Brian: The right decision?

[P!ssed Off]

Just saying I think Ian Royal got wrong the threshold age where people become aware/knowledgeable/opinionated about football.
IMO it is below the age of 10.

Everyone is different, but I know that my nephew was not well clued up when I took him at that age and I'd have been totally cluless. Judging by some of the twaddle I hear kiddiewinks come out with at the stadium most of them aren't better. Judgement keeps on developing really quite significantly even into the early 20s, possibly because it's based on life experience. Although to be fair, piss poor analysis of a game is far from restricted to children.

Should have bought your nephew a copy of Football Manager. Get him clued up.
Plenty of people like to make snide comments about the "football manager generation".
Anyway, I was 'Championship Manager/LMA generation', but the point is games like that teach you a lot.
Concepts like wage budgets, transfer budgets, staff roles, youth squads, contracts, free transfers, transfer clauses, stadium expansions, training.
Plus you gain a knowledge of thousands of players plying their trade.

A lot of this you wouldn't naturally pick up straight away, and certainly not as a child.
Look at some of the folk on here: they don't even know the difference between a sell on fee based on a proportion of fee vs proportion of profit.

[kwik-silva]

The fact is that all of Team B, bar Obita, have had significant top flight experience.

'Significant'? Almost all of team B has a maximum of one season, and in the whole side then with the exception of Pog, Guthrie - who has been injured, and Williams - who has been injured it's the same story. I take your point, but let's not inflate their season of losing almost every week to 'significant experience'

[P!ssed Off]

The fact is that all of Team B, bar Obita, have had significant top flight experience.

'Significant'? Almost all of team B has a maximum of one season, and in the whole side then with the exception of Pog, Guthrie - who has been injured, and Williams - who has been injured it's the same story. I take your point, but let's not inflate their season of losing almost every week to 'significant experiece'

Significant as opposed to merely a few starts/sub appearances was what I was going for.
With McCarthy's involvement bordering on significant possibly.
Think most of them should have learnt quite a bit from 20+ games each, playing against better players.

[Royal Biscuitman]

[quote="sandman"]Adkins went into the season with both Mariappa and Kebe in the squad and say he knew they wanted out so I don't see how that made a huge impact on him. And he chose to move Kanu to a central striking role. Was Brian really able to strengthen with every window? Well that depends on whether you believe Adam Le Fondre is a better player than Shane Long or that Mikele Leigertwood(god love him) is better than Gylfi Sigurdsson.To be fair, I think Kanu as a striker wasn't his ideal choice, That was Billy Sharp and funds which presumably were expected to become available were not.
When McDermot lost Sig he was able to strengthen the team that was left without Sig, likewise when he lost Long. The team may not have been stronger than it was with those players in it, but it was stronger than the team which remained after being forced into selling them.

[Wimb]

Look at the players Coppell had to select from in 2004/05 and compare them to Adkins lot and you'd probably have to say Coppell had the greater talent to call upon.

Team A: Hahnemann, Murty, Sonko, Ingimarrson, Hughes, Little, Harper, Sidwell, Brooker, Kitson, Forster

or

Team B: McCarthy, Gunter, Pearce, Morrison, Obita, McCleary, Leigertwood, Akpan, McAnuff, Pogrebnyak, Le Fondre

I'd probably take Coppell's team tbh but whichever you choose it shows that really there shouldn't be any greater expectation on Team A than Team B.

Firstly, I will assume your inclusion of the pair of Akpan and Leigertwood, over the much better and more involved pair of Guthrie and D.Williams was unintentional?

Secondly, how are we judging the likes of Shorey, Sonko, Sidwell and Kitson? At their ability at the start of 2004/5 season, or at their peak ability? That is why I often take issue with those who claim Coppell failed early on, citing achievements later on as evidence. The fact is that all of Team B, bar Obita, have had significant top flight experience. Sidwell and Harper at the start of 2004/5 season had 4 seasons of Tier 2 football between them. Guthrie at the start of this season had 4 seasons in the Prem (of semi-regular playing time) and a Championship winning season. Danny WIlliams at the start of this season had two seasons of German top flight behind him as well as numerous international caps.

Team B is far more experienced, with many players the finished article, or near enough.

Thirdly, it is a 46 game season so it would be foolish to look at just the starting 11. Look at the subs Coppell had at his disposal: Martin Keown (38), "feed the goat, and he won't score" Shaun Goater (34), Lololyd Owusu, Bobby Convey (who was oxf*rd during his first 6 months), Les Ferdinand (37), Ricky Newman (34), Ady Williams (33) and Dean Morgan.

Players not in season's starting XI who made 5 or more Champ appearances for Adkins: Gorkss, HRK, Drenthe, Akpan, Bridge, Kelly, Baird, Blackman, Cummings, Karacan, Sharp, Hector, Taylor.

Many people do not rate HRK or Nick Blackman. But compared to Owusu and Dean Morgan they are bloody world class.

Squad B now > Squad A then

The squad in 2004/5 was threadbare, with the only backups either seriously shit, or 30s and past it.

"Coppell went 11 games without a win, that's crap", people say.
Well no, it is not great but it's worth remembering that 7 of those games were draws. We weren't getting hammered every week. And, oh look what a surprise, how many games did our preferred pairing of Kitson and Forster start together: zero times is the answer. Kitson was injured for the first 7, and coming back from said injury in the last 4.

11 winless league games; striker starts (sub appearances):
Forster = 7 (1)
Owusu = 6 (2)
Ferdinand = 4 (1)
Morgan = 0 (6)
Goater = 0 (1)
Kitson = 4

Is it any wonder we couldn't bloody score a goal?
And yet Adkins gets a pass whenever he can't start his preferred pairing in centre midfield?

This squad is certainly deeper but it's had to deal with far more injuries on a much more regular basis. I used the final day squads as a starting point but Williams and Guthrie were both injured for large chunks of it, Baird & Akpan started 26 games, Williams 24 & Guthrie 29. So Williams missed half a campaign and Guthrie over a third.

If Adkins had got a fullish season out of Karacan, Morrison, Williams, Guthrie, Drenthe, a full three months from Sharp and anything out of Roberts I'd agree he's underperformed but when you look at that team he's put out on the last day, or teams that went to say Bournemouth or at home to Forest it's easy to see why it was the 7th best team across the season.

As for whether that 04/05 side was better, admittedly the strikers were poor but Adkins had a Le Fondre that went three months between a goal and no real plan B other than the Pog. Blackman and HRK world class compared to Morgan and Owusu?! Blackman and HRK combined for 8 goals, Morgan and Owusu for 9... HRK took an awful backward step while Blackman is around the same age that Morgan was that season, yet Blackman was a £1m striker

The likes of Kitson, Shorey, Sidwell, Harper were all pretty much the same ability they would be the following campaign, with Harper already a POTS winner, Kitson a regular goalscorer and Sidwell named the best player outside the top division around that time as well.

Coppell also had what Adkins wishes he had, a fairly consistent core to choose from.

2004/05 35+ Starts - 8
2013/14 35+ Starts - 4

Do I think Coppell 'failed' with his side? Not really but it could maybe have been slightly better, which is pretty much the feeling I've got from the situation we've found ourselves in this season and ultimately we were a few seconds away from that top 6.

[Elm Park Pasty]

Have Leeds Utd started the 'Brian: The Right Decision II' thread yet?

[Extended-Phenotype]

Seems to get sacked quite regularly for a great manager.

[maffff]

Seems to get sacked quite regularly for a great manager.

3x in under 14 months...

[frimmers3]

Perhaps Leeds will appopint that nice Mr. De Canio next.

[sandman]

By a conman and then by a convict.

[Ian Royal]

Just saying I think Ian Royal got wrong the threshold age where people become aware/knowledgeable/opinionated about football.
IMO it is below the age of 10.

Everyone is different, but I know that my nephew was not well clued up when I took him at that age and I'd have been totally cluless. Judging by some of the twaddle I hear kiddiewinks come out with at the stadium most of them aren't better. Judgement keeps on developing really quite significantly even into the early 20s, possibly because it's based on life experience. Although to be fair, piss poor analysis of a game is far from restricted to children.

Should have bought your nephew a copy of Football Manager. Get him clued up.
Plenty of people like to make snide comments about the "football manager generation".
Anyway, I was 'Championship Manager/LMA generation', but the point is games like that teach you a lot.
Concepts like wage budgets, transfer budgets, staff roles, youth squads, contracts, free transfers, transfer clauses, stadium expansions, training.
Plus you gain a knowledge of thousands of players plying their trade.

A lot of this you wouldn't naturally pick up straight away, and certainly not as a child.
Look at some of the folk on here: they don't even know the difference between a sell on fee based on a proportion of fee vs proportion of profit.

I'll certainly grant you that to some extent it helps, and more than a little with some things. Particularly breadth of knowledge. but in some ways it also hinders by simplifying. And it doesn't really help a lot with a lot of the subjective stuff, which is judgement based. Judgement is partly to do with brain development and life experience, neither of which are there to the same extent in children (and famously teenagers) compared to adults. This may sound condescending and if so I apologise, it's not the intent.

your point about the squad comparison, I agree with a few things you've chucked out there. Adkins side had more better individuals and a stronger squad on paper. But Coppell's had a better 'team' and iirc had much less of an injury crisis. Goater was actually decent that first season. Not amazing, but plenty good enough. It was the next year he contributed nothing.

Had it not been for the ownership situation and the inability to make signings, I'd completely agree that 7th is a poor showing and Adkins would have to be worried about his position. But it did happen and so adjustments need to be made.

[Eaststandman]

Seems to get sacked quite regularly for a great manager.

Getting fired may not be a ringing endorsement, but its hardly a condemnation of inadequacy as a football manager either these days, is it?

[Zana Badawi]

Seems to get sacked quite regularly for a great manager.

He's been at two clubs that have undergone (messy) ownership handovers.

I really don't think anybody is saying he's great. But there is a lot more sentiment behind him than there ever was for Rodgers, and it was Rodgers that came second in the Premiership last season, whilst McDermott finished in the bottom half of the championship. What still surprises me is that there are some supporters who STILL don't understand why he has more fans than Rodgers ever did, despite his period of poor results at Leeds. (The main reason I'm surprised is that the reasons have been constantly stated here for the whole of last season - but nobody is listening)

You can start by asking yourself why he was originally re-instated at Leeds.

It is the failure to understand this sort of scenario that the 'Football Manager' crowd gets such a bad rep. Football just isn't as black and white as a computer game. I would say that one of the legacies of the Adkins managerial eras is that the club has been so badly, well, managed. But I know that will fall on deaf ears as Reading's final league position > Leeds' final league position.

Some of our fans are as naïve as Anton.

[RoyalinBracknell]

I always kind of felt McDermott should have got the rest of the Premier League season and at least the start of the following season. I'd have to maintain that view now - I think it would be hard to argue Adkins has made much of a progression in his first 14 months.

What would have been the likely worst result if we'd kept McDermott? We'd have got relegated and failed to make the play-offs?

For me Coppell probably had a disappointing first few years. Adkins has probably had a disappointing first 14 months. McDermott probably had a disappointing 7 months.

[P!ssed Off]

Seems to get sacked quite regularly for a great manager.

He's been at two clubs that have undergone (messy) ownership handovers.

I really don't think anybody is saying he's great. But there is a lot more sentiment behind him than there ever was for Rodgers, and it was Rodgers that came second in the Premiership last season, whilst McDermott finished in the bottom half of the championship. What still surprises me is that there are some supporters who STILL don't understand why he has more fans than Rodgers ever did, despite his period of poor results at Leeds. (The main reason I'm surprised is that the reasons have been constantly stated here for the whole of last season - but nobody is listening)

You can start by asking yourself why he was originally re-instated at Leeds.

It is the failure to understand this sort of scenario that the 'Football Manager' crowd gets such a bad rep. Football just isn't as black and white as a computer game. I would say that one of the legacies of the Adkins managerial eras is that the club has been so badly, well, managed. But I know that will fall on deaf ears as Reading's final league position > Leeds' final league position.

Some of our fans are as naïve as Anton.

yawn...

[maffff]

Welcome back Brian.

[Agent Balti]

Wrong on so many levels.

[HoneyRoastHoax]

Seems to get sacked quite regularly for a great manager.

[Green]

Yeh that was good

Vintage EP.

[floyd__streete]

What happened at Leeds is utterly irrelevant to this argument.

Mark McGhee got sacked by Wolves. Didn't make his departure from Reading in 1994 somehow less disappointing.