I was a little bit ‘glass half full, glass half empty’ on a beautiful Sunday morning in North East Thailand. A little hungover but still smiling from the night before

What a battling performance at Villa Park! A mindset we maybe haven’t seen for the last few games - outstanding 100% gutsy contributions all over the pitch.

What we lacked in technical quality we made up for in heart, spirit and fight. Something that was always going to be the thing that keeps us in the league until we can compete in terms of quality individuals with the other teams.

My thai friends were watching the game live with me. As we do every week, other than evening games. We’re seven hours ahead so that makes a 3am KO impossible.

The Premier League is a religion in Thailand. The boys here know their football, so to see them nodding in approval through the game, gasping at Alex Palmer's efforts and leaping out of their chairs when Liam Delap scored and on the final whistle warmed the heart.

Yep! Theres a new gang of Tractor Boys in my village!

My small half empty glass, however, is that everyone knows just how important it is that a goalkeeper is trusted by his team.

Palmer was solid at Coventry and outstanding on Saturday with a cool head on the ball and one or two saves that took your breath away, especially the last one in injury time. Also and equally importantly you can clearly see his teammates now have confidence in their glovesman (sorry Phil 😂).

Defence were resilient, tough to get through and when Villa did penetrate? Palmer was there!

My half empty glass therefore is... why oh why did we stick with a keeper for so long who was clearly so inept (strong word but unfortunately true) at this level.

I truly believe we would be at least six or seven points better off with a quicker decision being made about Aro Muric. And if we do find ourselves in the Championship again people at the club need to think about Muric and never let that situation happen again - especially in such an important position on the pitch.

People might say hindsight is a great thing but our keeper problem wasn’t hindsight IMO and many others have voiced the same thing.

Muric was clearly not fit for purpose after about three games. We the fans knew it, pundits knew it, audiences around the world knew it. My Thai friends, for example, holding their breath and head in hands every time he received the ball. They would look incredulously at me - as if I had some influence. All I could do was shrug my shoulders and use the thai words ใช่ เขาเป็นตัตลก - loosely translated. yep! He’s a clown.

McKenna is a hero to us all but there’s a lesson there. Sometimes you’ll make a mistake with a player. That’s OK. But it’s not OK to not resolve it quickly - change it!

Back to half full glass…

I’ve given up my seat in the Sir Bobby for a seat in the countryside sun and a prem league TV pass 6,000 miles away. So the message from the Nakhon Phanom Tractors (that’s me and half a dozen Thais) is: Now we can trust every player on the pitch. Bring on Spurs, Man U and the rest. F*$¥ the nay sayers.

Let’s do this!!!!

ChrisFelix added 16:39 - Feb 19 I agree wholly about Muric. Both Ashton & Mckenna have been excellent with their big money signings, until this clown arrived. It was evident that he didnt communicate with his defenders. I agree he would have made many of the excellent saves made by Palmer on Saturday. But then he would make his errors such as Southampton
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Jugsy added 17:00 - Feb 19 Nice piece and great to hear that you're flying the flag for Ipswich in Thailand! Whilst it's virtually impossible to disagree that Muric's performances not being up to standard, I won't go heavy on the guy or the decisions to buy/play him. No-one went with the intention of this being a relative failure. The mental battle and confidence issues for goalkeepers in particular is huge - I'd encourage anyone to read the tragic Robert Enke book to understand this better. I've heard our own fans be vile to Muric at games, as if this would help the guy. Plain wrong - he's clearly having mental gymnastics when he gets on the pitch, desperate to do well but getting it wrong. On the flipside of this, mgmt have a responsibility to handle this situation and support Muric better. Get him out of the firing line, work with him on the issues, etc, that's their job. But i'm also loathed to point the finger at them - lest we forget that McKenna is still young and inexperienced himself. He's learning and he will accept he got this wrong. That's the game, we have to accept the imperfections and move forward positively. Sorry Aro, looks like we won't be your club, wish you well going forward. Welcome Alex Palmer.

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terryf added 17:56 - Feb 19 Goalkeeper is a difficult gig, but irrespective of what the Club paid for him it was pretty obvious early on that he was capable of erractic decisions. His previous Club history bears testimony, so I'm not sure that due diligence was paid on this signing. Unfortunately the defence was also trying to establish itself with many individual errors. Couple that with the problem of not scoring enough goals was a recipe for our present situation. The bottom line is we need to turn likely draws into victories. A difficult task but not insurmountable!

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armchaircritic59 added 18:05 - Feb 19 Agree very largely with the above. It's just a shame it doesn't appear to be working out for AM, I'm sure it isn't for the want of trying, I think there might be concentration issues that are causing the problem. I don't like reading some of the very unpleasant comments that have been aimed at him in many posts however. Imagine what it must be like if he or even any of his family ever read them or get told about them. Maybe his future lies elsewhere, but I wish him all the best for the rest of his career, wherever it may be. As for AP, it does appear he's the " real deal ", though drawing concrete conclusions from 2 matches may not be ideal. He will inevitably make a mistake sooner or later ( he's human ), so I wonder what the boo boys on here will make of that! A few more performances like the last one might just keep us in the PL, though I've watched Wolves a few times this season, and I think they are a better side then their current position indicates. Hope I've got that wrong! Finally, good to hear from someone else with South East Asia connections. I have a very good friend a bit further east in The Philippines, been out there 3 times over the past 18 months, hopefully again in May/June time. I don't think I'll have much luck getting a large following of Tractor Boys there unfortunately, as it's a very small island, but I'll continue to see what I can do!

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chripswich added 00:52 - Feb 20 Agree “armchair” don’t want to name drop but I knew Richard Wright back in the day and had a few conversations about the massive importance of confidence and mentality of a keeper. He had to fight very hard mentally after his England caps that didn’t end well for him. That said I think the crowd were always on his side. That helps. From what I’ve heard from friends at games,given Murics performances, the crowd were pretty lenient with him. Think Andy Marshall!! and the north stand destroying him and you know how vitriolic a crowd can be to one of their own team. I personally was pretty disgusted at the behaviour towards Marshall. Being an ex canary seemed the main reason for the level of poison. He never recovered. I hope Muric can. But not in a town shirt. I think that’s pretty obvious tbh.

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PhuketPete added 05:54 - Feb 20 Hi Chripswich Sent you a PM re our Thailand WApp group! Nice post. Aro divided opinion for sure. Not so much re his skills which most could see were not yet all we needed in the PL, but more perhaps in respect of how much time we should give him or how critical to be. Ultimately many were very critical and it seemed to further weaken Aro. Either way it feels KMcK stayed loyal to him for too long esp with CW clearly ready to go. The next question of course will now be who plays out of Palmer and Walton when the latter is fit but if KMcK stays true to form he’ll stick with Palmer if he keeps delivering.

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ZurichBlue added 13:36 - Feb 20 Great blog @chripswich that, along with the comments in the posts above, echo the thoughts and opinions of the Pattaya ITFC group, 7 of us (I must change my username). Our collective opinion is that KM should have changed AM for Walton weeks before he did so. This would have enabled him to bed back in with the team, before having to contend with City and Liverpool. To some extent it was understandable for KM to persevere, not least of to show faith and confidence in what was a high value signing, but misguided loyalty has come at a price! Having a vocal, confident and capable keeper from the onset would, I believe, have led to us being 4 or 5 points better off than we are. Though I spend most of my time in Thailand I decided to retain my season ticket (SBR lower behind the goal) for when I’m in the UK. I saw the Liverpool and Man United games and will be home in April for the Wolves and Arsenal games. When I’m not the UK my seat is always occupied by family and friends who are under strict instructions to make some noise, don’t groan at every misplaced pass and never boo!!

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