In the ground, there's kind of a conditional support at the moment

if we press and try to attack, the support is there. If we do what we did in the first half against Newcastle, or West Ham, people get very angry at our passivity and slow build up.

In any given game, the support, or lack of it, of the crowd teeters on a knife edge. It would be lovely for us all to sing from minute one, but that's simply not going to happen at the moment - rightly or wrongly - so the onus is very much on the players to play at a higher tempo and really try to get at teams. Look as though they're determined to avoid relegation. Which, to be fair, they did for the first 20 and last 20 yesterday.

But Hughton's substitutions coming on 75 minutes didn't quite give us enough time. Should have been 60 - we'd been 2-1 down since the 50th minute.

Posted By: duke of york, Feb 2, 11:14:39