To go back to the original point, I would take a team that consisted of, Williams, Parkinson, Caskey, Rougier, Butler, Cureton (just to give a few) over the clueless shower we have before us right now.
Would you really? I wouldn't.
Some interesting well made points on this thread and not an awful lot that can be argued with when they remain sensible and realistic (unlike the above
) but I do think judgement is being made far too quickly on what this squad can achieve.
As I said pre-Forest, we have a squad that is capable of going straight back up but as a huge amount of sport is played in the mind, if they aren't right then no amount of skill can compensate.
I do have a feeling of deja vu myself - at the end of 2004/5 I decided Coppell had to go as he seemed incapable of motivating the players, of getting them to play entertaining football that I would look forward to seeing, and of getting together a promotion team.
As papereyes often mentions, a couple of signings later and he has formed a record-breaking team playing amazing football.
I doubt that transformation happened just by chance - it was due to a lot of factors but (probably) the most important was Coppell himself. The point was that it happened almost at the click of your fingers. End of 2004/5 = Rubbish, start of 2005/6 = Superb.
Coppell is not a flash-in-the-pan manager, he is a steady-Eddie, so I believe it is logical to believe in Coppell's ability to do that again. One permanent and 2 loan signings (plus Bikey back) might just do the trick.
If he has not learned from the mistakes of last year when not enough new faces were brought in (he says he has) and sticks with what we've got, good enough though it should be, he probably needs to get the old Sports Psychologist company back in place quick (whatever the cost!) - as I said, it's played in the mind.....