I'm expecting us to get 'found out' at some point. Right now, we're playing excellent, and feels like a whole new team has arrived in the league. that is to say, I'm expecting a 'difficult 2nd season' syndrome akin to what Leeds utd appear to be having at the moment.

hopefully this happens next season, and not earlier.

As for burn out. I think our CB's are our biggest issue - Lose either of them to injury, and our passing out from defence all of a sudden becomes a lot riskier with the likes of Tompkins.

RB cover good.
LB cover, Jairo can step in, and also Hannam ?

"It was a Team effort, I guess it took all players working together to lose this one"

If you watch the ZDS cup final again you'll see what an exciting team we were then. I think the current team is playing some great stuff and will be recognised one of our best ever - if we keep it up all season. And if we get some silverware then definitely!

Not up for debate which team would win. It's a different game now.

The 90s side has a fair bit in common with the current lot as it too was a beautifully drilled side that simply did what it did very well. In some ways I'd have it ahead of this lot which is still embryonic really and finding out how to beat teams and not simply be competitive.

We were good in November 2012.

We played incredible stuff in the first half of the season when we won what is now the Championship, but as the OP said, that was second-tier football.

Personally, I loved watching the Coppell era team play precisely because they lumped it long and knocked people about! Nothing better than seeing the big boys steamrolled in that fashion, but those days are long gone.

As many have said (including the OP) it is too early to say that this is what we can expect from the team most weeks. It might just be a purple patch, and we must keep in mind that many successful 'upstart' teams can only maintain their form for as long as it takes the rest of the league to take them seriously. Then they get analysed in greater detail, and coaches start working out plans to counter what the successful side is doing. It will be interesting to see if teams start pressing us more intensely for instance and whether we can still operate as well under such conditions.

The hope must be that we are in the category whereby teams know what to expect but can't always stop us. There will of course be difficult periods, but this is still great.

I wasn't sure that our summer spending had landed good enough players for us to play nice football and still stay up, but at the moment it looks like perhaps the money has been well spent. The two centre backs have done well (especially with the ball), and of course, Gallagher has been amazing. Olise looks like he will be a real asset, and we have seen flashes of good stuff from Edouard too. Hughes remains an unknown, but otherwise not a duff in sight.

But almost the point is, what's the other option?? I coach American Football and there was the phrase "don't save anything for the 4th quarter, it'll be too late by then."

You're almost certainly right, but I'd rather we went flat out, got our points tally up, blew a few teams off the park and then when we start being a bit leggy it'll be a matter of us dropping from 3rd in the table to 5th, lol (we can dream).