Misty water coloured memories.........

[Only one Trevor Morley]

was just reminding myself of the good old days... a quiet unassuming success story being lauded in the press.....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2007 ... ory.sport6

and what do we have some 2.5 years later.... a jumped up novice who is getting into spats with local journalists, who cant wait to try out his latest soundbites to an ever wearisome fan base

he's still a free agent you know - it only takes a couple of calls..... we'll only truly feel how much we miss him, when he's with another team......

[Archie's penalty]

Great interview. Not sure if it would be right for him to come back but what a job he did for us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLYxuT3Vcuc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Khe3sQdZ00Y

Loved that Chelsea game.

And I completely agree with the jumped up novice bit (although look at Strachan at Boro he's not doing that well is he?).

[Royalee]

Stay away Coppell, you've wasted two chances of Premiership football, don't waste next year's as well once Rodgers has sorted your shit out.

[Royal With Cheese]

Stay away Coppell, you've wasted two chances of Premiership football, don't waste next year's as well once Rodgers has sorted your shit out.

You can say a lot of things about Coppell, but the shit Rodgers is in is nothing to do with Coppell. You may even have a valid point to argue that the shit is Madejski's. Get over it numb nuts.

[Wycombe Royal]

Stay away Coppell, you've wasted two chances of Premiership football, don't waste next year's as well once Rodgers has sorted your shit out.

You can say a lot of things about Coppell, but the shit Rodgers is in is nothing to do with Coppell.

I would disagree. Quite a lot of the can be apportioned to Coppell. The poor home form started under him and the squad needed so many changes because he didn't freshen it up enough during the past couple of seasons. If some more players had been moved out and new ones brought in earlier than we wouldn't have needed to have a "revolution" last summer.

[Royalee]

Squad made up of crap to average players on high wages - Coppell's fault. Ingimarsson - Coppell, Gunnarsson - Coppell, Kebe - Coppell, Long - Coppell, Mooney - Coppell.

Players used to play hoofball - Coppell.

Players short on confidence from last year - Coppell.

Reading in the Championship having to sell players rather than being established in the Premiership which they should have been years ago carrying on from 02/03 - Coppell.

Madejski's certainly done us no favours this season, but we would not be in this mess but for Coppell. If he really was as good as you lot think, then perhaps he'd be managing a Premiership club.

[Royalee]

I also missed out that if we hadn't had so many shit 'squad players' on our books previously like Halls, Sodje, Duberry, De La Cruz and so forth, we might have more money left over having not pissed it all up the wall. - Coppell

[CMRoyal]

The manager without whom we would never even have tasted top tier football - Coppell.

Q, E and indeed D.

[Only one Trevor Morley]

I also missed out that if we hadn't had so many shit 'squad players' on our books previously like Halls, Sodje, Duberry, De La Cruz and so forth, we might have more money left over having not pissed it all up the wall. - Coppell

Would the reference to more money include the £6 million that we made on Doyle, a coppell signing - or the 4.5 million we made on Kitson, or perhaps it was the 3.5 million we made on Hunt - or the 2 million on Sonko? all coppell signings.

Werent these Coppell signings? But I suppose we should let facts get in the way of a rant.

why dont you balance your views out and have an argument along the lines ofe Coppell was great until 06/07 particularly when we broke the points record and came 8th in Premiership, then he got a bit stale and it was time to move on, he made a few mistakes in the last couple of year and is one of the contributing factors to where we are now. You'd win a bit more respect than blindly criticising Coppell and blindly supporting Rodgers....

[Wycombe Royal]

The manager without whom we would never even have tasted top tier football - Coppell.

Q, E and indeed D.

I'm not taking anything away from what he achieved, but to say that part of our problems now were NOT caused by him is wrong in my opinion.

[Royalee]

The manager without whom we would never even have tasted top tier football - Coppell.

Q, E and indeed D.

Yes we would have.

[Only one Trevor Morley]

The manager without whom we would never even have tasted top tier football - Coppell.

Q, E and indeed D.

Yes we would have.

..well that ok then if Royalee says its true it must be true.... such a shame you make the dod good point but unfortunately can only see things in stark balck and white and ignore any balanced views

[Royalee]

I also missed out that if we hadn't had so many shit 'squad players' on our books previously like Halls, Sodje, Duberry, De La Cruz and so forth, we might have more money left over having not pissed it all up the wall. - Coppell

Would the reference to more money include the £6 million that we made on Doyle, a coppell signing - or the 4.5 million we made on Kitson, or perhaps it was the 3.5 million we made on Hunt - or the 2 million on Sonko? all coppell signings.

Werent these Coppell signings? But I suppose we should let facts get in the way of a rant.

why dont you balance your views out and have an argument along the lines ofe Coppell was great until 06/07 particularly when we broke the points record and came 8th in Premiership, then he got a bit stale and it was time to move on, he made a few mistakes in the last couple of year and is one of the contributing factors to where we are now. You'd win a bit more respect than blindly criticising Coppell and blindly supporting Rodgers....

I'm trying to find where Coppell raised the money to sign Convey, Lita and others before we went up given we were making a loss...take away the Premiership wages where he brought in squad players, paid them a lot and had Hunt on £25k a week and I don't think he's made us much money!

Yes, Coppell did extremely well in 05/06 and 06/07 (although we had a weaker team in the Premiership than when we went up, which is a lack of progress!), but he failed by the same token in 04/05, 07/08 and 08/09. There's none so blind as those who refuse to see though.

[Royalee]

The manager without whom we would never even have tasted top tier football - Coppell.

Q, E and indeed D.

Yes we would have.

..well that ok then if Royalee says its true it must be true.... such a shame you make the dod good point but unfortunately can only see things in stark balck and white and ignore any balanced views

Given the spectacular improvement in the 3 seasons prior to Coppell's appointment and the fact that we were raising the profile of the club, is it not unreasonable to expect that we would have gone up? After all, Coppell was under a lot of pressure the previous year when we didn't go up. People tend to forget that though and think he took us up from nothing and overachieved, which is complete rubbish.

[CMRoyal]

The manager without whom we would never even have tasted top tier football - Coppell.

Q, E and indeed D.

I'm not taking anything away from what he achieved, but to say that part of our problems now were NOT caused by him is wrong in my opinion.

Well, of course he isn't perfect. I was just balancing the debate a little. I have said before that in retrospect SC probably should have resigned at the end of the first Premier League season. Why? Because he knew we couldn't attract the calibre of player he wanted from within the top two English divisions and knew that he would therefore have to put his trust in new, overseas finds - I don't think his heart was truly in that option. I think an Allardyce or a Bruce (or whoever of that ilk might have been available at the time) possibly would have been able to deploy a few rough cuts from the Prem and Championship instead, and we might have survived. But let's face it, it wouldn't have been pretty. The one thing that couldn't have been forecast, however, was the appalling attitude of some of our "stars", and they take much of the blame as well.

[Royalee]

That's why you employ a 'manager' to direct his stars, which he signed of course. There's a difference between not being able to attract players and not wanting/wanting to manage them. Coppell admitted himself that we could have had Taylor, O'Neill and Gary Cahill, but he didn't think we needed them. Was the club holding the manager back or the manager holding the club back? I'm going for the latter.

[CMRoyal]

The manager without whom we would never even have tasted top tier football - Coppell.

Q, E and indeed D.

Yes we would have.

..well that ok then if Royalee says its true it must be true.... such a shame you make the dod good point but unfortunately can only see things in stark balck and white and ignore any balanced views

To be fair, my assertion was hardly balanced! However, 130+ years of history and the only time spent in the top tier being delivered by SC lead me to believe that right is on my side.

[Royalee]

People fail to take into account circumstance and starting points though, which changes the entire picture.

[facaldaqui]

Coppell made mistakes, and his failure to take us up last season made financial restructuring necessary. But he can't be blamed for a lot of Rodgers' mistakes. Coppell would never have spent his funds in the unbalanced way Rodgers did --- 2 million for a defender is extraordinary if we were meant to be cutting back. Also Coppell would never have allowed gaps to appear in the depth of the squad. The only time I remember his being caught short in a position was after Shorey went, and that was only for a few games before he signed Armstrong.

[Royalee]

Coppell made mistakes, and his failure to take us up last season made financial restructuring necessary. But he can't be blamed for a lot of Rodgers' mistakes. Coppell would never have spent his funds in the unbalanced way Rodgers did --- 2 million for a defender is extraordinary if we were meant to be cutting back Greg Halford and Emerse Fae when we urgently needed a Sidwell-style player and a winger?. Also Coppell would never have allowed gaps to appear in the depth of the squad.Right wing, defensive midfield? I think he did! The only time I remember his being short in a position was after Shorey went, and that was only for a few games before he signed Armstrong.Try when Sidwell left and Little got injured