Steve Coppell and the FA Cup

[PlasticRoyale]

Going by the odds on betfair there is an implied 5% chance that we will be relegated

[Great Knolly]

...Also Glen Little was touch and go to be fit before the last of them, came off part way through that and is very clear in his view that his body couldn't cope with another game this Saturday...

After the West Ham game Little was asked on the radio if he was looking forward to playing Burnley. He basically said he was knackered and would prefer the day off !

Someone must have had a word with him cos a couple of days later on the official site it was:

"Thankfully I was able to come off and rest up and fingers crossed I can play Saturday."

[RoyalBlue]

Going by the odds on betfair there is an implied 5% chance that we will be relegated

And those odds would change dramatically if one of our key players got injured tomorrow!

[Platypuss]

5 days to sell Cup Final tickets to the finalists and make travel arrangements.

you get 6 days between the 2nd leg of the second qualifying round of the champions league and the 1st leg of the 3rd qualifying round and they manage to sort that out

This season the dates were

Second qualifying round, 2nd leg
01/02.08.2006

Third qualifying round, 1st leg
08/09.08.2006


http://www.uefa.com/uefa/keytopics/kind ... 25702.html

so the cup final should be easy, at least you know before hand what country the cup final will be played in unless they are gonna give wembley till the last possible minute to be ready!

So if you think it good be a problem if implemented in England do you still want us to qualify for Europe?

Same country but a different order of magnitude of "away" fans to accommodate.

[Farnborough Royal]

I'd say we're much closer to 50:50 staying up than 99.99%. Not much seperating us and third last.

You really think we might go down??

[2.8 lita injection]

I think Sir Steve Coppell is 100% correct.

Their are only a handful of games in the season that the back up players will get a chance to play first team football, i think it is very important to keep the back up players happy he has to give them some football during the season.

For the sake of keeping the back up players sweet and the squad together it is a small sacrifice to make.

This might the best year ever for Reading to do well in the FA cup but the facts are that one out of the top 4 clubs have won the FA in the last 13 years.

[Stranded]

I'd say we're much closer to 50:50 staying up than 99.99%. Not much seperating us and third last.

You really think we might go down??

We have the same chance as going down as that time Coppell was in charge at Palace and they had an 8pt gap over Sheff Wed with 9pts to play for....

[Farnborough Royal]

I'd say we're much closer to 50:50 staying up than 99.99%. Not much seperating us and third last.

You really think we might go down??

We have the same chance as going down as that time Coppell was in charge at Palace and they had an 8pt gap over Sheff Wed with 9pts to play for....

But thats PaLOLace

If we buy people in Jan then we should have nothing to worry about

[RoyalChicagoFC]

I'd say we're much closer to 50:50 staying up than 99.99%. Not much seperating us and third last.

You really think we might go down??

I reckon there's at least a .01% chance --which alone is enough to keep me up nights...

[alad]

Remind me when the playoffs get fitted-in, again?

During half-time of the Semi-Final and Final of the FA Cup.

Ofcourse!

I also like the way you get 2 days to make the club arrangements for the quarter-finals and sell the tickets.

Play all the last 16 games on Saturday and then you'd have 3 days !

Might help if the qtr finals were played at pre-arranged venues.

When you don't even know who'll be playing?

Sounds like you're a glass half-empty type.

There are only 3 days between the qtr final and semi of the World Cup and they manage to distribute tickets. The clubs in the round of 16 would be primed to deal with what would happen if they won.

Having the venues pre-arranged would deal with a lot of the admin issues even if it isn't known who is playing. They could allocate the grounds of 4 clubs who had been knocked out in the round of 32 or before. This year it
could be arranged after the 3rd round...

Liverpool v Arsenal
Man U v Villa
Sheff Wed v Man City
Birmingham v Newcastle

This is a wind-up.

Is this Alad?

Of course it's not me

I'd introduce a seeding system where the top 2 enter at the semi final stage, thus ensuring maximum interest and television viewing figures

[Victor Meldrew]

Definitely with those that say we should be having a go.
As Platypuss said earlier the idea of playing football is to do your best to win things and the FA Cup is a genuine opportunity to win something and the prestige of being the first team to play at new Wembley would be phenominal.
O.k if the Carling Cup is used to play fringe players but as those fringe players have now also needed to play in league games surely there is not much more to find out about them.
If it was a game against another Premier club there is a case for saying that it is an opportunity to see how they perform against top players.

If Steve Coppell had said that The Premiership is everything because the higher you finish,the greater the payout I doubt that this discussion would have gone on for so long and is a valid point but the case of seeing how fringe players perform doesn't wash IMHO.
If my account had not automatically been debited by the club I wouldn't be going today but as I see the rain lashing down and am about to leave at least I am promised to see my favourite player,Dave Kitson have a run-out and hopefully it won't just be in 2 minutes of injury time.

[Platypuss]

DE La cruz will not play

DE la cruz will never kick a ball for reading again

How do you know? Are you the Reading manager?

I think weybridgewanderer is correct.

But for the rain, that prediction would have proven to be bollox.
Sack your sources!

[Maguire]

If my account had not automatically been debited by the club I wouldn't be going today but as I see the rain lashing down and am about to leave at least I am promised to see my favourite player,Dave Kitson have a run-out and hopefully it won't just be in 2 minutes of injury time.

Bet you'd settle for two minutes of injury time now!

[PlasticRoyale]

I'd say we're much closer to 50:50 staying up than 99.99%. Not much seperating us and third last.

You really think we might go down??

No i don't think we'll go down but it's very tight at the mo. Two back to back losses and other results not going our way would see us slip to the 15th/16th mark. Might not be so wide then!! Our current form is one of the worst in the prem.

Enough of the doom and gloom though. I always think we're gonna win every game and suprised (followed by angered) when we don't. I think last season has led to unrealistic expectation's

[royalsteve]

Yet again Coppell devalues the cup, shameful.

If he thinks the cup doesn't mean as much as it did then I suggest Coppell takes a look at the last 10 winners. All top 4 clubs. If they take it seriously then so should every other club.

Reading have a good chance to do well in it but yet again the pathetic antics of Coppell have shown the club up. It's insular beyond belief. Just like when England thought they were above entering the early world cups.

Survival is almost assured, so why not take it seriously?

It's only an extra 5 games if you reach the final.

I'm sure players paid stupid wages can play a few more games.

survival isnt assured!!! When will you people learn......ok, if we play our first team and they are too knackered for the next game or get injured, then we start doing a wet sham and start shipping goals and losing, i guess people like you would be the first to moan......

i support coppell on this one.....defintely this season, maybe in the future we can treat it more seriously......he also needs to assess some players who may not figure in his plans next season......

[Pool and Darts]

I too, am with Coppell 100%.

I don't want Doyle, Shorey, Little, Sidwell, Sonks, Ingi etc. etc at risk of getting crocked by some lower league team who fancy getting a premiership scalp in the cup.

Who REALLY thinks we can cope with two or three key injuries at this stage of the season?

I mean, it has never happened against Burnley before has it?!?!

When we have been in the Premiership for another season or two, with a much larger squad of quality players, then I think that we should make a good go for the FA cup. We are doing very well this season, but are nowhere near safe enough yet. Like someone said, a few defeats on the spin, and results elsewhere, and we could very quickly be looking nervously over our shoulder. FWIW, I do honestly believe we will stay up, but only if we continue with how we have done so far. take Shorey, Doyle and one of our centrebacks out of the picture, and we won't be able to do that.

It is also good that the rest of the squad get some proper first team football. May even motivate them to try harder and get into the first team in the league, who knows?

I still remember the great cup runs we had in 97/98. How quickly were they forgotten when we went down at the end of the season?

We are not yet in that bracket of teams that can realistically go for the FA cup, that second tier of teams that are established, and have a decent squad. I'm sure we will be in a year or two, and then I'd be glad for us to have a crack at it!!

[Dirk Gently]

A case in point, in support of SC's strategy, is what happened at Birmingham yesterday.

The big thing for me is the disappointment of losing Nicklas Bendtner and Stephen Kelly, especially Nicklas. He will be a huge, huge loss and we fear the worst regarding his ankle.

He is not in a very good way in the dressing room and will be on his way to hospital. We hope that x-rays and scans in the next 24 to 48 hours will not reveal much damage, but it does not look promising.

We will know tomorrow if the ankle is broken, but it looks like it will be weeks or maybe months out of action, judging by the pain he is in.

He fell down a hole in the pitch. It's being relaid on Sunday, but it's been my fear that something like this might happen.

How might that affect them in the league, and potentailly lose them £40 million next season?

[Woodcote Royal]

But, they are only players who earn shed loads of money and we would only have been risking upwards of £35m.


Sod the manager (goods ones grow on trees, don't you know ) who sees it as vital to get a look at the likes of Scott Goldbourne and Shane Long in a competitive match.

We had die hard fans who had paid their £20 (big spenders, for sure) who should have seen our strongest side yesterday even if they'd had to swap their boots for water-wings.

I'm gutted the game was called off as a golden opportunity was missed for the WAGS to have flogged "I swam for Royalee" T shirts that would have become collectors items over night.

[Millsy]

I totally agree with Coppell.

He's got it spot on.

The £28million survival prize of the Prem is too huge a prize to risk with the injuries and distraction of a cup we will almost certainly never win.

Coppell is a winner.

A winner sets his targets and sticks by them. A loser faffs around and is swayed by circumstance.

That's what he's always done, and that's what he's doing now. Survival, an a decent enough league position to be able to hold onto and attract decent players is the priority here. We've waited 135 years to get here and we need to focus and consolidate our position.

Plus: it's not as though the games will be wasted - he's giving a chance to our fringe players - let them shine, let them get fit, let them prove their worth.

The best manager in England knows what he's doing.

[brendywendy]

its not even like it was that weak a team
ivar, harps, lita, plus oster and seol from the first team squad, convey on th ewing, plus kits on bench
then giving much needed trial to bikey in midfield, see how goldbourne is coming along,sodje a go at the back, see if fed is good enough in goal, another chance to useless
dont really see a problem and was quite looking forward to seeing how they gelled together