This is far from being a bad season. In season 10 the U-21's lost every game.
People have to step back and realise that we are not at level of top teams just yet. As I've said before we can only judge Matt on what happens in season 15, his fourth season in charge, as that is when the 18 year olds he began to mould when he first came into the job will be 21. Very few, if any, managers were training young players in the right way before Matt came in
While the last 3 games have been defeats, they've been really close games. but you've got to look further than the results to see that the U-21 national team has improved alot since Matt took over.
Against Wales we lost by 6 points, but we TIE'd and they CT'd. We probably should have won regardless, but sometimes you just don't get the luck needed, and the othe team get's the luck they need. I watched the game, and there were a few key plays where we failed to score. Regardless of that, when is the last time (before Matt came) that we can TIE and expect to beat a team that CT us?
Losing to Hong Kong by 2 points is by no means bad. They are one of the "coming" teams in the game. In fact from what I hear they hav great organisation, in both the NT and Community areas. They had 212 votes in the last NT manager elections and as reported in the Buzzerbeater news section they grew their manager pool by 1,000 people back in April, which really demonstrates organisation skills at work. In 4 or 5 seasons they'll be a top NT, as they have massive active numbers and the orginisation to go with it.
Again with the Belarus game if you look at the box score you'll see that Belarus tried harder than us. Whether we TIE'd to have higher enthusiasim levels for the Estonia match, or they Ct'd us I, we still only lost by 2 points to a team that tried harder than us!
I think we can see in those 3 games that we are indeed improving, but we're only approaching the midpoint of our development under Matt. I would class this season as a good one, we are doing what we want to - improving.