It’s been a turbulent 8 days at Fulham Football Club. We went from winning four games in a row, to losing three in a week. It’s hard to take as we have dropped to sixth in the table, but really that’s the least of our problems. The gap between us and Leeds and West Brom is most likely too big to claw back, meaning that the goal of automatic promotion could have already ended. We have a talented squad, but we also have a massively under achieving squad and it’s hard to figure out what direction we are going in. We aren’t a happy club right now.

But I really don’t think it justifies the absolutely toxic atmosphere that we have created for ourselves.

What has happened to us? Some fans are on the backs of the players before they have even touched the ball. Our boys are out of form, but I don’t for a second believe that the likes of Mawson and Bryan are bad players. You don’t become a bad player overnight, and we have seen enough of them to know that they have a lot of quality. They aren’t showing it at the minute, and that’s hugely frustrating for us all.

This is second time this season that I’ve written a piece about the treatment of our players, and it’s not even Christmas yet. This isn’t about not venting your frustrations. We absolutely have that right, but quite often the sort of things that are shouted at football players throughout a match are just vile. It’s not helpful to anyone and there will come a time when it impacts the players. It might have already started to.

Let’s get some perspective. We have a very inexperienced manager who is trying to find his feet, yet we are still very much in the play-off scene. We are in one of the craziest leagues in the world, were results are neither predictable or consistent, and we aren’t even half way through yet. While we would need a near miracle for us to achieve automatic promotion at this rate, it’s not impossible. What we need to do as a fanbase is get behind the team rather than tear them apart at every opportunity.

On to Leeds for hopefully a much better performance than against Brentford.

#COYW