wardyfox86

Once again, you've put more thought into the tactical analysis than Cooper did in his tactical preparation We can only hope he reads.

I think the board are as incompetent as the next guy. But they were pushing us to compete with the top end of the Premier League, winning FA Cups, finishing within a whisker of 4th twice. On either of those occasions, had we got over the line, we'd be having a different conversation. They didn't make lot of little errors, they made 1 huge error. Not parting with Rodgers when the whole club needed a refresh. If he'd gone in October we were still an attractive proposition for a new manager who likely would have kept us up. Had that happened, we'd probably have had the quality in the squad to survive even with a points deduction. The Smith appointment almost paid off but was too little, too late. The Enzo appointment was spot on and he was backed with quality signings. He left unexpectedly and we likely had little in the way of attractive candidates due to impending sanctions. We avoided sanctions and are now probably a more attractive proposition than we were in July. I guess we all just hope that the board has leart something from the Rodgers failure, that we look at this in October and bring in somebody who'll give us a fighting chance.

Not about to start abusing the guy, he didn't hire himself. He just isn't PL quality. He won't keep us up because he's shown already that he doesn't have the ability to get points where he shouldn't and aside from about 7-8 fixtures, this is exactly what is required. I think we lose the the next 2 and he goes. 2 games, 5 games or 15 games, doesn't matter how long he's been here, it's clear it's just not going to work and not going to change.

Who was the last poor appointment before Cooper?

Get Hamza on to see out this point.

If it was El Khannouss starting yesterday and getting 2 assists, he would have had 6 new pages on his thread full of glowing reviews. If Cooper is insistant on this "set up to not lose" approach to 90% of games, then Ndidi getting goal contributions in his defensive CAM position will be vital in that being successful.

This is the Premier League though, you can put all but a couple of side in this category. I can't see where more than about 5 wins are coming from, especially if we continually play to just not lose. We have a solid enough squad, but like you say, his management of line ups and in-game has cost us 2 points at the very least. Even the Fulham and Villa results felt like opportunities missed through setting up not to lose.

There's plenty of room between "committing men forward" and what we saw for 20 minutes today. Park the bus like that and fail to see it out, you'll rightfully come in for criticism.

Can't really blame him for getting hired. Shouldn't really be anywhere near a PL job. Rare miss by our board who, despite everyone despising them, have a good recent track record of getting the right man in. We'll go down with him in charge, but I doubt we had too many knocking at the door with the expected sanctions.

Bang average all round. Long ball rubbish for much of the second half. Half decent players, Championship manager, League One tactics.

That's the longest we're gonna have a 2 goal lead this season isn't it? Cooper had no intention of us going and bagging another. It's gonna be a long season of us hanging onto 0-0 and 1-0 scorelines. When he's gone we need to go for someone like Rohl or Cifuentes.

Didnt deserve to win the game on this showing anyway. Atrocious second half just trying to hold on from minute 49. We have better players than Cooper is giving us credit for. Sets us up like we're fresh out of League 2 playing Man City. We'll go down with a whimper with him in charge.

Steve

fair enough. As difficult as sarcasm is to detect in text form, I'm usually pretty adept. This one slipped through.

I can't think of many occasions where this HASN'T been written into a loan contract between 2 PL teams. It's pretty commonplace.

True. Look at the bucket load of goals he scored with the likes of Olise, Eze and Zaha supplying him I jest, because I do agree with you

I just can't see where 12 or so wins that we require will come from without taking games to teams at home. Coupled with Cooper's away record it's hard to see 30 points without even taking into account the points deduction. The bottom 6 already look like the mini league for relegation and Palace strengthened well on deadline day. Can we pick up points where they can't?

Christ, half a page of laughing at Everton...

What is the point in friendly games if not to get the players up to speed with the approach you're trying to implement? If the approach is to win the ball back well and then look clueless with what to do with it, preseason was a success.

A touch in the opposition box there, great half...

My calls for Cooper to go are starting early. Farcical lineup, we'll offer nothing today again. 0-3 loss. He'll quickly lose any support from the remaining fans once he removes Fatawu to make space for BDCR. Clueless...

No. It's only because we don't have him, that this forum elevates him to a level he's never reached.

It's no "chat shit, get banged" but it's not bad.

It's 3am and we're picking through the "less desirables" at the club.

Druggist.