Coppell's lack of ambition

[Big Dan]

ah,but in comparison to other clubs we're cheap,and if we want to compete with other clubs in the transfer market,blah blah,blah

[Farnborough Royal]

our best league finish ever


and Coppell lacks ambition

In the cups he does

erm, when was that?

When he played a severely under-strength team in every cup game this season, and has already admitted that he will play reserves if we make it to the UEFA Cup.

[AthleticoSpizz]

"under strength"..that would include your goal scoring avatar then (my player of the season...had he had the opportunity to have more starts) .

A different line up ...yes....under strength?...no


Virtually each and every player who featured in a cup game has also featured in a league game....and deservedly so.


3-4 defeat at Anfield and the infamous 2-3 to Man U were hardly the white flags of a team without ambition

[koran]

our best league finish ever

and Coppell lacks ambition

In the cups he does

erm, when was that?

When he played a severely under-strength team in every cup game this season, and has already admitted that he will play reserves if we make it to the UEFA Cup.

Our greatest strength IMHO has been the cohesion of the team. They play their hearts out for one another week after week. That is partly down to the fact that SC has valued all his players and has shown it by letting them all (or most) play their part in the league or in the cups. A set of players (mainly reserves) got us into a position of playing Man U at the Mad Stad in a cup replay. If SC had then chosen his 'best' players, as many advocated, what message would that have sent to the 'reserves'. "Thanks for getting us this far but I'm now ditching you because you're not good enough!"

That would have undermined the atmosphere at the club between the players. He has enabled nearly all the squad to contribute to what has been and is a fantastic season. And I predict that he will make a few new signings only for next season - and he will ease them into the side gently as he has done with Halford. There will be no big signings to immediately replace present players who would then feel demotivated and unappreciated.

SC is not infallible but he is, surely, Manager of the Season!!

[Woodcote Royal]

I want us to be in Europe next season - simply for the honour and prestige of it. We may never get another chance.

It's that little Reading (losers) mentality that just won't go away

Perhaps. just perhaps, when Steve Coppell said he didn't want European fooball next season he actually meant it.

Perhaps, just perhaps, he's more interested in the long term future of this club (that means qualifying for Europe on a regular basis) than pandering to the demands of many silly fans, young and old, who want European football and aren't prepared to wait until he feels we are ready to take on this extra commitment.

I have to say that I'm delighted with what Steve Coppell's lack of ambition has achieved for this club, and if that puts daylight between me and some of the views expressed here ....................even better!!!

[Behindu]

When he played a severely under-strength team in every cup game this season, and has already admitted that he will play reserves if we make it to the UEFA Cup.

You are clearly entitled to your opinion, but it is just factually wrong to state we played a 'severely understrength' team in every cup game !

On what basis to you judge the teams to be 'severely' under strength ?

And do you think Coppell should be entitled to actually manage the side and make decisions rather than just pick and XI every week that never changes ?

[Hungerford Bee]

Looking on from the outside - or even the subterrean depths of League 2 / Division 4 if Coppell is not given a unanimous vote of manager of the season in the Premiership then justice will not have been done.

Despite storming the Championship last season most professional observers were convinvced that Reading would struggle this season and even after the turn of the year were amazed at the results that Reading were achieving and that they could actually play football as well.

If his squad selection for cup competitions was controversial then surely he won that argument too with the results that were achieved?

Go back 10 or even 5 years and how many of you would have dreamed that you would been squabbling about Reading's team selection for potential european competition?

You should all have cut outs of Coppell in your front rooms and pray to them 5 times a day if you ask me!

[silchester rovers]

We got as high as we did by drawing relatively few games, being positive and winning them as often as possible. This we did , with Doyle especially managing to put away a high proportion of the relatively few clear cut chances we seemed to create in many games.

Next season, we may draw games we may have won this time, and our strikers may struggle for form.

So a top half finish next year would be superb, and prove that this season has been no fluke.

Coppell is the master of expectation management. I expect that when we've consolidated in the Premiership he will want to push on to get into Europe and win things!

[Man Friday]

I'd like us to go for the cups next season as we're not going to win the Prem and so what's the point of turning up if you're not trying seriously to win things?

[zac naloen]

I'd like us to go for the cups next season as we're not going to win the Prem and so what's the point of turning up if you're not trying seriously to win things?

A little something called £480,000 for every league position.

[papereyes]

The fact of the matter is that something like 3 league positions better is worth more than a full FA cup run.

Which does depress me slightly.

[Bluey]

WOW ! Thank the breweries we don't all think the same, a fascinating read indeed. Totally understand why a lot of true blue supporters are confused at SC's strategy, but after ' closely following ' Reading FC for near on 40yrs, I for one am more than happy to wait a few more by concentrating on Prem consolidation.
And in 50years time when we all look back on the ' Coppell Era ', we'll all say " Yeah , that bugger had ambition "
If your'e that impatient to get to Europe, way you go then, see you there in a few years.

' Go Hard You Royals '

[BonBoh]

Can somebody please identify the link to the pre-season predictions of everybody on this forum?
I remember saying if we came 15th in the Premiership I would be ecstatic (or something like that).

Come on now, seriously... how many of you thought we would be looking at a top 7 finish before the season started?
Then look at the outrageous approach of some of you in this post..
This has nothing to do with Communism and not letting people express their views. It is about keeping both feet firmly on the ground and realising the realistic ambition this club has - even though we may not want UEFA Cup football next season - the club is growing in a very healthy manner.

So, please - with a cherry on top - stop criticising Coppell for a so-called lack of ambition. Or would you prefer we lose him because he doesn't feel his efforts are appreciated by the fans?

Some people....

[warrpp]

to those who seem to think that we were almost certain to have scored if doyle had come on with 20 minutes to go instead of 10.......

remind me......hasnt doyle played in most (if not all) of the previous 3 0-0 bore draws against watford ?

hardly screams out that if he had come on a whole 10 mins earlier he would almost certainly have scored....does it ?

in my opinion, we dominated the game, but we're unable to put away any of our chances (plus foster was in great form) while their goals came from us getting a offside routine tottaly wrong for the first, and marcus totally ballsing up for the second.

i personally dont think we played that great against newcastle, we were totally overrun in the 1st half and were lucky to be 0-0 at half time,yet we came out of that game with a win.

i've seen plenty of games were we've played worse than that and come away with a win, so it just the way it goes sometimes, and not down to a lack of ambition on coppells part.

[nivek elyod]

Maybe SSC knows something we don't...

And we were just not good enough to win on Saturday!!!

Maybe...Doyle had a slight injury, and couldn't play any more than ten minutes!!!

And MAYBE...the players agree about Europe!!!

We'll never know...

[rollsy]

i dont know about the rest of you but my hopes at the start of te season revolved around prem survival. fair enough as the season goes on your asperations change, but at the end of the day we don't have a big squad and could do without extra games at the moment, as lets be honest, a couple of injuries could spell curtains to us next year.
i'm sure that europe would be great, but for a club our size we have more pressing things to be thinking about. and with sir steve i could see europe as a real possibility in a couple of years a-la bolton, but in the words of soccer am "we are not ready yet"

[Archie's penalty]

Looking on from the outside - or even the subterrean depths of League 2 / Division 4 if Coppell is not given a unanimous vote of manager of the season in the Premiership then justice will not have been done.

Despite storming the Championship last season most professional observers were convinvced that Reading would struggle this season and even after the turn of the year were amazed at the results that Reading were achieving and that they could actually play football as well.

If his squad selection for cup competitions was controversial then surely he won that argument too with the results that were achieved?

Go back 10 or even 5 years and how many of you would have dreamed that you would been squabbling about Reading's team selection for potential european competition?

You should all have cut outs of Coppell in your front rooms and pray to them 5 times a day if you ask me!

Cheers for the objective viewpoint HB. I think we're all too emotionally involved for obvious reasons. We have done amazingly this year, Europe would be cool but if we don't get in it's no great shame. Coppell is an amazing manager and has done wonders - criticism is fine but the amazing thing is it's been difficult to criticise him all year.

Good luck for next season!

[Katie Marsden]

Can somebody please identify the link to the pre-season predictions of everybody on this forum?
I remember saying if we came 15th in the Premiership I would be ecstatic (or something like that).

Come on now, seriously... how many of you thought we would be looking at a top 7 finish before the season started?
Then look at the outrageous approach of some of you in this post..
This has nothing to do with Communism and not letting people express their views. It is about keeping both feet firmly on the ground and realising the realistic ambition this club has - even though we may not want UEFA Cup football next season - the club is growing in a very healthy manner.

So, please - with a cherry on top - stop criticising Coppell for a so-called lack of ambition. Or would you prefer we lose him because he doesn't feel his efforts are appreciated by the fans?

Some people....

Well done for missing the point.

No one is saying Coppell hasn't done a remarkable job, just that having taken us into a great position he seems to lack the ambition to really want to make a move for Europe.

He played weakened sides in the cups so the players would be fresh for the run in, then when the run in comes around he changes the side almost every week.

He can't have it both ways.

[tom_t69]

The one thing i dont understamd is the fact that he got us knocked out of the cup to concentrate on the league, when it was already clear we were going to stay up, and then he doesnt want us to do well in the league either? If i had one question to coppell that would have been it? Surely we should have pushed to do well in both instead of getting mediocracy in both?

[Behindu]

[
Well done for missing the point.

.

I think you miss the point !

No one has claimed the team selections have been about resting players, in fact Coppell has explained his logic many times ....

You also don't seem to want to consider that ambition isn't about short term, it's long term.

If clubs judged the ambition of their manager on just a handful of games then Fergie would have been out of a job after a couple of seasons at Man Utd.