No tin hat should be required, the ultra-shrewd bargain priced additions of Ayew and McCarthy last season combined with playing very tight kept us in mid table despite the AWB money not being reinvested in the squad - Eze is the only example of Roy being backed in the market so Parish should take at least as much blame as Roy, but the turgid bus parking cannot go on indefinitely, the wheels have shown signs of coming off this season but we have enough about us to keep us well away from trouble. We need a new midfield - or a suitable partner for Riedewald, and a plan for a post Wilf future which will involve our attacking threat not being over reliant on one player, I don't think Roy is the person to take us that place even though I'm not as unappreciative of his efforts as some on here.

I tried to gauge fans opinion a few weeks ago to try an get people to put their success criteria on the line for the last 4 games.

Judging from the responses, most would have been disappointed with 6 points, although high scoring games against Leeds and West Brom have tipped the balance.

Many of Roy's biggest supporters don't seem to be forthcoming with what they think is an acceptable performance, often quoting Simon Jordan's cliche "be careful what you wish for". I saw a poster on another thread which said something like "well done croydon Roy, he'll keep us up again". This seems to be setting the bar quite low.

It seems like people that are supporting him are happy on the basis that we have a fairly mild mannered manager who is a) from Croydon and b) will avoid relegation.

It reminds me a bit of the section in Be Careful What You Wish For, where Jordan complains about the excessive celebrations after Stockport despite having a season only narrowly avoided being a complete disaster.

On the face of it, our results are fine, when you scratch the surface a lot of issues start to emerged. As you have noted 9 of our points have come from the 3 promoted teams, 6 from teams that were unprepared for the start of the season and 1 from a dreadful Brighton side.

The red card on Sunday was a turning point, but you can only play whats in front of you. All the result tells us is that we can score when we take teams on.

The bigger question is how we are going to start picking up points from established premier league sides?

Currently I'm content with Roy, but we should ask him to stand down gracefully when a better replacement can be sourced.

Apparently Celtic want him and he's a supporter. As I don't see him as a key player for us happy to let him go in January for a decent fee I would like us to bring in another creative midfielder.

One more point

One of his parents have passed away, been give compassionate leave.

Just the first half unfortunately and then switched over to watch Escape to the country.

Pivotal decisions are irrelevant if you don't exploit them. We did; both times; full credit to both player and management.

I recall not too long ago getting beaten by Brighton after they went a man down in the first half. We have it in our skill set to be handed a gift and then chuck it away

Word! Its what we have been saying all along.Let this team play to their strengths and allow them to express themselves, playing positive football and we have a squad thats impossible to beat. So Roy out brigade is vindicated. Maybe it should be Roy tactics out?

Playing the 10 men of one of the worst teams in the division is not the same as playing the best team in the division. Roy tactics will be invaluable on Sunday. Play against them to our "strengths" and we could get tonked.

Concede 65% possession, defend stoutly and hit on the break and we could do a rare one on Spurs. And...

This site will be stuffed with people saying: yeah we won, but we were lucky/played awful/would have been different had they not hit the woodwork etc.

Thanks. I hadn't read that

I’m not a Roy fan as I have posted many times, however I will give him credit for changing his tactics completely this year. He has gone from a 4-3-3/4-5-1 dependent upon who we are playing to a 4-4-2 which has improved our forward play dramatically.

It has also had a direct impact on how Zaha is playing and you only have to look at his goal return to see that. Yes, we still have the same midfield issues in that his old favourites are more or less finished at this level, however Eze has compensated a little for that.

I believe we are probably one decent young centre half and one young tenacious midfielder away from being a decent side this season. Next season will need some further changes because we can’t keep giving contract extensions to tired old 30+ year old players.

Ultimately I think we need 4 players, winger, striker, midfielder and CH.

As for Roy, for me he needs to get PVA’s defending sorted out or get Mitchell back or get a new left back and he needs to resolve our midfield issues, because that is still very much our weak point.