Confused ?

Like most of us, I was surprised at how well we played in the first half of the season culminating in our unexpected Wembley performance.These early performances raised our expectations and considering we had played well against most of the championship clubs for half a season then I was confident we would remain competitive for the second half of the season.

This raised expectation can possibly explain as to why we are all feeling the level of frustartion at present but I am undecided as to what is the cause of our demise over the past 3 months.
I have given the issue some thought and would ask your opinions on the following 3 scenarios :

Is it a case that our players have given 100% effort recently and its simply down to the other teams just having better players,or are our players not giving the 100% effort that they gave in the first half of the season?

Or is it a case that our players are playing with the same commitment but the othe teams in the championship have strengthened to the extent that man for man they simply have better players than us?

Or has Malky changed his tactics by playing players out of position and not playing the correct formations?

Like most of us, I was surprised at how well we played in the first half of the season culminating in our unexpected Wembley performance.These early performances raised our expectations and considering we had played well against most of the championship clubs for half a season then I was confident we would remain competitive for the second half of the season.

This raised expectation can possibly explain as to why we are all feeling the level of frustartion at present but I am undecided as to what is the cause of our demise over the past 3 months.
I have given the issue some thought and would ask your opinions on the following 3 scenarios :

Is it a case that our players have given 100% effort recently and its simply down to the other teams just having better players,or are our players not giving the 100% effort that they gave in the first half of the season?

Or is it a case that our players are playing with the same commitment but the othe teams in the championship have strengthened to the extent that man for man they simply have better players than us?

Or has Malky changed his tactics by playing players out of position and not playing the correct formations?

I'd go for your 3rd suggestion, plus, in my opinion, the players appear to be tired. I also think there isn't a leader on the pitch and the sense of togetherness they had earlier in the season appears to have gone. I wonder if there's been some kind of internal bust-up along the lines of the Paul Parry situation a few years back.

Like most of us, I was surprised at how well we played in the first half of the season culminating in our unexpected Wembley performance.These early performances raised our expectations and considering we had played well against most of the championship clubs for half a season then I was confident we would remain competitive for the second half of the season.

This raised expectation can possibly explain as to why we are all feeling the level of frustartion at present but I am undecided as to what is the cause of our demise over the past 3 months.
I have given the issue some thought and would ask your opinions on the following 3 scenarios :

Is it a case that our players have given 100% effort recently and its simply down to the other teams just having better players,or are our players not giving the 100% effort that they gave in the first half of the season?

Or is it a case that our players are playing with the same commitment but the othe teams in the championship have strengthened to the extent that man for man they simply have better players than us?

Or has Malky changed his tactics by playing players out of position and not playing the correct formations?

I'd go for your 3rd suggestion, plus, in my opinion, the players appear to be tired. I also think there isn't a leader on the pitch and the sense of togetherness they had earlier in the season appears to have gone. I wonder if there's been some kind of internal bust-up along the lines of the Paul Parry situation a few years back.

You make some interesting points. I agree that the players do look tired but I cannot understand this because they had a good week off before playing Millwall but I agree they do appear jaded.