Gubbins

Spain have been the best team in the tournament by a considerable distance whilst England despite having an equal amount of talent in the squad have been largely poor and have had a lot of luck to make the final. Just because it would be monumentally unfair which is so often the case in football, I'm convinced England will prevail on Sunday. The only thing that can stop them is Harry Kanes trophy curse!

I'd say less peak Brazil and more pellegrinis 2nd season man city team on an off day personally. Seriously though what made his Forest team so hideous? I genuinely don't know as there's no way I'd waste my precious time watching the spawny scumbags. I struggle to imagine it being much worse than some of our poorer performances in recent times?

Wel likely be starting around 6 points behind everyone else. I'd be mildly impressed if we aren't bottom 10 games in, amazed if we weren't bottom 3. No manager we could have had instead would likely have us in a good position 10 games in.

There's a real inability here to appreciate our current place in the pyramid. Any chance we had of staying near the top and appointing a quality manager we could all be excited about ended with the clubs refusal to ditch Rodgers after that abysmal start 2 years ago. We're now stuck back where we've been for most of the rest of our existence having to take a punt and hoping for the best. I'm not ecstatic about appointing Cooper but there is absolutely no real evidence that corberan, who many including myself would have preferred, would be any better. As I've said in other threads we're finishing 16th at absolute best this season no matter who's in charge and Cooper, assuming hes pragmatic, gives us a slightly better chance than trash like Fat Frank/Ole or all-out possession merchants like potter/maresca.

This will still largely involve lots of slow sterile possession, just from the opposition instead. Youl love it.

Probably won't have the cbs passing it between themselves as the core move. He won't throw a hissy fit if we lose the possession battle. Might have a clue about using substitutes Probably won't have the cbs passing it between themselves as the core move. Yes I know I already said this but **** does it need repeating!

Disagree. Maresca has one system and one system only and would rather play his favourites even if they aren't suited to the role. We would absolutely have to have fatawu, a new 8 to replace ndidi, someone who can play the inverted rb role in ricardos absence and that's just so we can play his damn system fullstop. To remotely stand a chance at survival we'd need a new striker instead of daka, someone to cover the winks position instead of choudhry, another winger or stick exclusively with fatawu and mavadidi all season, potentially replace kdh and finally get another cb or have the doomsday scenario of vestergarrd and sideshow as our cb pairing. Frankly I'm being optimistic thinking we'd only need 70m! Cooper or any manager worth having would hopefully have the wit to change formations and use the squad well enough not to require that number of signings.

We haven't really built anything over the last year. We'd be absolutely screwed playing enzoball in the prem against teams much better than us. Cooper is underwhelming and we may well go down with him but less pissession football and a much much more pragmatic approach at least gives us a chance. If he can get a siege mentality at the club again itl be the best thing a manager has created here in ages.

Maresca would have needed around 70m worth of new players to stand a chance of survival playing the possesion football you've been lauding. We don't have the ability to spend that amount so it makes sense in my mind to get someone more pragmatic.

We would have been bored to tears in the stands and torn to shreds on the pitch by any team with a bit of pace and a good press which is most of them. The only reason maresca would last past Xmas would be that Rudkin would be too stupid to sack him.

And the Rodgers teams, certainly the ones who finished 5th would wipe the floor with last seasons teams cos they were full of good prem quality players. Bit like most of the teams wel be facing this season. Playing them at their own game with inferior players is only going to get us consistently beaten. Do something different.

Relegated ourselves playing it as well. And a key difference then and when we finished 5th, 8th and won the cup is that we played 'that' football with much much better players than we have currently and even then we imploded in those seasons due to a lack of fight and bottle when the pressure was on. Last season we had vastly better players than pretty much the whole league and it was that more than the bullshit style that got us up. Noticeable again how often we blew it under pressure as the season went on. So no ThE StYle WoNt WorK if we try playing it with players not good enough and against teams who are better at it than us. Wel need to work and fight harder then them to give ourselves a chance.

Well seeing as you're bringing it up I'm sure it's horrendous and I'm sure it won't be any great shakes with us. But then it wouldn't be great under Potter, Maresca, Corberan or anyone we can appoint as we don't have a particularly good team or squad. Hopefully though under Cooper we might show more fight and determination to get a result than the dull, soft centered stuff we'd see under potter and maresca.

Fair enough and like I said initially we are finishing bottom 5 no matter who we have In charge. And if we're gonna get beat regularly id rather it happen playing something other than the joyless possesion football of the last 3 years.

Potters Brighton were bloody notorious for not scoring goals and we got increasingly worse against substandard second tier defences the further we got into last season. Furthermore there is zero defensive solidity the way maresca and potter play. Its basically 'the opposition can't score if we have the ball' basically the Brendan Rodgers approach to defending. It's regularly taken apart by good pressing and the inevitable bad pass in the snoozetastic horseshoe passing system. I don't think Cooper will go this route and we should inherently be more solid then we were. Whether its solid enough to stay up I don't know but better that than watching more of marescas football hipster bollocks.

We're finishing bottom 5 no matter who is in charge but I'm more optimistic we can survive with Cooper than either maresca or potter. Defensive solidity and swift counter attacks is how we can survive this season. The style the other 2 play, Enzoball aka Rodgersball aka pissession aka the horseshoe of doom, used against teams with better players than us will just send us down. Itl also continue to frustrate and bore the hell out of the non football hipster amongst us. I'm def giving Cooper a chance.

But whilst you may replace st holders the former st holders won't replace existing members cos the prices are so ridiculous. Which probably results in st prices slowly rising to make up the shortfall anyway.

When we eventually go down and stay down (so potentially 2 years away) this pretty much finishes us as a fan base. A majority of people aren't gonna want season tickets to watch us be mediocre for years in the second tier and next to no one is gonna regularly go paying these obscene prices which of course will never go back down. Wel have a half empty stadium most games. When the day comes I give up my st that ls certainly it for me.

We don't need him in the squad. We have 4 other cbs none of whom he's particularly better than plus justin who can fill in if needs be. The alternative is we let the big duffer go and use his wages where its actually needed.

Was worried we'd do this when he started to perform last season (at a massively worse level) I can't really add anything to what most others have said. Those last 2 years of contract will most likely just involve him sitting on the bench counting his earnings after we fail to loan him out or sell him. Absolutely insane decision given we've got 4 other cbs and Justin if we get desperate or play 3 at the back. Just gotta pray that whoever the next manager is doesn't play a high defensive line!

Not really. They didn't have much choice but to react somehow.. Their price rises were so horrific they got national news coverage and even then the reaction is a promise not to raise them again next year. Sounds exactly the kind of 'compromise' our board level f**kwits would dish out. If I may just edit this after looking into it a bit more. Wolves no longer upping the u14 ticket prices given how huge the raises were is actually a big win for their trust. Not at all convinced our board would do the same in similar circumstances.

If he does badly Chelsea do badly and most right thinking football fans should be hoping that happens.

The thought of watching faes and whoever get pressed into mistakes every game and every pl left winger romp into the acres of space left by an inverted fullback deflated me. The idea that we may now get a pragmatic manager actually gives me a sliver of hope.

There's a current belief with the even crazier appointment of kompany by Bayern that a connection to guardiola means you're destined for great things. It's madness. Guardiola is a true one off, much like Clough and Ferguson before him. The managerial careers of their assistants and former players don't generally make great reading. Hopefully Maresca proves more Steve McLaren than Martin O'Neil!

Nah, even if you like him and enjoyed his tedious all out possesion football style you simply can't want him to go on and do well at f*king Chelsea. One of the most vile clubs in world football. I hope he fails miserably and relegates them personally.