Do any of you use Twitter? I do, have done for years but a lot less recently. It's a very strange place and while not everyone is crazy or strange, there are some. Last night, I posted something like 'had we been told we were above West Ham and two points behind Liverpool after eight games, we'd have all taken it.'
I did it to see if the response I thought I was going to get was what I got. It was. The truth is, regardless of how West Ham or Liverpool have performed this season, we would have taken that if we were given a choice. It's not that bad of a place to be.
That Liverpool and West Ham look bang average this season does mean that that Tweet was going to get the response I suspected and this isn't me saying we should be happy, but we're not Manchester City or Arsenal and I'll bet a fair amount of money that Liverpool and West Ham finish above us this season and both in positions we'd be very happy to have finished in.
And we are not Manchester City, with all the money in the world and arguable the best striker the Premier League has ever seen and I write that after eight games. We are actually closer to Arsenal and while I'm surprised Arteta is doing as well as he's doing, he hasn't just got the job. He became the Arsenal manager in the previous decade and it's only really the end of last season and this season that Arsenal fans are happy with him.
Up until things started to go well last season, there were many that wanted Arteta sacked. This despite them finishing eighth in his first two season and fifth last time out. Why do I write this? Because it takes time and there is massive value in giving the manager time. Arsenal at a very high level know this.
And this is from the person that thinks appointing Steven Gerrard was a mistake!
But I also see the value in giving the manager time and in the game right now, there isn't anyone I would take over Steven Gerrard because I know if we did sack him and bring someone else in, if it didn't happen for them straight away and chances are it wouldn't, some supporters would be calling for that manager to be sacked too.
We needed to give Dean Smith more time and not fire him after one bad run. It was a mistake and he's showing us now in the Championship that he's a decent manager. We can't sack Steven Gerrard now because he needs time for it to come together and while I don't know it will or even believe it will, I hope it does and if it does, I believe that will be paid back to us ten fold for having that faith.
Football isn't rocket science but it's also not something you can just switch on and off. It takes time. We need to give this manager time and as supporters we have to buy into what is possible. We have owners that have demonstrated a willingness to support and a manager that is doing his best and has a degree of experience in the game that is very hard to come by.
Given the time, he'll gain the necessary experience where he is lacking. Wouldn't it be horrible if someone else were to benefit from that?
We didn't beat Leeds yesterday and we should have. There, we should have beaten them. It wasn't that we didn't have more possession, opportunities and chances, we did. We were unfortunate. But that is three games without defeat. It's something and a lot better than it could have been.