Royalee Was finishing 2nd in '95 and playing superb football 'rubbish'? Or perhaps finishing 4th in the Championship the season before this supposed untouchable was appointed and looking a very good bet to reach the playoff final against a Sheffield United team tired from cup exploits we'd played off the park at Bramall Lane with some of the best football I've ever seen an away side play before Forster got injured and we had to change the entire dynamic of our team?
Have to say Royalee has a
very valid point here.
I don't think its too much of a push to say that the club was geared towards getting into the top flight when we were still in the third tier. Its not 135 years of rubbish and then Coppell. Its 120-130 years of rubbish and then they realised, at some point in the early 90s, that we didn't have to be rubbish anymore.
Coppell was the man who did it. I'd happily stand up and say that I think Pardew would have done it had he not been poached by West Ham. The person who replaces Coppell will almost certainly do it.
I'll ask the question again, as nobody seems to want to answer it - at what point would you say 'enough is enough'? After a relegation? After a dismal performance during the season? (When to all concerned, we have the best squad by a mile and can play some attractive football.) When, despite all the above achievements (and personally speaking, getting promotion this season via the play-offs would feel rather fraudulent.) Coppell's tactics and use of players has been naive at best. At what point would you replace him? Never, by the sounds of it. I am not saying Coppell is just lucky, obviously he IS a good manager, but what I can't get my head around is this blind loyalty that because of 'this' and because of 'that', he's immune from any scrutiny. I believe that he and the coaching staff, have lost the respect of the players...and he's not 'managed' his way out of that one.
And again.
IMO, he was always going to leave this summer and because we all know that, and the players know that, that's why this season is grinding to a halt.
As for Sidwell being over/under-rated I agree with RR to an extent. For me Sidwell was a key figure in the side (both physically and mentally) and removing him from the squad was a significant factor in our downfall but he wasn't, and still isn't that great a player, but he was just the type of player we needed to compliment the other elements of the squad. Not replacing him, losing Little at the same time, and the general attitude of 'we've made it' were the reasons for our relegation.
Even if he was playing poorly, he added something to the team in, I dunno, drive and character.
Written this a thousand times, but had we kept our wing play, we'd have missed him less. But we essentially lostour entire right wing in that second season and our left wing was never as wide as it could have been. So it relied on a strong midfield more but we didn't have that either. Plan A goes wrong, no plan B.
