If NW stated openly that we were going to easily beat the likes of Man City, Chelsea, Liverpool, Tottenham and Arsenal he would be laughed out of town. He knows that, even if we played to the best of our ability, the likelihood is that we would get beaten nine times out of ten by these teams. By reducing expectations for these types of games he is taking pressure off the players in the hope that they rise to the occasion and pick up the odd point or two against the 'big guns'. We could easily have got a point against Arsenal and did well at Chelsea for 80 minutes. It all went wrong against Man City but that is no reason to start pulling apart the tactics and criticising the manager and players. Its what he does in training and says in private to the players that counts. Most fans can see that - some cant or dont want to.