A disastrous end to a calendar year that has been as good as any in the past three decades or so and now has a sour taste in the mouth.

I have been an admirer of Claude Puel and I still think that in the long term he can still be a very good manager for this football club, however I cannot defend his team selection against West Brom and the multiple changes that again happened.

Of course of the six changes from the Spurs game, one was definitely enforced with Redmond suspended and a second may have been with Soares not on the bench and therefore we have to assume injured.

But the other four were in the main unnecessary, the real problem being the changes at the back.

Over the past couple of seasons we have built our success on being strong at the back and not conceding a lot of goals, that in turn leads to good strong build up play going forwards and creating chances, but we are mucking our back four about so much the team has no pattern from game to game, we have lost our rythym and lost our momentum.

That has led to inconsistency both in our play and in our results.

Yesterday we effectively had a second choice back four out and as I say that didnt just cost us goals but meant that we struggled to build attacks enabling West Brom to sit back catch us on the break and deal with what we had to throw at them easily.

As I said in the preview we are at a crucial stage of the season and Claude Puel needed to put his best side out against West Brom, get three points in the bag and then worry about the next game.

At this moment he is trying to be too clever and resting players who don't need to be rested.

He has to take each game as it comes and not keep trying to think of the game after each time.

If we had done that yesterday then I think we might have got something out of the game instead of looking like a disorganised rabble.

Last season was about momentum, that coming fro a settled side that knew was it was doing and had the subtle tinkering needed from game to game, now we just make change for change sake.

It should be pointed out that earlier in the season we needed to switch things around with so many European games, but we got the balance wrong in that and now we are getting it wrong in the league.

Puel has lost a sizeable majority of the fans and that has made it even harder for his team when they step on the pitch, the crowd was on certain players backs before a ball had been kicked, the ironic cheering of Fraser Forster being an example of this, just what that does to help the team I don't know.

The good news though is we are still in 9th place and well positioned to kick on in the new year, the question is though whether the manager is flexible enough to realise the error of his ways and get things right.

Part of that is that he is still learning about his squad and the Premier League, after yesterday he will be even more aware of its limitations and that in turn may make him think that he has not yet got the squad to truly be able to rotate as much as he likes.

One thing we need to remember is where we are and what we have acchieved this year, if someone told any supporter at the start of the season that we would end the yer in 9th place and be in the League Cup semi final they would have been happy with that.

Yes there have been disappointments, but we have to forget those and look to the future, it is always about what we do next, not what we have just done and that is the same for the manager as well as the fans.

Photo: Action Images

Jesus_02 added 00:16 - Jan 2 We don't play like we have any belief. It feels like we have lost leaders at the club. Hoeburg needs game time, so does Boufal. FF looks like he has lost the will to live. Still a new year, hopefully a new dawn. If we can get a decent CB to replace Fonte and maybe we can turn Gardos into Tiery Henry all should end well
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BoondockSaint added 02:22 - Jan 2 I'm not a fan of rotation-Just play your best players every game. It makes the ones on the bench hungry. Then, when a starter has to be out, the new player wants to impress the manager and plays with some fire. Still not sure about Puel. I mean, when he looks down the roster, except for VVD, what names jump out at him? He's got a lot of fairly good players, but no great ones. But then he alienates their captain and never goes on a rant about no one having any desire! Of course, he may be just channeling the boards attitude of just throwing some players out there and cashing the gate receipts. VVD looks like he can't wait to get away from these bunch of losers and Boufal looks like he is going to sack his agent because this team is not furthering his career like he was told it would. Anyhow, a Happy & Healthy 2017 to you all!

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Consigliere added 09:21 - Jan 2 I think Half Time has the measure of this game - no one player was especially poor, but it was a poor team performance overall, at least it was after WB equalised. I think that the stats tell us that the Saints have lost more games from a winning position than any other team this season, and what this tells me is that there is a confidence issue. Time was that the team played to the final whistle but on Saturday there was a sense of resignation in the second half. I can't fault the substitutions but the manager needs to work on the mentality of the players. We are good enough to have won this match, and actually, good enough to have won the Spurs game too. On the positives, great to see Long score, and an excellent goal too!

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