Too good to go down? Plenty of reasons say otherwise

By Simon Leyland

Let`s face it , we do not look like a team who are about to embark on a triumphant march to safety.

The boos at full‑time said it all. Nobody regarded inching out of the relegation zone as reason for celebration and, while this performance represented an improvement on the thrashing at Brighton last weekend, it was not enough to quell the crowd’s rising discontent with the beleaguered one’s management.

But there were positives to be gleaned from us recovering after falling behind . We showed resilience, equalising through a cracking Saïd Benrahma’s penalty, and we had enough chances to kill the game off. Benrahma went close four times during a tight second half. Pablo Fornals shot over.

Maxwel Cornet offered hope in his brief cameo, although he could do with reading up on the offside law before his next appearance!

But this was still a missed opportunity. After all it is unlikely that our away form is going to keep us up. We look reliant on home comforts and yet the impression here was of a club going through the motions, with the atmosphere stuck at room temperature and the manager slow to make attacking changes.

The irony of having not lost a match in the ECL could create the greatest Irons irony of them all: win that competition and get relegated in the Premier League with a team that definitely is too good to go down but is playing plenty poor enough to defy that reasoning.

I fear squeaky bum time all the way to matchday 38….