We don't know how this has impacted the players until we've seen us play a few games. It could easily have a negative effect because it's such an outrageous penalty and footballers are humans and can't not be affected. We do know though that it will have been an enormous boost for the three sides at the bottom who all had abysmal starts to the season. You can't underestimate that impact now that (pending appeal) one of them can easily stay up.
All that said, we need to not panic when others win. We need to not panic when we lose. We need to stay level headed when we have good results. This will go deep into the spring again and we need to accept that, even though I hate the thought of it.
We need to fight this appeal with everything we've got, but we can't just assume we will get a fair decision either considering how ridiculous the initial penalty of 10 points is.