OP is spot on.
It felt like this season was different. Everyone was on the same page behind the team and there was a real sense of unity and disbelief at how well we were performing.
Felt like the mood started to change though after we lost to Liverpool. We were outclassed but lost narrowly 0-1 against the reigning champions. Their £100m playmaker ran the show.
"We didn't lay a glove on them"
"We didn't have a go"
"Where was the intensity?"
Anyone thinking rationally would surely realise we'd gone away to the runaway leaders on the Saturday before and put in a decent performance, but that naturally takes it out of players and it wasn't entirely surprising there was a drop-off when playing the champions just a few days later. The players aren't super human, the effort and intensity required to match teams of that quality is immense and it's impossible to do it every game, let alone when playing the midweek after.
Everyone said we'd collapse during AFCON but we didn't, we kept pace and picked up some decent results in tough games despite missing half the team during the busiest period of the season. The Christmas and New Year period massively favours the teams with the biggest squads. Not only do we not have a big squad, half our starting lineup were missing. We didn't really see the impact of that til about February/March. Players started to look tired and yes, there was a drop in intensity. We picked up a lot of injuries. At one point we were missing Roefs, Mukiele, Reinildo, Ballard, Le Fee and Traore, plus Brobbey and extended period without Xhaka before that. 7 regular starters - swap Sadiki for Traore and you've probably got out 7 best players. We had a shit result in the cup, a couple of home defeats, a couple of excellent away wins and decent results against Bournemouth and Spurs. Pretty much par for the course for a mid table side, never mind one with a shitload of injuries.
The overall quality of the Premier League has increased massively since we were last in it. Spurs finished 17th last season and are 18th this season but are the reigning Europa League winners and finished 4th in the Champions League ahead of Barcelona, Real Madrid, Inter, Juventus, PSG etc. Forest are 16th but in the Europa semi finals. There's only two shit teams this season when in the past you could take your pick from half the league. Just about every game is really tough but we've ground out results pragmatically to position ourselves comfortably in mid table with an outside chance of Europe. That's incredible. But also not enough for some? Just find that a bit disappointing.