Is it that simple

[H4usuallysitting]

Obviously Marco Silva has done a marvelous job since arriving - but is it down to playing player's in their preferred position's?.... Man management is also very important, but looking at the playing squad's there isn't any square pegs in round hole's

[Hatch007]

BDR at right back was the epitome of a square peg in a round hole but we got away with it somehow.

Fair play to BDR for doing a stand-up interim job but we certainly wouldn't have waned him playing an entire PL season at RB

[ChesterTheTabby]

As "simple as it sounds" for me is this - play the team that won you the championship, with meaningful upgrades or depth additions. No need to replace the whole squad. They got out of a division, give them the respect to try in the next with the same team chemistry.

[Jamie88]

I do not believe that management, especially at the highest level, is anywhere near as simple as "playing players in their preferred positions". It is not a game of 'Football Manager' on PC

[colinwhite]

Marco has done all that plus developed the players he has. Mitro is a better player playing for Marco,as are many others .The way we play brigs out the strengths of the players we have, and the team is very together both as group and in terms of how we play. Fantastic too see and we must get a new contract for him that he jumps at .

[The Rational Fan]

The lack of injuries have helped. If Leno, Palhinha, or Mitro had missed most of this season, then we would still be in a relegation fight for our lives.

[toshes mate]

When it comes to relationships the word most often used to describe the ingredient most often found in partners that work well is chemistry.  It's a good word to use for any mixture and reaction that seemingly goes the right way or does the right things and often in spectacular fashion.  If you could bottle and sell it someone would do it but you cannot and its appearance is (that word again) random.  You should move heaven and earth to keep it when you find it but it is highly unpredictable over long periods of time. 

Makes life interesting and just shows how unpredictable everything truly is - even the stuff experts tell us they are convinced they know. 

[Sting of the North]

The lack of injuries have helped. If Leno, Palhinha, or Mitro had missed most of this season, then we would still be in a relegation fight for our lives.

YOu could argue that an injury has actually really affected more than half the season so far for Mitro. He was playing as a world class forward before that. We also had what most people believed was supposed to be our starting wingers out for a good part of the season. I think an injury to Palhinha might have been the only real difficult to solve problem. 

All teams need a slice of fortune (or maybe better phrased as aviding bad fortune) to constantly perform at or above expectations, but you do not need to count on fortune to perform well. Under the current management we would still have performed well regardless of any injuries. The same cannot be said about a host of other teams, and I genuinely believe that unless we suffered an absolute massive injury crisis we would never have been involved in the relegation fight this year.