SC hasn't a clue.

[Terminal Boardom]

We need to be a shade more realistic.

Chopping and changing the manager will do nothing but waste time and take us backwards. How many managers have Leicester had since SSC joined? How successful have they been? We are in serious danger of "doing a Charlton". Positively, this would involve steady growth and improvement. Negatively, biting off more than we can chew.

I recall reading some time ago about the Business Plan which was for us to yo-yo between the Premiership and Championship and continuing to build steadily along the lines of Charlton and Bolton. This I can easily live with.

SJM has always said that he finds the whole concept of money in football as being vulgar and he is right.

Thank goodness the likes of Royalee, Woodcote and Wycombe Royal are not in charge of the football club. We would have gone out of existence years ago.

Be careful what you wish for.

[Agent Balti]

We need to be a shade more realistic.

Chopping and changing the manager will do nothing but waste time and take us backwards. How many managers have Leicester had since SSC joined? How successful have they been? We are in serious danger of "doing a Charlton". Positively, this would involve steady growth and improvement. Negatively, biting off more than we can chew.

I recall reading some time ago about the Business Plan which was for us to yo-yo between the Premiership and Championship and continuing to build steadily along the lines of Charlton and Bolton. This I can easily live with.

SJM has always said that he finds the whole concept of money in football as being vulgar and he is right.

Thank goodness the likes of Royalee, Woodcote and Wycombe Royal are not in charge of the football club. We would have gone out of existence years ago.

Be careful what you wish for.

OK, when would you replace a manager? After a relegation? After another failed season? What's your limit? It's hardly chopping and changing, it's not like we've only hired Coppell a year ago.

There has to be a point where you just have to stop relying on the same old, same old. Teams sussed us out a long time ago, and we've not changed accordingly. No Plan B, that's obvious. A business plan is one thing, delivery on the pitch in another. (P.S. I wouldn't swap with Charlton right now, thanks.)

Your pitching sentimentality versus what's happening in the last, ooh, 18 months...

Coppell is, and has been, superb for us - but that does NOT mean we can't explore other options, it certainly means we shouldn't. Everything has a shelf-life. Everything.

[The 17 Bus]

also here for 5 years, Sir JM, Kev Dillon, m hahnemann, g murty, j harper,

[Dirk Gently]

Cock

You're a cock.

Ah, the cut and thrust of intellectual debate!

[Southbank Old Boy]

We need to be a shade more realistic.

Chopping and changing the manager will do nothing but waste time and take us backwards. How many managers have Leicester had since SSC joined? How successful have they been? We are in serious danger of "doing a Charlton". Positively, this would involve steady growth and improvement. Negatively, biting off more than we can chew.

I recall reading some time ago about the Business Plan which was for us to yo-yo between the Premiership and Championship and continuing to build steadily along the lines of Charlton and Bolton. This I can easily live with.

SJM has always said that he finds the whole concept of money in football as being vulgar and he is right.

Thank goodness the likes of Royalee, Woodcote and Wycombe Royal are not in charge of the football club. We would have gone out of existence years ago.

Be careful what you wish for.

Have we been gradually building over the last 3 seasons?

or did Coppell get one excellent team to achieve the maximum of their potential and then slowly watch as that team slipped into mediocrity?

Chopping and changing does not involve keeping a manager for 5 and a half years!

[Terminal Boardom]

I have said often enough and for long enough that we have no Plan B. What I can not go along with is the blind assumption that as soon as a rough patch is encountered we ditch the manager. Look at 2004/5. The second half of the season was bizarre to say the least. The way the season ended gave no indication whatever that 2005/06 was going to happen. However, would we have signed Doyle, Lita, Long, Gunnarson, Oster and Makin had we sacked SSC the season before? It is because of the last 18 months that I suggested changing some of the backroom staff as I have got the feeling that a bit of a shake up is needed.

SSC has amassed over 1000 games in management. I think we have been incredibly fortunate to have him. Ask any supporter of any other club and there will be nothing but praise and credit for SSC. What do we do? Slag the bugger off and try and drive him out. And before you ask, I was not one of the car park crew. Would we really find anyone AT THIS TIME BETTER THAN WHAT WE HAVE?

Why is SSC held in such high regard at Palace? All that we ever seem to do is slag of anyone and everyone who has been associated with us. Why? No wonder supporters of other clubs have very little respect for us. We sure as hell don't respect what we have.

[Southbank Old Boy]

Coppell is still held in high regard for what he has done here too, that doesnt mean it might not be the right time for his reign to come to an end

You say we shouldnt ditch a manager because of a sticky patch, well we should if the manager has run out of ideas and the hunger for the job. He himself said he might not have been the right person to rebuild the team after it started to fail last christmas. That was why he was going to walk away

They say there is no room for sentiment in football, I think it was sentiment that made Coppell stay last summer and I think he should probably have followed his gut instinct and walked away

[Cookie]

He is obviously an intelligent bloke. Most pundits rate him as a very canny / astute / clever manager.
So why then, for the third season during his reign at the Club have we seen a spectacular collapse in form during the second half of the season.

And why does nothing appear to be done?

The answer: Steve Coppell does not know how or why the team were playing so well - therefore he has no clue what to do about them doing so badly. He does not know how to manage
Soon after he leaves we'll find out what went wrong.

Is this the third seasn we've blown it? You probably don't mean 2006/07 do you?

[Terminal Boardom]

Coppell is still held in high regard for what he has done here too - TB adds reading a number of posts on here I would have thought otherwise, that doesnt mean it might not be the right time for his reign to come to an end

You say we shouldnt ditch a manager because of a sticky patch, well we should if the manager has run out of ideas and the hunger for the job. He himself said he might not have been the right person to rebuild the team after it started to fail last christmas. That was why he was going to walk away

They say there is no room for sentiment in football, I think it was sentiment that made Coppell stay last summer and I think he should probably have followed his gut instinct and walked away

I agree totally with you there. I am actually against a reactionary knee-jerk reaction every time things go against us. We will know within the next 6 weeks what the outcome will be. I will be very surprised if SSC is still with us at the start of the 2009/10 season.

[yuomi]

hes been here for 5 years. our form has been dire for 3 MONTHS! i hate to think how many marriages most of you are going to get through. for gods sake lets have some perspecitve.

[BonBoh]

There are so many factors as to why we have slumped this year.
One major factor is our home form. Teams have learned how to frustrate us in different ways.
1. they play negative football with a 4-5-1 formation - stifling our attack, frustrating us and hoping for an away goal (which they ultimately get before us). Then they park the team bus in front of goal and shut us out.
2. they disrupt the multiball system and ask the ref to scrap it after they take the lead. Then revert to 1.
3. they target key outlets, such as Federici's kicking... slowing down our MOMENTUM which is our strongest asset at home and is relevant to points 1-3.

In general, one could criticize the fact that it took the management/training staff too long to figure out
a) what was going on
b) a solution to it
A solution may have been to play negative football and pass the ball around the back four - luring the opposition out.
A solution may have been to play a different formation - 4-5-1 or 4-3-3 in an attempt to thwart the opposition and enter a battle for supremacy rather than to blitz them with all guns blazing.
A solution may also have been to convert every good chance we had. Look at Sheff Utd. Kitson hit the bar. 60 seconds later the Blades took the lead. Had Kitson scored, it probably would have been a different outcome.
A solution is certainly also NOT to revert to hoofing the ball upfield when we go a goal down. However, this is not the management's sole fault. The players have lost confidence and start to panic. They then just punt it anywhere, hoping for the best. Yet, honestly, we are not that type of side and it never works - which is why we are in the state we are in at the moment. We have run out of ideas because everyone has forgotten the simple stuff we did earlier in the season.

Other things are a factor, too.
Leroy Lita.... Can't score for us (except the one on his return). Noel Hunt is dropped for Lita and we stopped scoring from the second game onward after he returned. Now how must Noel feel about that? Then SC chops and changes things but always goes with Doyle, who is probably completely burned out. Then we try anybody up front and re-sign Kitson who immediately replaces anyone who had any kind of form. No wonder the morale is shot and we have found it difficult to score. This is, in my opinion, down to poor management decisions. Yet again, they may have worked so we can't criticize SC for trying. It's always easier in hindsight.

Blackpool was a critical game for us and I feel that SC did the right thing. He dropped Kitson for NHunt and had the guts to play Karacan instead of Matejovsky. the initial 25 minutes gave us something to really hope for.
Let's tidy up a bit more and bring in Pearce for Duberry and get Henry back from Millwall. Play these younger players in the play-offs and if we go up, we go up. If we lose, like a lot of us might now expect to happen, we will at least have some great young players with the skill and the will to play for us all of next season in the Championship after we lose the big time charlies to the Premiership.

[Southbank Old Boy]

hes been here for 5 years. our form has been dire for 3 MONTHS! i hate to think how many marriages most of you are going to get through. for gods sake lets have some perspecitve.

Did you not witness Jan-May last season?

In my opinion we've only played well for about 6 weeks this season. Even then we werent great and just seemed to be on a roll where teams gave in against us once we got an early goal

We havent played good football to open up the opposition all season

[Skin]

We need cocks. Cox.

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

Unless Coppell quits (and assuming we stay down), I think JM has his most difficult decision to make since Jimmy Quinn and Mick Gooding's contracts expired.

"Something" clearly isn't right, and the weakness in the team, which makes the contrast between good and bad performances about as wide as it's possible to be, isn't likely to go away without a change of personnel. The question is whether it needs a change of playing personnel or management?

"Sack the manager" is often the knee-jerk reaction of choice, although that doesn't necessarily make it the wrong decision. The problem comes with the assumption that a new manager will be better. There's no guarantee that any decent managers will apply, as we found in 1997. There's also the problem that those that many would like to see leave are the players perceived as the stars of the team, and would most likely be players anyone coming in would want to hang on to. Maybe a new guy would be able to inspire them. Maybe not.

[Archie's penalty]

There are so many factors as to why we have slumped this year.
One major factor is our home form. Teams have learned how to frustrate us in different ways.
1. they play negative football with a 4-5-1 formation - stifling our attack, frustrating us and hoping for an away goal (which they ultimately get before us). Then they park the team bus in front of goal and shut us out.
2. they disrupt the multiball system and ask the ref to scrap it after they take the lead. Then revert to 1.
3. they target key outlets, such as Federici's kicking... slowing down our MOMENTUM which is our strongest asset at home and is relevant to points 1-3.

In general, one could criticize the fact that it took the management/training staff too long to figure out
a) what was going on
b) a solution to it
A solution may have been to play negative football and pass the ball around the back four - luring the opposition out.
A solution may have been to play a different formation - 4-5-1 or 4-3-3 in an attempt to thwart the opposition and enter a battle for supremacy rather than to blitz them with all guns blazing.
A solution may also have been to convert every good chance we had. Look at Sheff Utd. Kitson hit the bar. 60 seconds later the Blades took the lead. Had Kitson scored, it probably would have been a different outcome.
A solution is certainly also NOT to revert to hoofing the ball upfield when we go a goal down. However, this is not the management's sole fault. The players have lost confidence and start to panic. They then just punt it anywhere, hoping for the best. Yet, honestly, we are not that type of side and it never works - which is why we are in the state we are in at the moment. We have run out of ideas because everyone has forgotten the simple stuff we did earlier in the season.

Other things are a factor, too.
Leroy Lita.... Can't score for us (except the one on his return). Noel Hunt is dropped for Lita and we stopped scoring from the second game onward after he returned. Now how must Noel feel about that? Then SC chops and changes things but always goes with Doyle, who is probably completely burned out. Then we try anybody up front and re-sign Kitson who immediately replaces anyone who had any kind of form. No wonder the morale is shot and we have found it difficult to score. This is, in my opinion, down to poor management decisions. Yet again, they may have worked so we can't criticize SC for trying. It's always easier in hindsight.

Blackpool was a critical game for us and I feel that SC did the right thing. He dropped Kitson for NHunt and had the guts to play Karacan instead of Matejovsky. the initial 25 minutes gave us something to really hope for.
Let's tidy up a bit more and bring in Pearce for Duberry and get Henry back from Millwall. Play these younger players in the play-offs and if we go up, we go up. If we lose, like a lot of us might now expect to happen, we will at least have some great young players with the skill and the will to play for us all of next season in the Championship after we lose the big time charlies to the Premiership.

Excellent post.

And totally agree about playing a young and hungry team from now on. If we lose in the playoffs we lose - at least we will be going for it.

[Hoop Blah]

Agree with the sentiments Bonboh but most of that is tripe.

Being one of the top dogs in the league brings it's own pressures and problems. We have not been able to deal with those. A lot of the time we haven't even looked like we're trying to overcome the problems let alone be successful at it.

We were more clinical earlier in the season when we were winning games by good margins but never really creating a hatful of chances, and I'm pretty sure I've said before that form flattered our performances at the time, but you have to be realistic that you can't score from every chance. As for Sheff Utd, didn't they hit the bar before scoring as well, so it's not like they just nicked a goal with their only chance.

Whichever way we try to butter it up we haven't been good enough this season to break teams down and dominate games and deserve to win them. I personally don't think we have a good enough squad, bar 2 or 3 individuals who are better than this league, and Coppell certainly hasn't put together a side getting the best out of his available resources and with a varied and successful style of play.

Coppell is still held in high regard for what he has done here too - TB adds reading a number of posts on here I would have thought otherwise, that doesnt mean it might not be the right time for his reign to come to an end

I've been pretty critical of a lot of what Coppell/the club has done over the last season or two but I still give him credit where it's due. His achievements should never be forgotten but they shouldn't be an excuse for repeated errors to go unchecked.

I think the general consensus among those that are currently seeing an end to his tenure in the very near future is that Coppell has been excellent for the club but that his time has probably come to an end. You get the odd stupid dissenter on the extremes of course, but 99% of posters here are still very grateful for the guy's given us over his time in charge.

[brendywendy]

We havent played good football to open up the opposition all season

this seems wrong to me

but then what do i know

i have the memory of a piece of cheese

[Focher]

Steve Coppell - The greatest manager we have had in my 25 years watching Reading.

But......Whatever club he is at he will never last more than 3/4 seasons. His teams are made up of unknown grafters, if his team does well they either leave because the club isn't big enough (lets face it he will never be in charge of a big club), or they get too big for their boots, and he can't manage that type of player. Everything happening now was always on the cards, the same happened at Palace.

Time for a change after this season is out.

[Hoop Blah]

We havent played good football to open up the opposition all season

this seems wrong to me

but then what do i know

i have the memory of a piece of cheese

I meant that even when we were beating teams easily we weren't really playing good football, we were playing the same percentage football into the channels that we are now. The difference was that the opposition didn't handle it and we took our half chances unlike now.

There was plenty of discussion at the time about how we weren't passing the ball and many were saying it didn't matter because it was working and we were winning. I think those of us that said we needed to be a little bit better on the ball and play with a bit more guile have been proved right to some extent....

[brendywendy]

ok, fairy muff


'greed