This season so far has been up and down the same as you mentioned in other era's and this is probably down to what you could call arrogance or complacency in the club thinking they are so far ahead of every other team that they can't be stopped
Not sure if it is total arrogance/complacency,sure in some part,but have to remember also we have a heavy squad ie,too many players,not going to be good enough to fill the jerseys,!football now as we know it is finished???? The money now via sponsors/ media and whoever else out to make a buck at the expense of fairness is unparalleled, look at the proposals for the cl, soon we will not be allowed to play ,if things don’t change football is finished as we know it,so you can see the reluctance of our board being unwilling to a degree to finance players to win this league, I totally agree though,that we should not be in this position,some of our performances have been far and away below what we expect from this team, in effect we have dropped dramatically to everyone’s level, they HAVE not raised to ours,having said that ,we are in the last 32 of the el,and we can defeat Valencia,if,we strengthen,the last 16 is a distinct possibility ,and who knows,at least be given a chance to raise our standing in Europe, can’t be done overnight ,but surely with some effort by the board and manager we may be able to raise that standard,that is my view, don’t know if you agree/disagree,,but how I see things, we will win number 8,hh,