Has BMc proved Coppell wrong?

[Sun Tzu]

Another different set of circumstances though. If McD got us promoted and up to 8th in the Prem it would be a miracle! He will have even less money available to him than Coppell did.

Possibly, we really don't know.

It would certainly be an achievement to get us up - would be interesting to do the sums but i suspect the current squad cost about the same as the promotion one. None of the 106 team cost £2 million !

[yappy]

Can work in two ways really, if you look at our league results just before cup games;

Before Liverpool- 4-1 Loss to Plymouth
Before Burnley- 2-1 Loss to Nottm Forest
Before WBA- 2-1 win against Plymouth
Before WBA replay- 2-0 defeat against Blackpool
Before Villa- 5-0 Win against Sheff Wed

Losses under McDermott: 4
Losses before big cup games: 3

Could be argued on one hand that having one eye on the cup distracted us in certain league games, but could also be said as the cup run continued the results in the league picked up.

Also if you look at our record under Coppell in the cups, rarely did we go out to weaker opposition, and we gave Man U and Liverpool decent games with our reserve side. Would we have won if we played a full strength team? Probably not.

[Armadillo Roadkill]

Let's leave Sir Steve out of this.

The FA Cup adventure this season has been (part of) the making of this team. In that sense, McD got it absolutley right. It also galvanised the fans and gave us something to be proud of. The winner at Anfield and Howard's equaliser at West Brom (93rd minute!) were pure gold to amy Reading follower.

The circumstances are different, the challenges different, the right thing to do different. I'm not sying we shouldn't debate it on here, but my conclusion on the debate is that it is ultimatley pointless.

We've had a magnificent cup run and it's translated into blistering league form. We just cannot compare a mis-firing good team into a succesful (so far) Championship team into a good team up against the big boys in the Premiership.

[Thankgodisfriday]

Without a doubt the team lead the fans,when they produce its leads to belief that leads to support.
As a club we are in awe of vocal supporting supprters but the reality is far from that... good support is far from delilah and the likes of Stoke etc.We are unfortunate in terms of our catchment area ..as we are not an ex docks fervent support area and we will never be that.We are generally middle class and a little more reserved... however we still passionate we love our club

[CMRoyal]

Well my therory which I have been going on about for ages , is the lack of respect for the cup cost us promotion. When it comes to the play offs it is 3 cup matches with the same mentality. Burnely came to us on the back of good cup runs in both cups and so were used to the " cup mentality " needed. We had been playing the marathon league format and were totally unprepared both one the pitch and off it to face the challenge needed.

If and its a massive if, we got to the playoffs under BM , I have no doubt his preperation would see us through the 3 cup match format.

Personally think it's more relevant Burnley were in good form and we were in shit form.

Maybe my memory's playing tricks, but I thought we were the better team in both matches. Burnley just seemed to have a stronger mentality. Whether that came from the Cup runs it's hard to tell, but I do agree that form going into playoffs tends to strongly affect the final outcome. It's amazing what belief can do to a team.

[rhroyal]

Firstly, 06/07 was very respectable with a "reserve" side and vindicated Coppell at the time, giving fringe players more confidence too. In January 2008, relegation didn't look massively likely. More a possibility. I think that it was a good idea to play a reserve side and give some players an experience. Lets not forget that we went out to Spurs that year, no real respect.

In 08/09, however, I think you could pinpoint the beginning of our slide to that game against Cardiff. Obviously it's debatable and there were lots of other factors involved. However, in a league where most teams can beat each other, confidence can play a big part. Going out in a limp fashion to Cardiff can't have been a good thing for our league campaign, I'll say that much.

This year, the reverse has happened. You can see what a difference confidence can make in this division, and that confidence can definitely be traced back to Liverpool.

Considering that in both 06/07 and this season a decent cup run has coincided with our best league run, the notion that the cup can distract from the league looks a myth.

For people referencing Portsmouth when Fulham beat them, the difference was that they had nothing to play for in the league. They had one match to live for at the end of that season.

[Ian Royal]

Well my therory which I have been going on about for ages , is the lack of respect for the cup cost us promotion. When it comes to the play offs it is 3 cup matches with the same mentality. Burnely came to us on the back of good cup runs in both cups and so were used to the " cup mentality " needed. We had been playing the marathon league format and were totally unprepared both one the pitch and off it to face the challenge needed.

If and its a massive if, we got to the playoffs under BM , I have no doubt his preperation would see us through the 3 cup match format.

Personally think it's more relevant Burnley were in good form and we were in shit form.

Maybe my memory's playing tricks, but I thought we were the better team in both matches. Burnley just seemed to have a stronger mentality. Whether that came from the Cup runs it's hard to tell, but I do agree that form going into playoffs tends to strongly affect the final outcome. It's amazing what belief can do to a team.

As I recall we battered them 1st game, but couldn't score. Kebe guilty of ballsing up a certain goal and Bikey guilty of gifting them a penalty. 2nd game we blew hard but never really looked to have what it took to overhaul the deficit and were sucker punched a couple of times.

I think you could argue that our team was low on confidence and belief because of our poor form. So we didn't convert our play into goals.
Our end of season transformed from:
1)We just need to keep picking up points to go up
2)We can afford a few bad results, it's fine we'll still go up
3)We really need to pick some points up.
4)We're drifting and we might lose out on the play offs even. Argh!
5)Yes we can still make autos!
6)Arse. Deflated and need to pick our selves up.
7)Arse.

Whereas Burnley had confidence that no matter how well we played they could score goals and take us. So did.

I'll admit it's a total toss up and cup form could just as easily have been the reason. It just doesn't sit right for me.

[bassavage]

Well my therory which I have been going on about for ages , is the lack of respect for the cup cost us promotion. When it comes to the play offs it is 3 cup matches with the same mentality. Burnely came to us on the back of good cup runs in both cups and so were used to the " cup mentality " needed. We had been playing the marathon league format and were totally unprepared both one the pitch and off it to face the challenge needed.

If and its a massive if, we got to the playoffs under BM , I have no doubt his preperation would see us through the 3 cup match format.

Personally think it's more relevant Burnley were in good form and we were in shit form.

Maybe my memory's playing tricks, but I thought we were the better team in both matches. Burnley just seemed to have a stronger mentality. Whether that came from the Cup runs it's hard to tell, but I do agree that form going into playoffs tends to strongly affect the final outcome. It's amazing what belief can do to a team.

To me the Burnley defeat was down to a few reasons
A) Our dreadful home run
B) Bikey's stupidity in the 1st game
C) Doyle getting injured in the 1st game
D) Them scoring 2 wonder goals
E) Coppell running out of ideas i.e. starting Church and making a triple substiution in the 2nd game
F) Kebe not squaring to Kitson(?) in the 1st game
G) Burnley being more up for it than we were due to Cup/never being in it before fever