I agree with much of that, yes. I would slightly take issue with us behaving like a newly promoted club. That does seem to have been the mentality to start with, but O'Neil is learning so quickly that we are looking a lot more mature than that. Comparisons with Nuno's first two Premier League seasons are possibly premature but I think fair actually, and for a newly promoted club they were definitely outliers!Not voting either way as it's another opportunity for the insecure to lambast Lopetegui's character despite knowing a fraction of the full story, and continue to absolve the club of any blame over how things turned out when it's pretty obvious to anyone who can look at things a bit more objectively that it isn't quite as black and white as some on here attempt to portray it.
Lopetegui did a fantastic job of keeping us up. Yes, he was given substantial resources to do so, and a large part of our success was down to Dawson and Lemina, but we've seen many times, almost exclusively, that managers regardless of experience or stature have failed to rescue teams who have been down the bottom all season and are used to losing, with confidence drained and the doom cloud hovering ominously above their heads no matter what they try. The football was mostly uninspiring but he knew what was needed to save us and didn't just manage it, he delivered a load of clean sheets and we stayed up comfortably.
You could argue that O'Neil's feat with Bournemouth would have suggested he'd have done the same here, but I don't think he would have. Bournemouth were pretty much expected to go down - there was much less pressure on O'Neil. He still did a fantastic job there, no question, but I think he'd have found the dressing room a tougher place to get onside given the egos we had around the place at the time. By the same token, I'm not sure Lopetegui would have kept Bournemouth up - again, a case of the right man in the right place at the right time.
People harp on about Brighton and Arsenal away, but I was there - the players had downed tools in the same way Bournemouth did as soon as they were safe. It's not ideal - but understandable that players will naturally drop their performance level substantially when they know safety has been achieved, and I suspect many of them were already thinking about where they would be playing this season (not for us) with much of that damage done before Lopetegui arrived. Although you could definitely say he didn't help things with some of the players in this category, he had a single brief - keep us up - and there will always be casualties in those situations.
This season, we are a different prospect. A fresh voice with fresh ideas and a mentality more atuned to that of the mostly younger, less established names in our squad. Training and preparation are not about a very specific short term goal, O'Neil has the freedom to freestyle a little because he's delivered some early results that have bought him time and credibility with the fans and the players. We are behaving like a newly promoted club, and O'Neil has us punching a bit above our weight. The football is more enjoyable and we are competing again.
Fosun have got a lot of things wrong, but last season we had the right guy for the occasion, and it's fair to say it's the same this season too.
Didn't think I would ever say this, but part of me is glad things didn't work out with Lopetegui. I suspect we treated him shabbily, as even abrasive characters like him don't tend to behave in the way he did without justification, but it has worked out well for us. O'Neil is a breath of fresh air - the important thing is we stay behind him even if things don't go so well for him for a while, as we have been spoiled a little recently with an extraordinary run of form that we probably won't sustain.
My hope is that going forward we can accept Lopetegui did a good job, accept that Jeff probably made his position untenable and accept O'Neil is the right man for the here and now - no need to keep going back over old ground, look forward not back.