We said it, he admitted it, but was Coppell actually wrong?

[Charles Dapper]

I think it a well needed/timed win that takes us into yet another international break, and giving the team a boost.

I feel our main problems at the moment are that we are missing Sonks, Convey and the Doyle of last season. I'm sure yesterdays goal will give him a much needed lift.

We are without doubt missing some sort of drive and direction that was given to us last season by Sidders, not to mention his box to box running.

I feel Coppell was right not to waste money and on just anything, since he felt there was noone that fitted the "Reading mould" but do feel we would look a lot better with Bikey instead of Durberry and Fae instead of Gunnarsson. Both with pace and some vision. We're not in the championship, Durberry is painfully slow and panic clears into the crowd so many times.

The right wing is still a problem. Oster is not the answer, always hangs on to the ball to long, never looks good for a full 90 minutes.

I live in hope that Bobby comes back, then him and Hunt on the wings opens us up again allowing Nicky to play to his best and stopping Marcus wasting ball upon ball by hoofing it straight to the other sides central backs

[strap]

Did we (including Coppell) panic a little too early?

No, look at the performances (even the wins). If we maintain this level we'll be close to the bottom 3 at Christmas, as most teams will turn us over home and away.

If The Arse play anywhere near their best on 12th Nov, and we don't improve 100% on Saturday's performance, we could concede double figures. Frankly it could be a nightmare.

[Scarface]

Duff buys? Right, the worldly-wise Scarface has spoken, we must offload them as soon as possible.

Well seeing as neither of them have contributed anything positive this season in my opinion they are duff buys at present.

As for Fae not being ready. Tracking back and tackling is not a skill you should have to teach any £3m midfielder. For that money he should of been a ready made replacement for Sidwell. Next season he might be quality, but we could be in the Championship.

[Top Flight]

The Derby result buys us some more time.

Obviously we are not as convincing as last year. Obviously we are weaker than we were last year and obviously there are problems.

Coppell knows exactly what the problems are and he will attempt to rectify those in January.

It is pretty pointless having these ridiculous threads after every game between now and January.

Everybody knows that there are issues that need to be sorted out. Coppell knows himself and has already admitted that we have shortcomings.

We have 2 gaping holes in our midfield that is leaving the defence more exposed and vulnerable to opposition attacks and that same lack of quality in midfield since Sidwells departure and Little's injury problems have taken away a certain edge in our attacking play which is creating less chances for the likes of Doyler, Lita & Kitson which is then leading to in my opinion unjustified criticism of our defenders and strikers who are quite frankly not doing anything different to last year.

Only in January can Coppell solve those problems. So what is the point discussing the same issues after every game. We've already thrashed this one out after the Wigan game.

The result doesn't paper over the cracks. Everyone knows that there are cracks. Most importantly Coppell knows. He will sort it out when the transfer window allows.

As long as we can keep picking up the odd result between now and January to keep us clear of the drop, that buys us time. If we can be above the drop come January then we can hopefully strengthen, pull away and march to safety. That is the most we can expect from this season. Losing a player like Sidwell was always going to be a setback and it will take us some time to recover to where we were before his departure. Making things even harder is that so many other clubs have invested considerably and moved ahead.

[fool]

Oster wasn't that bad? He lost posession numerous times when he came on, in areas that nearly cost us dearly.

Perhaps or you could say he is one step ahead of other players who never read his quick passes. Murty again stopped his run and the ball went to their full back. Sidwell never could read those quick short passes.

Oster needs a long run in the team, I would drop Brynar and play Oster.

[SpaceCruiser]

Duff buys? Right, the worldly-wise Scarface has spoken, we must offload them as soon as possible.

Well seeing as neither of them have contributed anything positive this season in my opinion they are duff buys at present.

And how many games have they played? I don't think they have had much of a chance to show what they can do, you can't just write them off at this stage of the season.

[Smoking Kills Dancing Doe]

Oster was Oster. Showed why despite Coppell falling out with Seol in Jan, he remained 3rd choice. Gives the ball away, never makes the right choice. How many times in the last 10mins did he lose the ball leading to Derby counter attacks that better teams would have punished us for? But at least he actually looks like a right winger, just not a very good one.

once! when he bad shout from harper and thought he was under pressure and played a blind ball for murty to run onto but murty was actually waiting for the square ball so the ball was lost and they had decent attempt at a counter attack

and as i said above apart from an unspotted illegal intervention from their left back he would have already set up the clinching second goal - by first winning the ball and then running at the defence and then playing a decent ball into doyles path - all things we want our right sided player to do

i just watched it again on Sky+ he gave it away 3 times in the last 5 mins. One time he just turned round and started running back toward our half. He's effected by pressure far too much, has always looked that way.

[Huntley & Palmer]

Oster wasn't that bad? He lost posession numerous times when he came on, in areas that nearly cost us dearly.

Perhaps or you could say he is one step ahead of other players who never read his quick passes. Murty again stopped his run and the ball went to their full back. Sidwell never could read those quick short passes.

Oster needs a long run in the team, I would drop Brynar and play Oster.

In the centre of midfield? Surely we don't need to go down the Andy Hughes route of playing Oster anywhere before deciding he is nothing other than second rate

[brendywendy]

they did shut it out though,
i could understand if brynn had given the ball away leading to their equaliser, then oster had rifled th eball into his own net for th ederby winner.
the team is improving, and individual performances improved on th efarce that was last week,so copps position vindicated,he can now make changes if needed without destroying fragile confidences
and if we are in 12th in january all this whingeing is going to look a bitsilly

They just about shut it out against Derby, at home. That sort of performance will not hold any water against Newcastle I suspect, they won't be so woeful in front of goal, nor offside as much. Realistically the performance could not have got any worse than last week, hence the nervousness in defence and midfield with the coninual booting of the ball into touch. We need to get back the never say die attitude of last season, whether that is achievable or not with this bunch of players is debatable

i doubt any sensible person wouyld expect us to go from th epompey debacle to a 5-0 home win, but i may be wrong

sundays match wasa massive step in the right direction, a clean sheet, and a goal for our striker, a move towards recovering the confidence and form we know we can achieve that is all we could have asked for

sure if we slump to an embarrassing 4-0 defeat away at blackburn we are back to square one
but give em a chance to get there 1st

[Huntley & Palmer]

Blackburn is irrelevant as far as I am concerned, it's already down as 0 points. Newcastle at home and Fulham away are the better reflections on how the team is performing

[fool]

Oster wasn't that bad? He lost posession numerous times when he came on, in areas that nearly cost us dearly.

Perhaps or you could say he is one step ahead of other players who never read his quick passes. Murty again stopped his run and the ball went to their full back. Sidwell never could read those quick short passes.

Oster needs a long run in the team, I would drop Brynar and play Oster.

In the centre of midfield? Surely we don't need to go down the Andy Hughes route of playing Oster anywhere before deciding he is nothing other than second rate

I think this is one of his prefered positions.

[Huntley & Palmer]

Really, based on what?

[SpaceCruiser]

Blackburn is irrelevant as far as I am concerned, it's already down as 0 points.

That's too negative! Though it is made more difficult coming after the international break. Maybe we could adopt the tactics we used against Man Utd to get a valuable point?

[Huntley & Palmer]

Realistic, not negative. A draw would be almost as good as the Utd point, granted but I just can't see it happening since our confidence was eroded by the Pompey result

[fool]

I can't remember exactly were I read that, but he looked okay in that position in the cup against Man U at OT. He is not a natural winger, more of a creative center midfielder in my eyes.

[SpaceCruiser]

Realistic, not negative. A draw would be almost as good as the Utd point, granted but I just can't see it happening since our confidence was eroded by the Pompey result

Surely yesterday's result should have boosted our confidence and we could build on that? Also, we have Sonko coming back, maybe he can provide competition to Duberry and Ingimarsson.

[Yorkshire Royal]

Let's be brutally honest..

Gunnarson - is not good enough
Oster - is not good enough
Hunt - is not quite good enough (no real end product)
Convey - injury prone
Little - injury prone
Fae - cant talk English and struggles with English marking (although having read this, I watcherd Gunnar on Sunday and he didn't do what he was supposed to half the time).
Cisse - No idea. Injured already.
Harper - good enough (although I suspect Harper and Fae dont work well, probably as Harper talks a lot and Fae doesn't understand a lot)

So therefore we can conclude that our midfield is shite. Oster is definitely not the solution. We need to invest in quality midfield players in January. Sidwell leaving should not have made the impact it did, as I assumed we would replace him like for like. We have not done so and from current form no one in the squad makes me feel different..

[Huntley & Palmer]

Our home form has not been a problem, it's the away form that is. If we can get anything out of Blackburn it will be a huge boost, as I say, I prefer to look to Fulham away for the better indicator of how we will compete this season.

[Yorkshire Royal]

I am considering going to Blackburn away... Although with royalty points and post strike, bugger knows if I can get tickets...

[Huntley & Palmer]

Even with an initial allocation of 2000, I can't see it selling out. If it does then they will give us more seats