orangecity23

1 point above the bottom 3, and 2 above 19th when Cooper was sacked, with all the easiest fixtures in the first half of the season already used up - with a difficult run of fixtures to come. At the time, Palace were second bottom with 8 points, they now have 33. So if we'd kept the hard done by Cooper, and he'd maintained the same form - we'd still be in the bottom 3, given the improvement of Palace (and Wolves, to a lesser extent).

If you'd said a Dyche type manager, that statement might make sense. But Cooper was definitely not a manager to stop goals going in - he achieved one clean sheet for us, and that was against a Bournemouth team who rattled the woodwork multiple times and had a goal disallowed because Evanilson couldn't resist having a waft at a ball into the box which he didn't need to whilst offside. His defensive record at Forest was honking as well.

Lesta: Runs around after a ball Has a lead Is a good boy Ayew: Doesn't run No leads Not a good boy

It was actually so long it triggered some Foxestalk logic that meant it needed a moderator to approve it before it was posted That's just how bad a season its been, can't even fit it in a regular post.

It's just been a relentless series of one kick in the face after another, with any time you think there might be something good, it gets snatched away immediately. Get promoted with a good manager and a likeable local academy graduate as a star player and talisman? BOOM. Manager gone KDH gone Ooh, rumours of Potter for manager? It's Cooper Time for a pre-season - lose every game First half vs Spurs - don't even touch the ball. Hey - nice - an equaliser - maybe things aren't so bad... Sign Skipp Sign Ayew Lose to Fulham Lose to Villa Ricardo finally starting vs Forest Lose to Forest Ricardo's injured Fail to score past a League 2 team Wait weeks into the season to actually win a game Win 2 in a row - Abdul on fire! Abdul's ACL while away with Ghana Lose twice to Man United in a week Lose to Chelsea with KDH brought on for 5 minutes at the end like he's a prize you missed out on in an episode of Bullseye Cooper finally sacked! Fail to get a manager in for Brentford away, waste a game and get smashed to bits Actually win a game vs West Ham! Now Ndidi is injured Nice comeback vs Brighton Now Hermansen is injured Ward in goal Lose to Newcastle Lose to Wolves Finally binned Ward off Keep Losing January finally here, chance to strengthen No signings FA Cup - actually winning a game - scoring 6 goals! Nope - fog - you'll only see 3 of them Lose to Palace Lose to Fulham Cannon sold, maybe we can afford to strengthen... No signings Alves loaned out Keep losing 2 nil down by the time the radio stream has loaded vs Everton keep losing FA Cup, exciting youngster on the bench, actually taking the lead! Lose to 6 offside players, never get to see Monga play Actually defend ok vs Arsenal for 80 minutes... Lose anyway Immediately lose the ability to defend again vs Brentford. Thrashed again. What a miserable, miserable season. Nothing to enjoy, nothing to look forward to, any tiny glimour of hope (Fatawu, new manager bounce, January window) stomped out before your very eyes befor you even get the chance to raise your spirits even a little. You know if they do sack Ruud, there's no chance that the replacement would be up to it either, because the Director of Eff-all and Top will be picking the replacement, and they've failed the last 2 times they've tried that this season. Even next season is nothing to look forward to - the PSR problems hang about permanently to disrupt us, anyone good will be sold to try to fill the black hole money pit that Rudkin and Glover have dug even deeper with the likes of Skipp, Okoli and Ayew. And even if next year, we get a new top manager in by fluke, and we rebuild something good and worthwhile, like Enzo did - it only takes one summer of Rudkin and a managerial change and all that hard work can be dismantled in an instant. Right now, the best word to describe this club is hopeless - because there is absolute nothing to give you any hope for its future for the upcoming years ahead.

Coady was mooching about behind Facundo as well, posing as if he cares and so he has some more material to talk about next time he's on a podcast.

Never know when you might need to chuck on an extra defender to preserve a clean sheet....... Oh. Right. We've kept about 1 clean sheet all season. We end up chasing games to get back into them every week, yet it never occurs to Ruud that an extra attacking option might be useful.

*Disclaimer* "Getting behind the lads" may not actually involve making any noise at all during the game, duration of support may terminate after 70-80 minutes of gameplay, to "beat the traffic".

Skipp has to be a Cooper demand, he's one of his England u17 players, and Cooper has had a pattern of signing those players everywhere he's been.

Next time you do a detailed ft post about the youth team or exciting cheap wingers from Scandinavian teams, make sure to drop in an occasional trademark Ric Flair phrase every now and again (complete Norris, beans and little sausages etc) as a watermark, so when it gets printed verbatim in the Mercury we'll know they are copy + pasting.

With successful 5 at the back systems, if they are going to be attacking it normally involves using wingers as wing backs, instead of regular full backs. For example, in the great escape, Pearson tried it Vs Hull with no effect using De Laet (who was pretty attacking for a full back) and konchesky. To get it to work required a switch to Albrighton and Schlupp as wing backs. Looking at our squad, I guess that means we would have to go for solid wingers with some pace - so maybe Bob (who's played the role before) or Macateer.

Red hot Chilean? Anthony Kiedis and Flea are both 62, about the right age for a Rudkin 3 year contract.

Wolves wouldn't have lost that if Steve Cooper was their manager. His trademark "no plan" tactical plan would have absolutely definitely delivered a result, because he would have pragmatically let Liverpool have 20+ shots on target, lulling them into a false sense of security before trying to score a goal for 5 minutes at the end after making 1 like for like attacking substitution.

Only really Kante (complete with a release clause that meant we missed out on millions, classic bit of crap Rudkin negotiation), Fuchs, Huth, Okazaki were signed under Rudkin. Mahrez, Kasper, Vardy, Morgan, Simpson, Albrighton, Drinkwater, Ulloa were all signed before Rudkin ascended the greasy pole to the top of the mountain.

Good job we didn't get anyone in, wouldn't want to risk that PSR headroom. We could get a points deduction, and end up like Everton, or Forest. Better play it safe and do nothing instead. Fast forward 12 months: Somehow, half our TV revenue has disappeared, and despite selling anyone worth anything in the summer, we have failed PSR. Oh well, points deduction, might still make the playoffs.

Fair enough. Man United Vs Leicester away, is in the league, we conceeded 3, scored zero. So by your own definition, a hammering. It's all academic really, but it winds me up when people claim we were "miles better" under Cooper, because it doesn't ring true at all. As I've said previously, it's 7 points Vs 10, 2 wins apiece, identical results against a lot of opponents. But people keep acting as if he would have got results Vs teams like Fulham or Villa, ignoring the facts Cooper already played them and failed. Theres basically feck all difference between them.

I'm assuming you are declaring a hammering as losing by 3 goals, so counting the games against Newcastle, Everton, Wolves and Brentford (not Ruud)? In that case Cooper has defeats by 3 goals to Man United in the league, and again in the cup (shipped 5 with ol Danny Ward in net, who was in for the Wolves and conceding 3 out the 4 goals Vs Newcastle). Shipped 4 goals Vs Arsenal and 3 Vs Forest at home as well.

3 more points from the same number of games (unless Ruud somehow beats arsenal). Literally the only difference between them is a win against Brussel Martins Southampton , who are on course to be the worst Premier League team of all time.

When it comes to cash we are very needy these days, as we are about to get relegated for a second time in 3 years due to a lack of it preventing the reinforcement of a shit defence.

It's very weird, that in a climate rife with psr and potential points deductions, that a potential multi million pound fee can be just left dangling for several years. The guy already has a league cup winners medal and has played in the champions league. But we are in a situation where if we go a million over allowed loses we get hammered by the prem, but they seem to have no appetite to make their big 6 chums actually get around to paying for a player they have just snatched. That money could have enabled us to get a promising winger or striker in January, if it was enough to offset the first year amortization of a four year deal, for example.

The run tracking thing gets even more bizarre, as recently he's added the occasional lung bursting track back, but only when the centre backs (normally Vestergaard) have completely been left for dead. So he'll ignore normal work, but then go full throttle every now and again, before reverting back to idle mode. Then you get the occasional moments (normally when we are losing and getting desperate), when he suddenly decides "**** it" and dribbles past 6 players with no-one able to stop him - but he'll never do that at 0-0.

Given the exhaustive search for a manager in the summer ended up with Cooper, and the location of where Seagrave is and where Cooper is based, I think our method of searching for managers literally just involves looking out the window for a bit. If that doesn't turn anyone up, just leave the door unlocked and see if anyone wanders in off the street.

Scored two goals and a disallowed one for us, and the distance of all 3 from the goalline combined is about 10 yards. Nice poaching, Bob.

Alright, which chump reset Soumare to factory default settings? It took 3 years to get him onto a working configuration settings.

if Ayew starts running at his top speed, he might make it to the touchline for the sub by half time.