[May68]

Hi. May68 here. I'm a new user though I've been lurking for a while. Used to post occasionally on the old BBC606 site. STH in the BRE, and I've been going to games since the 93/94 season.
Felt like I had to sign up and post, just to vent my frustration at the last week. I have to say, I'm surprised at the number of people jumping to TP's defence. I agree he will almost certainly keep us up and deserves a bit of slack for that very reason, but that does not make him immune from criticism. The fact is, in these two Villa games he has got it horribly wrong. When we win he gets the praise, but when we lose people blame the players for their individual errors. In this way, he quite literally can do no wrong in some fans' eyes.
If we had put those two team selections and performances in under AFI, then half the Black Country would be outside his house with pitchforks and torches, baying for blood. When we do the same under TP, the mentality of many is 'hey ho, TP sees the players in training, he's worked in football for years, he must know better than us.' Well exactly the same could be said of AFI, but that did not stop everyone criticising him (rightly).
Another thing I keep reading is that everything will be better once we have a summer clearout and TP is allowed to bring his players in. I admit our transfer dealings over the last 2 seasons have been generally poor, but if we expect TP to sort this out I think we will be disappointed.  Giving him too much control over our transfer dealings is dangerous given that when he was Stoke manager his transfer policy was to spend a fortune on bang average British journeymen.  TBH I think McManaman will be a flop but I hope I am wrong.
Don't get me wrong, I am not calling for TP's head or anything, I just think he is far from the messiah some people are making him out to be. He is making strange decisions with regard to team selection and we are far far too negative away from home even when playing teams demonstrably worse than us.