Bristol's Coppell promises not to raid Reading

[Wimb]

There's more chance of hell freezing over than Siggurdsson not having been fit to play any part in the previous campaign having taken the last by storm and that's despite what McD said in the fans forum..................like you, he will never say anything that puts his mate Steve in a poor light.....................and I wouldn't expect him to.

The only agenda I have is being a Reading fan and, from that point of view, if Steve Coppell was still here I believe most of us would still be saying Gylfi, who?

OK fair dos, you know much more about Gylfi than either Coppell or McD !!
I've no problem with you and your wild fantasies, shame you can never back them up with any kind of logic.

Coppell had no problem putting youngsters in the side (see the facts) and as I have said his strategy of giving the young players plenty of lower league experience before blooding them has been proven to be spot on. Anything else is the wishful thinking of a beaten man.

This ^^^

[Ian Royal]

Young players given their first appearances under Coppell:

Simon Church, Gylfi Sigurdsson, Jem Karacan, Alex Pearce, James Henry, Shane Long, Julian Kelly. And Simon Cox.

I make that just Robson-Kanu who's made an impact this season that Coppell didn't give at least one game to. And when they weren't playing they were getting invaluable first team experience and games under their belt elsewhere.

If Woodcote prefers that they'd have sat rotting in the Academy and reserves just so they could have got an extra handful of appearances for us (like Long, and hasn't he delivered on his potential fantastically well over the 4 or 5 years he's been here), then that's his prerogative.

Just because he has a right to an opinion doesn't stop it being dribbling madness, or prevent anyone from pointing this out to him.

[Ian Royal]

Don't think Bristol City will be much of a threat this season if im honest. He's no Doyle, Sidwell, Shorey, Little, convey etc to dominate like last time.

I don't expect them to do fantastically well no. I reckon somewhere around lower mid-table as he does a slow building job on them over the next 3 to 4 seasons. If he is given the chance to do the job.

[FiNeRaIn]

Agree with that to an extent a lot will depend on who they bring in, when I look back at that 106 side and where some of them are now, it was really was a great side. I can't see Bristol City being more than a play-off side even in 3/4 years but thats still a good achievement for a club their size.

[Ian Royal]

Agree with that to an extent a lot will depend on who they bring in, when I look back at that 106 side and where some of them are now, it was really was a great side. I can't see Bristol City being more than a play-off side even in 3/4 years but thats still a good achievement for a club their size.

Promotion is so hard to achieve. I think he can get them to be genuine competitors for promotion, but he'd have to do something spectacular to get them to be favourites or dominate like Newcastle / West Brom, or we did in our promotion.

LOL @ "for a club their size". They're pretty much the same size as us, just about 6 or 7 years behind us on the success front. Whether they can match us is debateable of course.

[FiNeRaIn]

Agree with that to an extent a lot will depend on who they bring in, when I look back at that 106 side and where some of them are now, it was really was a great side. I can't see Bristol City being more than a play-off side even in 3/4 years but thats still a good achievement for a club their size.

LOL @ "for a club their size". They're pretty much the same size as us, just about 6 or 7 years behind us on the success front. Whether they can match us is debateable of course.

Their average attendance last season depsite being in the midst of the play-offs most of the season was 14,500.

Despite being in a relegation battle until the last few months of the season we averaged 17,500. Bit of a difference mate.

On top of that I wasn't comparing them to us, so not sure why you find it LOL worthy. When was the last time anyone got automatic promotion with crowds below 15k? Wigan maybe and they were bankrolled so no comparison.

[Ian Royal]

Like I said 6 or 7 years behind us. Still similar size and potential.

They wouldn't have crowds that size if they were looking at automatic promotion. I thought the slur on their size was funny seeing as we're about the same size and our minimum expectations are roughly what you say would be a great achievement for them.

[FiNeRaIn]

Like I said 6 or 7 years behind us. Still similar size and potential.

They wouldn't have crowds that size if they were looking at automatic promotion. I thought the slur on their size was funny seeing as we're about the same size and our minimum expectations are roughly what you say would be a great achievement for them.

Where are you pulling this, " we're about the same size" rubbish from? We've had bigger crowds for the last 10 years, consistently finished above them for 10 years, played in the premiership and reached the quarter finals of the FA cup. They've done none of the above. I'm not saying we are twice the size, but we are a bigger club then them and fully expect to finish above them.

[Ian Royal]

Like I said 6 or 7 years behind us. Still similar size and potential.

They wouldn't have crowds that size if they were looking at automatic promotion. I thought the slur on their size was funny seeing as we're about the same size and our minimum expectations are roughly what you say would be a great achievement for them.

Where are you pulling this, " we're about the same size" rubbish from? We've had bigger crowds for the last 10 years, consistently finished above them for 10 years, played in the premiership and reached the quarter finals of the FA cup. They've done none of the above. I'm not saying we are twice the size, but we are a bigger club then them and fully expect to finish above them.

And they could quite conceivably be able to say the same in 10 years time. We're currently playing at about the top of our size and they aren't.

[FiNeRaIn]

We're currently playing at about the top of our size and they aren't.

Really...here's me thinking that 24k per week and 8th in the prem was top of our size.

[weybridgewanderer]

the players of ours coppell would want have all left, kitson, harper, bikey, shunt, rosie ... i would expect to see one or 2 former players turn up at brizzle

[Plymouth_Royal]

Young players given their first appearances under Coppell:

Simon Church, Gylfi Sigurdsson, Jem Karacan, Alex Pearce, James Henry, Shane Long, Julian Kelly. And Simon Cox.

I make that just Robson-Kanu who's made an impact this season that Coppell didn't give at least one game to. And when they weren't playing they were getting invaluable first team experience and games under their belt elsewhere.

If Woodcote prefers that they'd have sat rotting in the Academy and reserves just so they could have got an extra handful of appearances for us (like Long, and hasn't he delivered on his potential fantastically well over the 4 or 5 years he's been here), then that's his prerogative.

Just because he has a right to an opinion doesn't stop it being dribbling madness, or prevent anyone from pointing this out to him.

Spot on.

But the issue is his blind faith for the experienced lads and his lack of faith in the youngsters. Take Karacan for example. Only handed his first appearance due to unjuries and certainly played well when he was on the pitch. Then dropped for no reason and as a result our form suffered greatly. Even Coppell admitted this towards the end of his final season.
SImon Cox. Had blinder of a loan spell at swindon returned to us and was the best player on the pitch against Spurs in the cup until one of our players saw red. He then gets subbed and the underperforming ones are kept on the pitch!
James Henry. one bad game against Cardiff? fairly dropped and then when Kebe had A FEW bad games he still plays!
Gylfi. HOW THE HELL WAS HE NOT READY IN COPPEL'S LAST SEASON!

There's no doubt he's good in educating the youngsters by loaning them out and handing them there first appearances. But when it comes to treating them as a professional he wasn't very good at that IMO. What message did that say to a up and coming player when you're going to allow underperforming players to play week in week out and drop a youngster for no reason or because they didn't play a blinder?

[Ian Royal]

We're currently playing at about the top of our size and they aren't.

Really...here's me thinking that 24k per week and 8th in the prem was top of our size.

8th was overachieving and happened in one season.

Plymouth.. Coppell decided that in a fight to go up he wanted older, more experienced heads. Hardly unreasonable. It didn't pay off, but there is very little suggest we'd have done a great deal better with Karacan staying in the side. It may have been the wrong decision at the time, it might not have been.

Blind faith in experience and having favourites is just people with preconceptions not looking at the evidence. Yes he did have preferred players, but they weren't untouchable like so many claim.

Sigurdsson was immense this season. But his eloan last season was pretty much his only first team experience. Saying he should have played last season is idiocy. He'd have played very little first team football and come into a side with massive expectations under massive pressure.

Henry - numerous bites of the cherry never been more than ok.

Cox - has taken a season and a half to get to championship quality and you wanted him as our premier league saviour? If anyone is guilty of blind faith in certain player's abilities it's you.