cityfanlee23

The league is currently playing right into our hands, the bottom 6 clubs are absolutely woeful including us, and the couple above us are also struggling to find form. If we had won 2 games instead of draws this season we would have been in a really healthy position, instead we have 3 points from 5 games. Performance was everything today and we were poor, I think I’ve seen enough at this point. The signs are not there and before long the teams around us are going to find some form and if we don’t do that ourselves we will find ourselves in trouble. I like Steve, he speaks well, you can tell he wants to build, but if we can’t get the basics right he won’t be here long enough to build any sort of foundation. We have been gifted a massive opportunity to put daylight between ourselves and the bottom 3 so far this season and we’ve not taken that opportunity. Not good enough. No idea who I’d want to bring in if he went today, but unless he pulls off a massive 180, it feels deep down like we are just delaying the inevitable. I want to give him time, but our performances are too lacklustre to defend. we have enough attacking talent in this team to cause teams problems, yet we aren’t.

The only sub that was an issue for me was Choudhury, he should have brought on Buoanotte or Pereira into midfield. Bringing on Coady wasn't an issue for me, and bringing on our most raw attacking talent in Fatawu was also fine. I think in the end it was more the fact that we invited pressure and dropped way too deep where we should have been pushing out a bit and pressuring them. I don't think Cooper is going to last long.

COOPER OUT. How dare he tell Coady to give a stupid penalty away. Get a grip, all throughout that game the match thread was a cesspit of personal digs at the manager, we are 2-1 up away from home at a very capable palace team and we brought on defensive players to see out the game during a period we were inevitably going to be under pressure, could we have gone about it in a different way to alleviate the pressure, sure, but the vast majority of football managers do this exact thing away from home, it was working until Coady put in a stupid challenge. Be constructive, just abusing the manager speaks more about your own intellect than anyone else's. Embarrassing fans.

Can’t disagree with this so far. Cooper has a reputation of being pragmatic and trying to get the best out of his players and changing things to suit his team vs opponents. So far he’s made some quite baffling decisions such as dropping Mavididi and Ricky, playing Faes in a position he is visibly and vocally not comfortable with, the 3 man midfield of winks Ndidi and skipp doesn’t bother me so much but I can completely understand why people want to see us play an attacking CM from the start. We need 110% from every single player this season but it feels like so far we haven’t setup in a way that allows them to achieve that.

The get out of jail free card has obviously been taken away today, but let’s not pretend our entire transfer window wasn’t based around the likelihood of us getting a points deduction. We got rid of multiple premier league players when we went down, and spent £50m net on our return, mostly on cheap experienced less risky signings like BDCR and Ayew, the signings we did make for decent sums all clearly have sell on as the main priority. This team if it plays to its maximum capacity can stay up, but the likelihood of us playing to our theoretical maximum is slim bar the odd games. Survival will still be a fantastic achievement imo.

The real argument boils down to is the position they are being asked to play benefitting us more than just allowing Ricardo to play a role that suits him. But also, I really can't think of a single system in football that Justin could play better than Ricky.

At the moment I’d drop Wout for Vesty, it’s frustrating because the only reason he would get into this squad is because he’s faster than Vestergaard and Coady.

What a horrible few weeks, Rest in Peace, Sol. Absolutely loved you as a player for us, scared the hell out of me whenever you'd get the ball in defence and start driving forward like Beckenbauer but we had some fun!

I did message my friends during the game that I think if we continue losing he will get 7-8 games and will be gone. The fans are turning faster than milk.

Yeah I agree with that too, can definitely see both sides, but on the flipside of that, Buo came on at a time in the match where Villa were backing off and soaking up pressure which allowed him space and time to move around, in the first half there is no guarantee he would have got any space or time, he's not a strong player and could easily have been bullied out of the game. I can see both sides, i'm just pointing out the fact that it's never black and white.

You're right that often this place does become an echo chamber, but it's worth noting that the ground can also become one too. Rodgers was being clapped right to the very end by the majority. Devils advocate.

Who would you go for if he was sacked tonight? Genuinely curious Available coaches | Transfermarkt Imo, I think it would have to be someone who can come in and rally the team, Moyes/Nige/Sam type manager. I'd really love for us to find a gem who wants to play attractive football but is the gamble on an unknown any better than sticking with cooper?

It's all opinions but fwiw, I think too many people see the game as black and white of attack vs defence, I agree I think we were setup too defensively minded, but Skipp got forward quite often. Out of the 3 man midfield, Ndidi plays more defensively, Skipp goes forward and Winks plays between the two. This idea that just because we subbed on some offensive midfielders and we started creating chances that we should have started with that and would have got a better result if we did is just oversimplifying tactics. With a 3 man midfield of Winks, Skipp and Ndidi we were still defensively overrun, if we had Bouanotte on from the beginning we very likely could have been even more overrun in midfield which easily could have cost us more goals in the first half. I understand peoples frustrations with Cooper wanting to setup with a more traditionally "solid" midfield at the expense of creativity, but that doesn't automatically mean it's the wrong decision. He could have started with Bouanotte and we go into half time 3-0 down, in the end we came into the 2nd half still in the game vs a Champions League side. Was it frustrating? Yes. Is throwing attackers on from minute 1 always the answer? of course not. Football isn't black and white. I hope we find a better balance too, but my personal opinion is that if we had dropped Skipp, Ndidi or Winks we would have been even further behind with how badly our midfield was getting overrun.

Thought he had a good game too, him and Faes were both a bit muddled for the 2nd goal which was a mistake on both of them but overall he had a much better game compared to what he's shown so far.

His spending since arriving would suggest he's done quite well there, but that's opinions, the point was mainly about the fact we "couldn't afford" him when we've spent £70m+ on players.

The part that's most surprising is that we wen't for an option because he was cheap, rumours from the media suggest we didn't go for Corberan because of his £4m buyout fee, If Cooper can't get a tune out of these players it will cost us far more than £4m, and we've just spent a net £50m on players, how could we not afford Corberan?

Can't believe I'm posting this on a forum of adults, but we can criticise Cooper, please do criticise his mistakes and poor judgement, but can we pack it in with the actual abuse and mocking his appearance?

Okoli has made some mistakes but he's not been too bad when compared to his pre season and first appearances. Hopefully he can keep improving as he's pretty mobile and physically strong

Jesus lads, criticise coopers decisions but the outright abuse and comments on his appearance again?

I think this season is going to need to be a season of trying to desperately outscore the opponents because defensively we are awful. Hopefully Cooper learns from this as we need points fast.

Very true, however in Coopers defence, even with 3 defensively minded mids, we've been absolutely dominated in midfield, could be even worse with someone like Bouanotte on, although we would atleast be able to attack.

Does Big Nige fancy coming in and beating some players up with a crutch?

Cooper needs to take responsibility, but jesus our players look uninterested there. We were finally getting momentum and they just turned off.

He needed a loan move really. I just cannot see where he gets game time given the signings we have made. Even if he was considered for LW/CAM/RW he needs to get into the squad ahead of Mavididi, Fatawu, Buoanotte, El Khan, BDCR and Ayew. I can't see him getting game time this season. I hope a dutch club come in for a loan for him with the remaining 2 days of their window.

They have, but they've also spent £125m and have bought multiple unproven players who lack experience. Fatawu and Skipp are better players than anyone Ipswich have signed. We were also in completely different financial situations, Ipswich wage budget is a fraction of ours at the beginning of the season and they are not bloated with overpaid players, we however needed to spend this window trying to find cheap players like Ayew and BDCR that would give us the experience to try to reset financially. I think Ipswich will go down.