cover the back four.

The top half of the team is still up in the air in my eyes, and I wouldn't confidently say any of our midfielders or forwards are first names on the team sheet. Berahino could well be our top scorer this season if he's given the right service.

As for replacement coaches, I wouldn't name specific coaches by name. But with the squad we have assembled we need someone who can bring back the defensive stability that we had under Hodgson. He achieved it with in my eyes was a much weaker squad.