Right. I've finally calmed down enough to be objective and post without it simply being an angry rant.
Today was the worst we've played in as long as I can remember. That's not an exaggeration. It's a fact. Warren Joyce would've been embarrassed by that shit show. It made the performances under Joyce look like Guardiola had masterminded them.
The truth is that we showed absolutely nothing good in any department. Toothless in attack, disorganised and dominated in midfield, and keystone cops defending. There was no skill on show. There was no enthusiasm. There were no tactics. The team selection was completely baffling. We didn't have anything. With the exception of (again) Joe Williams and Antonee Robinson, the players all had awful games, and even those two were only semi-passable today.
Given that we've seen decent performances from most of the squad at some point during the season, we know the quality is there when they do play well.
The common denominator is the manager. It's him who picked Jacobs in the starting lineup. On the basis of last week, I'm not surprised that that alone would decimate the confidence and enthusiasm of a lot of the players. Let's face it, if you were in that squad and Jacobs got a starting place ahead of you, you'd be pissed off. What do Pilks, Windass and the others who were overlooked have to do if Jacobs is picked ahead of them? The same can be said for Fox not getting on ahead of Kipre now he's fit. Without a leader, our defence is dreadful. Dunkley needs Fox or Mulgrew to tell him what to do... He's a solid enough defender but he's not a leader or organiser. Kipre is young, I think he has potential, but he's not ready for this level. Needs a season on loan in L1 imho.
It's abysmal management to think players will keep any sort of enthusiasm when the manager habitually overlooks better players in favour of 'favourites', despite them being proven to not be up to this level of football. They're professional footballers and they know about football. The team knows who should be in the squad. So do the fans. The only person who doesn't is the manager, who's completely lost the plot and based on what we saw today, also lost the dressing room, because there didn't even seem to be any fight in them today.
What possible justification is there for keeping Cook on? We were riding our home form, and that was surely the only straw that kept him in a job, since our away form is nothing short of shameful. Today, we were at home. Our fortress, apparently. Yet we got absolutely tonked by a pretty average Championship side. We made them look like Barcelona. That has to be the last straw. Surely. Cook's position is entirely untenable after that, and he HAS to go. Enough excuses, enough 'unforgiving league' bullshit... We've spent a lot of money by our standards and the players we have are better than the embarrassing performances we're seeing. However expensive it is to sack Cook, it's cheaper than the inevitable relegation which is absolutely nailed on if he stays.
I don't care who we hire. No-one could do a worse job than Cook is doing. No-one.