Brian: The right decision?

[sandman]

I was fully behind Coppell after he got us relegated.

So why were you fully against Brian being given a full season to get us back to where he had taken us, as we did with Coppell

Because I thought Coppell was the right person to do it, having demonstrated an ability to put together a team capable of playing quality football at the top level and gotten us relegated on one poor six months. Compared to McDermott who'd shown no such thing, had us performing badly for most of the season and who I thought wasn't the right person to take us further.

There was always a sense of a plan with Coppell, a goal towards which he was building the team. I never got that sense with McDermott. He just seemed to be more about short term hole plugging and getting the best out of what he had with no view to the future. Everything about McDermott's preferred system just seemed to be a triumph of spirit over quality, whereas Coppell blended the two.

Look at most of McDermott's best signings.
Griffin - twilight of his career
Leigertwood - twilight of his career
Roberts - twilight of his career
Harte - twilight of his career

He had to be short term because he had the players that he wanted to build a long term team around with sold from under him.

[harry]

You're right Ian. Name me any decent players that McDermott was responsible for bringing in to the club. Exactly - Nick Blackman.

Didn't McD scout Kevin Doyle & Shane Long under Coppell?
And he signed Alfie, McCleary & Gunter.

[Nameless]

You're right Ian. Name me any decent players that McDermott was responsible for bringing in to the club. Exactly - Nick Blackman.

Didn't McD scout Kevin Doyle & Shane Long under Coppell?
And he signed Alfie, McCleary & Gunter.

Doyle and Long were down to Pat Dolan weren't they ?

[harry]

{quote="Ian Royal"]

I was fully behind Coppell after he got us relegated.

So why were you fully against Brian being given a full season to get us back to where he had taken us, as we did with Coppell

Because I thought Coppell was the right person to do it, having demonstrated an ability to put together a team capable of playing quality football at the top level and gotten us relegated on one poor six months. Compared to McDermott who'd shown no such thing, had us performing badly for most of the season and who I thought wasn't the right person to take us further.

There was always a sense of a plan with Coppell, a goal towards which he was building the team. I never got that sense with McDermott. He just seemed to be more about short term hole plugging and getting the best out of what he had with no view to the future. Everything about McDermott's preferred system just seemed to be a triumph of spirit over quality, whereas Coppell blended the two.

Look at most of McDermott's best signings.
Griffin - twilight of his career
Leigertwood - twilight of his career
Roberts - twilight of his career
Harte - twilight of his career[/quote]

Wasn't Harte's career resuscitated first before it could resume in its twilight? He was all but out to grass before we signed him and his contribution to that promotion season was one hell of a twilight.

[harry]

You're right Ian. Name me any decent players that McDermott was responsible for bringing in to the club. Exactly - Nick Blackman.

Didn't McD scout Kevin Doyle & Shane Long under Coppell?
And he signed Alfie, McCleary & Gunter.

Doyle and Long were down to Pat Dolan weren't they ?

I stand corrected

[Ian Royal]

You're right Ian. Name me any decent players that McDermott was responsible for bringing in to the club. y - Nick Blackman.

Didn't McD scout Kevin Doyle & Shane Long under Coppell?
And he signed Alfie, McCleary & Gunter.

I'm not sure you could describe any of those last three as particularly top signings. One couldn't force a regular first 11 birth and the ther two were bought for the PL one performed fairly badly and the other didn't exactly set the world on fire. They've performed much better at a lower level and under Adkins.

sandy - having your best players sold to balance the books doesn't prevent you from building towards something, it sets you back. you dont have to replace them with just short term fixes and no long term plan.

Anyway. I was asked to explain my view. You don't have to agree with it.

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

What kind of birth was this first eleven, thats some shagging for a fella.

[Vic_Flange]

We don't hear enough from you, Vic.

Personally, whether you thought we should have kept him or got rid of Brian,
I think we called all do with a bit of XTC to cheer us up...

We're only making plans for Nigel
We only want what's best for him
We're only making plans for Nigel
Nigel just needs this helping hand
And if young Nigel says he's happy
He must be happy in his work

Nigel is not outspoken
But he likes to speak
And loves to be spoken to
Nigel is happy in his work
We're only making plans for Nigel...

[Davezk]

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.

You know Mark McGhee went to LEICESTER before he went to wolves? What has Wolves got to do with this?

Other Reading fans hate Wolves because of McGhee whilst being completely ignorant he went to a different club first LOL

[Davezk]

Maybe we should start hating Newcastle because of Pardew

[Snowball]

History is a bit fluid, isn't it?

We lost Gylfi, but his presence had been covering up the fact that behind him we were pretty shit.

Griffin brought stability on the right and he was a fine servant

Elwood TRANSFORMED us, brilliant defensive midfielder, IMO and our ppt was way better when he played.

Roberts was hugely important and got us up. Shame about the tail-off, injuries and hanging around but that shouldn't cloud what he did for us.

Ditto the Latvian. Gorkss was great for us in the Championship.

As for Harte, he made the odd mistake (cue the shitty gif) but we had an excellent ppt with him in the Championship
and his free kicks etc were absolutely brilliant. I wish we could find another player like him

[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.

You know Mark McGhee went to LEICESTER before he went to wolves? What has Wolves got to do with this?

Other Reading fans hate Wolves because of McGhee whilst being completely ignorant he went to a different club first LOL

Yes, but my point about him being sacked at Wolves was because he wasn't sacked by Leicester

[harry]

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.

You know Mark McGhee went to LEICESTER before he went to wolves? What has Wolves got to do with this?

Other Reading fans hate Wolves because of McGhee whilst being completely ignorant he went to a different club first LOL

My main reason for hating Wolves is nothing to do with McGhee. It is because the whole town were such a bunch of scumbags when we played there in a play off semi under Pardew. The situation inside the ground was made worse by the ticketing & stewarding which the club control. Outside wasn't anything they could control but just showed the whole place was rotten.

[harry]

You're right Ian. Name me any decent players that McDermott was responsible for bringing in to the club. y - Nick Blackman.

Didn't McD scout Kevin Doyle & Shane Long under Coppell?
And he signed Alfie, McCleary & Gunter.

I'm not sure you could describe any of those last three as particularly top signings. One couldn't force a regular first 11 birth and the ther two were bought for the PL one performed fairly badly and the other didn't exactly set the world on fire. They've performed much better at a lower level and under Adkins.

sandy - having your best players sold to balance the books doesn't prevent you from building towards something, it sets you back. you dont have to replace them with just short term fixes and no long term plan.

Anyway. I was asked to explain my view. You don't have to agree with it.

The request was to name any decent players McD signed. Thought those 3 were decent. Agreed Adkins got more out of them. Same as murthy was a decent burns signing. Others got the best out of him.

[AthleticoSpizz]

My main reason for hating Wolves is nothing to do with McGhee. It is because the whole town were such a bunch of scumbags when we played there in a play off semi under Pardew. The situation inside the ground was made worse by the ticketing & stewarding which the club control. Outside wasn't anything they could control but just showed the whole place was rotten.

...and whilst we had our own dickheads geeing up to their prickheadedness


My worst experience since the 6:57 crew took over the Southbank

[Ian Royal]

Didn't McD scout Kevin Doyle & Shane Long under Coppell?
And he signed Alfie, McCleary & Gunter.

I'm not sure you could describe any of those last three as particularly top signings. One couldn't force a regular first 11 birth and the ther two were bought for the PL one performed fairly badly and the other didn't exactly set the world on fire. They've performed much better at a lower level and under Adkins.

sandy - having your best players sold to balance the books doesn't prevent you from building towards something, it sets you back. you dont have to replace them with just short term fixes and no long term plan.

Anyway. I was asked to explain my view. You don't have to agree with it.

The request was to name any decent players McD signed. Thought those 3 were decent. Agreed Adkins got more out of them. Same as murthy was a decent burns signing. Others got the best out of him.

I was ignoring leon's comment because it was nonsense. It came out of a point that I made about most of McDermott's best signings being short-termist. Which is where I was coming from with that post. Apologise for any confusion.

[sandman]

Ian - There is no disputing that if you have players who you are building a team around and they are sold every summer then you cannot build for the long term even if you want to, especially when you only have enough to sign players from Leagues 1/2 and QPR reserves. I'm sure Brian would have liked to try to build a team around a talented attacking midfielder or a pacey striker like he did previously but if the builders yard don't provide the bricks and cement then even with the best will in the world you can't do it.

[leon]

I was ignoring leon's comment because it was nonsense. It came out of a point that I made about most of McDermott's best signings being short-termist. Which is where I was coming from with that post. Apologise for any confusion.

Just noticed this. Sad to see you still can't engage in adult debate without being offensive. As Snowball has pointed out BM made some astute signings to cover gaps and improve our overall squad. Didn't always get it right. But then who does?

[Zana Badawi]

Do we still believe that players are sourced solely and exclusively by the manager at this club - especially as we have a Director of Football.
Given that McDermott was a scout prior to being manager - are we then saying he had no input on sourcing players during his time as a scout?

Where does McDermott's influence begin and end and specifically on what players?

And I wouldn't say that Adkins era is characterised by better signings than McDermott's - and Im not entirely sure Adkins has been involved in any - he didn't get the two he wanted, and neither were particularly earth shattering

I'm not sure you could describe any of those last three as particularly top signings. One couldn't force a regular first 11 birth and the ther two were bought for the PL one performed fairly badly and the other didn't exactly set the world on fire. They've performed much better at a lower level and under Adkins.
.

Really? Alfie better under Adkins?
Really? Last season had all the hallmarks of a player and manager not really rating one another.

[floyd__streete]

Ian Royal is having a complete Nigel Adkins here.