If anything, it's the total opposite: our players, for the most part, are trying their hearts out, and even on Sunday came out full of incoherent bluster backed up by zero structure or planning.
Running around aimlessly with no real idea of what the men next to you are supposed to be doing, and doing that as best you can, is both exhausting and completely demoralising, which is why once our little passion bubble is popped, we capitulate mentally as the 'team' on the pitch come to the collective conclusion that they have no idea how they'll get out of the current pickle.
When matched with players of similar ability who are in total unison as a team, it becomes apparent that you're heart and effort isn't going to be enough, because, well, the opposition have as much, or even more conviction and collective sense of purpose to your team. Again, a juncture where heads do - and should - drop.
Our players have every right to be exasperated because they know full well that with good coaching and management as well as tactical instruction, they can compete. Most of them know that much from their international teams, where even a dire manager like Southgate has a plan and structure that will be stuck to giving every player a defined role to live or die by.
Someone like Southgate protects his defensive players and leaves his midfielders, but attackers, in particular, with less support. At least, with him, it's all by design despite iy being a horrid, cowardly way to play with such an impressive set of attackers.
Ole has not given any part of the team a reason to believe in his plan or tactical output. Our defenders are lost at sea, with no signs of improvement - particularly evidenced on defensive set pieces; our midfield is arguably as bad as anything in the league, and relative to outlay (p4p), the worst in the league and our attack is reliant on magic rather than any concerted plan, which is why the majority of our goals are the pick of a round rather than 'effortless' tap-in jobs of sides who rack up cricket scores on a regular basis (see City and Liverpool). Our players are running in treacle because of how unprepared we are to be out there against all these teams who are, without question prepared to match us for effort.
On top of the above, Ole's utilisation of the squad is custom-made to cause upset and divide as anyone outside his select few players will see, time and time and time again, those same players 'rewarded' for poor performances with the game after game whilst they are left either as barely used subs, or totally ignored, which naturally causes discontent, and theoretically, disharmony.
'Vipers' would have flooded and inundated the media with stories from behind the scenes weeks ago; doubts about the coaching and management will have been there long before the mauling on Sunday.
If anything, Ole's lucky we don't have the viruses some of our fanbase like to suggest we do because, if we did, Ole could have been walking on hot coals a good while before now. What we're more likely seeing now is an outpouring of bottled emotions and thoughts, not some machiavellian scheming with our very own Little Finger and council. It's perfectly natural in any workplace for the disgruntled to speak up once the floodgates of discontent are out in the open.
There's zero reason for the players to go down with this ship - almost to a man, an essay can be written on how or why each of them has been let down by what we've set out to do. Maguire, for example, I'm almost certain isn't fully fit, yet he's been rushed into the team and is getting roasted for his performances. I'm sure of the same with McTominay. I'm not a big fan of either, but it seems clear to me neither of them is right, but are out there in the spine of the team because Ole feels he cannot be without them. There's no need to go on as this isn't an exercise is slaughtering our staff, rather, to highlight that so many players in the squad could have fed the press a long time before now, but did nothing of the sort.
This culmination is simply pressure bursting pipes, at which point something has got to give.
