I'd have Davek over Barry, frankly.
Speaking of, I haven't opened the Moyes thread yet but I assume he's kicked off in there about sackings or what not.
I think the emotional irrational for many is that it happened again against them, like you said. Remove the emotion and logically there's a lot of positives you can find but even without emotion attached there are definitely quite a few negatives to suggest we are not quite Europe-level ready...