fleckneymike

While I’m venting my frustrations he’s also reduced our attacking potency. We spent all last season attacking with 5 players: two wingers; two 8s, a striker. All (except maybe Wilf) who were decent attackers. Cooper’s tweak has massively reduced our options. We now attack with a LB, LFWD, RW and a striker. With the loss of KDH he’s opted to also remove Mavididi and play an inverted winger and add a full back to the attack. He’s taken goals and goal threat out of the side.

The contrast in ‘coaching’ is stark. This meek acceptance that passing is so difficult that Copper has used his genius to be more pragmatic is frustrating. You can see how far off knowing where to stand, how to pass, when and where to pass is frightening. We just seem directionless beyond the left back overlaps and the right back doesn’t. No plan for getting Winks on the ball. No idea how to play though the middle and get a 10 on the ball. We’ve lost KDH, that’s all, yet the way some speak you’d think half the side left.

Apologies if this has been answered. Which is the best DH Gate for the kids home shirt? Want to get the kids indoctrinated.

I’m never a fan of these false dichotomies where one tactic is presented as pragmatic and flexible and the other some rigid dogma that is incapable of change. We lost games we should have won; we won games we should have lost. Sometimes we scored goals after 40 passes; sometimes we scored goals after 4 passes. We were pretty bloody pragmatic. Now we seem to want to embrace a poverty of ambition because we think we’re not suitable for a certain style. It’s not for the likes of us. We should get back in our box and play some imagined ‘direct’ football better suited to a club such as ours and our status.

The prospect of the huge Chelsea fire sake this summer might keep him here. Just as we’re in breach of the rules surrounding sustainability let’s not forget Chelsea have now run out of hotels to sell to themselves. They’re going to need to sell not just their reserve players but a number of first teamers too. That’s why they want a young coach. It’s not a footballing vision thing, it’s a no experienced coach will touch them thing.