Sshh! It's how we operate.

[Mad Dog's Ghost]

Only thing is Snowball, every time we capitulated at home and Coppell came out with his 'haven't got a clue' ramblings, you kept telling us all how your stats showed Birmingham had no chance and that we'd be absolutely fine.

[Snowball]

Only thing is Snowball, every time we capitulated at home and Coppell came out with his 'haven't got a clue' ramblings, you kept telling us all how your stats showed Birmingham had no chance and that we'd be absolutely fine.

and we got to the last day, and needed 2-1 instead of 1-2


The way we contrived to throw away that league beggars belief
and that IMO was down to the team-spirit, lack of leadership,
lack of quality, lack of belief.


As much as anything, probably because SCC's heart wasn't in it

[AthleticoSpizz]

Was Steve Coppell a good coach? Was Steve Coppell a good motivator?


Despite the club's great success in going up and the first year, who would say yes to either?

I liked SCC a lot but it used to drive me bonkers listening to him, so dead-pan. Almost DE-motivating.

You were priviledged to be in the changing room, prior to kick off, during half time, and after the game............... obviously

What you have been sold was the media aftermath.
The reality was his results .....which included our shameful 4th last season

[Snowball]

Was Steve Coppell a good coach? Was Steve Coppell a good motivator?


Despite the club's great success in going up and the first year, who would say yes to either?

I liked SCC a lot but it used to drive me bonkers listening to him, so dead-pan. Almost DE-motivating.

You were priviledged to be in the changing room, prior to kick off, during half time, and after the game............... obviously

What you have been sold was the media aftermath.
The reality was his results .....which included our shameful 4th last season

Oh come on, get real! I lost count of the number of times we blew it at home only to look up at the results
and see that Birmingham/Wolves/Cardiff/Swansea etc had somehow contrived to match us.


How many points did Watford (for example) gain on us between January 1st and the season's end?

[Snowball]

Was Steve Coppell a good coach? Was Steve Coppell a good motivator?


Despite the club's great success in going up and the first year, who would say yes to either?

I liked SCC a lot but it used to drive me bonkers listening to him, so dead-pan. Almost DE-motivating.

You were priviledged to be in the changing room, prior to kick off, during half time, and after the game............... obviously

What you have been sold was the media aftermath.
The reality was his results .....which included our shameful 4th last season

Spitz, U know what I mean. I can't believe that the SCC we saw on TV
was that much different from the one in the changing room

I'm not knocking SCC. I was very very glad he was our manager, but in retrospect I think some light had gone ut in that last 12 months and it got through to the players

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

What we had after finishing 8th was the core of a decent side that needed the signing of 3/4 players of the quality of Doyle, Hunt, Kitson, Shorey, Sidwell, to add to the team. Those players would have cost 4 to 5 million each at that time, what we got was Kebe, Cisse etc, Halford at around the £2m each mark.

Is there anyone here that thinks that Coppell had £20 million odd to strengthen the team, or that JM would have risked that kind of money on continued Premier success, knowing it could just as easily have failed.

Looking from the outside in it seems that £2m was almost a price that JM was happy to pay, along with the wages of a player at that price, which seems to be under £20k a week, I would also think that the window in Jan we needed to lose S Hunt, to bring in the money to buy one or more £2m players, as most of the budget had already gone, funny how SC HAD the money in Jan, yet at the end of the season it had gone and we needed to find another £11m to balance the books, perhaps coppell had had enough of how RFC operated, and could not really wait till it was all over, and that filtered through to the players.

[Ian Royal]

What we had after finishing 8th was the core of a decent side that needed the signing of 3/4 players of the quality of Doyle, Hunt, Kitson, Shorey, Sidwell, to add to the team. Those players would have cost 4 to 5 million each at that time, what we got was Kebe, Cisse etc, Halford at around the £2m each mark.

Is there anyone here that thinks that Coppell had £20 million odd to strengthen the team, or that JM would have risked that kind of money on continued Premier success, knowing it could just as easily have failed.

Looking from the outside in it seems that £2m was almost a price that JM was happy to pay, along with the wages of a player at that price, which seems to be under £20k a week, I would also think that the window in Jan we needed to lose S Hunt, to bring in the money to buy one or more £2m players, as most of the budget had already gone, funny how SC HAD the money in Jan, yet at the end of the season it had gone and we needed to find another £11m to balance the books, perhaps coppell had had enough of how RFC operated, and could not really wait till it was all over, and that filtered through to the players.

Actually what we got was Halford £2.5m & Duberry £800k mid-way through the good season when we started to tail off. And Rosenior~£1m, Fae £2.5m & Cisse ~£600k in the summer.

Matejovsky and Kebe came halfway through the season we failed in and were already really too little too late. Kebe especially.
Coppell's flaws were not in coaching or motivation, but in decisive action to turn around a slump. Partly because he expects his players to take a little responsibility on themselves for their performances.

Coppell didn't really do much coaching from what I've read, so that can hardly be an area laid at his fet.

[Snowball]

Coppell didn't really do much coaching from what I've read, so that can hardly be an area laid at his fet. (sic)




The question was, "Was he a good coach?".


The answer, then is no.

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

What we had after finishing 8th was the core of a decent side that needed the signing of 3/4 players of the quality of Doyle, Hunt, Kitson, Shorey, Sidwell, to add to the team. Those players would have cost 4 to 5 million each at that time, what we got was Kebe, Cisse etc, Halford at around the £2m each mark.

Is there anyone here that thinks that Coppell had £20 million odd to strengthen the team, or that JM would have risked that kind of money on continued Premier success, knowing it could just as easily have failed.

Looking from the outside in it seems that £2m was almost a price that JM was happy to pay, along with the wages of a player at that price, which seems to be under £20k a week, I would also think that the window in Jan we needed to lose S Hunt, to bring in the money to buy one or more £2m players, as most of the budget had already gone, funny how SC HAD the money in Jan, yet at the end of the season it had gone and we needed to find another £11m to balance the books, perhaps coppell had had enough of how RFC operated, and could not really wait till it was all over, and that filtered through to the players.

Actually what we got was Halford £2.5m & Duberry £800k mid-way through the good season when we started to tail off. And Rosenior~£1m, Fae £2.5m & Cisse ~£600k in the summer.

Matejovsky and Kebe came halfway through the season we failed in and were already really too little too late. Kebe especially.
Coppell's flaws were not in coaching or motivation, but in decisive action to turn around a slump. Partly because he expects his players to take a little responsibility on themselves for their performances.

Coppell didn't really do much coaching from what I've read, so that can hardly be an area laid at his fet.

So we did not pay the price for Prem players then???? Just some that had potential?

Some here said we needed to pay for players , and that the fans had been done when we did not, considering the hike in ST prices.

[RoyalBlue]

IMO the club is doing an excellent job and is starting the process of building a new team that could be very good
and better next year and the year after.

Henry looks a decent Championship player now and will improve.

Church, HRK, Davies look very, very promising, as does Siggy.

Pearce will just get more and more experienced. Already he's a very good player.

The difference for me now is CONFIDENCE and (it seems) a desire to receive the ball
and play with it.

If we miss out this year we could easily win this league next year with the kids finally paying off.

Yes, I can see them paying off - chances are that Sir Moneybags will see them flogged off for a good price too, thus increasing the return on his investment!

[RoyalBlue]

Bet egoman was waxing lyrical with that deal...more in his ball park - cheques for £1!!

Please tell me you're not that stupid.

The land deal came with conditions that the stadium, retail park and hotel were to be built - a clause required the building to be completed in a limited amount of time, otherwise the land would revert to the council.
So SJM was up for c£40m outlay as soon as the £1 cheque cleared.

Of course he had a very substantial outlay but I suspect that, as with most of his business deals, having made that initial outlay he put himself in the position to reap a substantial profit!

[Snowball]

I am sure we will have 4 or 5 new players on board by the end of September. If not you have every right to criticise but apart from Cardiff and Sheff Unt there has not exactly been a lot of activity so far.

And each year we have someone telling us exactly the same thing! It's going to be alright. And for the last two years 'It's going to be alright' has meant relegation from the PL and a failure to bounce back. IIRC Birmingham were pretty active this time last year and look what happened to them!

Do you think last season's disaster was down to the quality of the players, players capable of beating the champions twice and Birmingham away, Sheffield away?

It wasn't the quality of the squad, it was an atmosphere/team-spirit/management problem of some kind

[brendywendy]

im looking for the "where has all the money gone" thread


is this it?

[Ian Royal]

[
So we did not pay the price for Prem players then???? Just some that had potential?

Some here said we needed to pay for players , and that the fans had been done when we did not, considering the hike in ST prices.

Bare in mind that our previous transfer record was roughly £1m and generally we had not been spending more than £1.5m in a season as far as i recall. So the fans did see increased spending on players, as they saw increased wages. Just not necessarily to the level they wanted.

It is clear we were willing to spend £4-5m on a player, but we were only prepared to pay that much for players we were sure about. When those bids failed, we went for back up targets who were less ready, we were less sure of and consequently cost less.

The failing IMO was not identifying enough players of the right quality to go for in the £3-5m range and settling for the cheaper back ups instead.

Also remember Championship clubs fairly rarely pay over £1m for players, and those clubs that do are usually clubs with big fan bases, sugar daddies who bankroll them or yoyoing between the Prem and Champ already. So £2m+ is a premier league fee. Just at the low end.

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

TY Ian, we bought prem players at the low end, take a look at the players at other clubs, and using that as a measure it seemed inevitable that we were not willing/able to compete. hence relegation beckoned, though still should have been avoided, though probably for only one more season, as SC was such a poor manager.

[Ian Royal]

TY Ian, we bought prem players at the low end, take a look at the players at other clubs, and using that as a measure it seemed inevitable that we were not willing/able to compete. hence relegation beckoned, though still should have been avoided, though probably for only one more season, as SC was such a poor manager.

No. No. No.

Coppell certainly had his faults and contributed to our premier league demise. But contributions were made by all including luck, fate and Fulham.

We should have stayed up in the end, if only just. Coppell should (and would) have left. Then it would have completely depended on the man coming in.

[IMAMATEOFJOVSKY]

Ian Royal - you live in cloud cuckoo land !! - we didnt stay up because we werent prepared to invest when we needed to - Egoman saw the freakish 8th position finish and decided for himself that the squad was good enough ...he knows buggar all about football ...he didnt allow any real budget to be made available and the end result speaks for itself - dont blame Fulham , Coppell etc - blame the short sightedness of a tight chairman !

[Arch]

And yet if Halford or Fae had proved to be worth the money Sir John made available for them, chances are somewhere along the way we would have found the one goal we needed to survive.

[Cookie]

And yet if Halford or Fae had proved to be worth the money Sir John made available for them, chances are somewhere along the way we would have found the one goal we needed to survive.

You're so right. There's a depressing truth about that.

[Tamworth_Royal]

One point people don't touch on.

If madejski had taken us over 3/4 years ago, people would be likening him to michael knighton of carlisle. Asset stripping, pure and simple. Selling our best players for substancial fees and not bringing in replacements. Thats what knighton did at carlisle for years with players like delap, boertien, matt jansen,etc, he was hated. The only reason madejski gets off and is called " astute" is because he's been here for a while and funded a new ground ( subsequently with loaned payments).
I really can't understand why its not visable to a lot of people the step backs we are taking. Clubs around us like forest are investing to strengthen and we are struggling to find players ti fill positions. Talk of brynjar in defence ( seriously, wtf?)
We spent 2 years in the prem and have 3 eyars parachute payments, we have sold kitson, doyle, sonko and shorey for almost 15 million and how much of that has been invested in the team? Madejski is on a par with michael knighton, im sorry.

Don't apologise telling the truth, shame that so many idiots on here just can't see it.

The day after the Leicester promotion game he went on SSN stating his desire to sell because he bottled it and from that day to this he's just cashed in and emptied the cookie jar.