Burnley vs Bolton

[SmokinFrazier]

Intangibles? In-fooking-tangibles?

We were fooking terrible.

I'm not saying we weren't, I'm saying put it into perspective. It's the first game of the season, which would always be tough, but against Burnley with such a hostile crowd? Far greater teams have capitulated worse than we did today, believe that.

Had we won the game today, people would be on here saying "oh, we'll piss it this season, no problem" and it's all a load of nonsense. This is a tough league and we'll be in lots of tough games. The knee jerk reactions on here are pathetic and embarrassing.

Why do you think after watching Coyle's team for two and a half seasons, that we're not in a position to "judge Coyle", but in a few more games we will be?

Utter crock of shite.

You could sum up Coyle's career in three parts. The first part, being everything from his managerial debut with us until the Stoke game. That was positive. The second part was everything from that game until relegation, which was injury laced but still poor. This is the third part, and it's what he should be judged on when it comes to either backing him or giving him the boot.

[wanderers_on_tour]

#hautecuisineball #no

hoofball ftw

#thisisnttwitter

[Leyther_Matt]

I have no idea what this is.

Doesn't seem to have worked properly. He was rubbing his thumb, forefinger and index finger together anyroad. International sign for cash.

[Worthy4England]

Intangibles? In-fooking-tangibles?

We were fooking terrible.

I'm not saying we weren't, I'm saying put it into perspective. It's the first game of the season, which would always be tough, but against Burnley with such a hostile crowd? Far greater teams have capitulated worse than we did today, believe that.

Had we won the game today, people would be on here saying "oh, we'll piss it this season, no problem" and it's all a load of nonsense. This is a tough league and we'll be in lots of tough games. The knee jerk reactions on here are pathetic and embarrassing.

Why do you think after watching Coyle's team for two and a half seasons, that we're not in a position to "judge Coyle", but in a few more games we will be?

Utter crock of shite.

You could sum up Coyle's career in three parts. The first part, being everything from his managerial debut with us until the Stoke game. That was positive. The second part was everything from that game until relegation, which was injury laced but still poor. This is the third part, and it's what he should be judged on when it comes to either backing him or giving him the boot.

Why would I want to sum up Coyle's career with us in three parts and I should only judge him on this part?

Do you think he might have turned into Pep Guardiola in the closed season or something?

He'd have been gone October last year for me.

[hi there, i'm chris]

I have no idea what this is.

Doesn't seem to have worked properly. He was rubbing his thumb, forefinger and index finger together anyroad. International sign for cash.

Oh right haha.

It could have something to do with one of his recent tweets. He quoted "Get rich or die tryin'" and got a bit of stick for it, then he pointed out saying it was about trying to achieve success rather than making money, so might have been playing along and taking the piss.

If not, I have a level 2 qualification in sign language. Should teach him the proper sign for money so he can do it much more subtlety.

[Wandering Willy]

Here's what happened today:

Good day out at an old stadium in the Lancashire hills.

Much better atmosphere than many a Premier League game.

Coyle started the wrong team in the wrong formation.

Fred Dibnah's statue would be more effective than KD.

Mears is rubbish.

There's a few players who didn't turn up today - no fight, no movement off the ball and general lack of effort. No excuse when you make that kind of money week in and week out.

There are some who did turn up today and that's the Sky boys who boo'd their team after the first game of the season. Not on in my book.

Oh and the " Coyle can't get a team organised" crew turned up on here.

"Organised" is a word that's thrown around that appears to have no definitive meaning but I think it's on the lines of "The players were shit today but we need to blame Coyle for everything. We would be much better off with Mark Hughes or Souness".

[Jez]

Dont really know what the fuss is about, we did well to beat villa

[SmokinFrazier]

Oh and the " Coyle can't get a team organised" crew turned up on here.

"Organised" is a word that's thrown around that appears to have no definitive meaning but I think it's on the lines of "The players were shit today but we need to blame Coyle for everything. We would be much better off with Mark Hughes or Souness".

This is what people who support Coyle being sacked need to realise. Whilst he may not be doing great right now, his track record isn't that bad and look at the people who would potentially replace him. You've got your usual useless managers, who are proven failures, like Dowie, Souness, McCarthy, Reid and so on. We aren't in any sort of position to get a good quality manager and we'd either get someone who is old and out dated or someone who is young and inexperienced as a manager, just like Coyle.

It may well be a case of 'better the devil you know'. If someone can come up with a list of better alternatives, I'd like to read it, and I hope nobody responds with the tired old nonsense like "Anyone could do better than Coyle!".

[a1]

Oh and the " Coyle can't get a team organised" crew turned up on here.

"Organised" is a word that's thrown around that appears to have no definitive meaning but I think it's on the lines of "The players were shit today but we need to blame Coyle for everything. We would be much better off with Mark Hughes or Souness".

[boltonboris]

I remember seeing the pictures on the official Facebook thing from the opening day of pre-season and I also recall seeing a bag of balls and thinking "that's weird" then I saw pictures of all the players in a circle doing keepy ups and I thought "that's really fvckin weird"

Majority of teams don't touch a football for over a week in pre season. Seems our lads were pissing about while the rest of the world were doing double sessions of hill sprints.

[Hoboh]

Oh and the " Coyle can't get a team organised" crew turned up on here.

"Organised" is a word that's thrown around that appears to have no definitive meaning but I think it's on the lines of "The players were shit today but we need to blame Coyle for everything. We would be much better off with Mark Hughes or Souness".

This is what people who support Coyle being sacked need to realise. Whilst he may not be doing great right now, his track record isn't that bad and look at the people who would potentially replace him. You've got your usual useless managers, who are proven failures, like Dowie, Souness, McCarthy, Reid and so on. We aren't in any sort of position to get a good quality manager and we'd either get someone who is old and out dated or someone who is young and inexperienced as a manager, just like Coyle.

It may well be a case of 'better the devil you know'. If someone can come up with a list of better alternatives, I'd like to read it, and I hope nobody responds with the tired old nonsense like "Anyone could do better than Coyle!".

Oh lord!
let me remind you of his 'good track record',

RELEGATION

OK?

[bobo the clown]

I'll tell you waht organisation is ;

A training regime which gets your players fit.

A coaching regime which has your players know what they are doing (dead ball's are the easiest example).

A defence arranged to they know who needs to be where, keeps it simple, are sturdy and hard to get past.

Having a formation which is fit for purpose.

Not selecting players who aren't up to it.


I'm sure there's more, but these'll do for starters.

[truewhite15]

It has been blindingly obvious for over a year now that Coyle is tactically shite.

Evidence? You only need to look at the way we defend set pieces, or the huge gaps between our midfield and defence, or the insistence on playing 4-4-2 with two strikers who can't hassle and harry the opposition (one used to be able to, but has difficulty doing it in the here and now), and only one centre midfielder who has the slightest idea how to tackle.

These are elementary mistakes. Blame the playing staff all you like; fair enough, they haven't been exactly on top of their game; but there are blatant tactical and organisational cock-ups going on in our side, and these are due to one person and one person only.

The fact that we've spotted them and identified possible solutions, but nothing has changed, means one of two things.

#1) Coyle doesn't even know where it's going wrong, so he blindly plays the same way, hoping things will magically come right for him.

#2) Coyle has seen the same errors, but refuses to acknowledge them.

Any manager with half a tactical brain would scrap all the tactics at this point, and go back to complete basics; that is, come out of the game with a clean sheet first and foremost. Set the team up to defend, and hit on the counter. Start with 4-5-1 with whatever personel necessary to make it work. Get them on double defensive drills all week, every week, until they learn. And then, and ONLY when defensive stability has been achieved, start to bring in the flair. That Coyle hasn't done this is to blot a huge black mark next to his name.

As for replacements. Alan Curbishley could do a job. Eriksson's out of work, and he wasn't England boss for nothing. Souness might come, if we did the interview process right this time. There are managers out there, even in the foreign leagues (McLaren, anyone?), who must surely jump at the chance at getting this team back up at the first attempt. The chances of us getting somebody worse than Coyle are very, very slim.

[thebish]

In return, we have a team full of lightweight, uphill gardners, the likes of whom used to play for West Ham.

now you've gone too far...

we'd rock this league with a team of Ricardos... wash your mouth out!!

[BWFC_Insane]

In return, we have a team full of lightweight, uphill gardners, the likes of whom used to play for West Ham.

now you've gone too far...

we'd rock this league with a team of Ricardos... wash your mouth out!!

We could have a team of Pele's. We'd still be shite with this cretin in charge!

[lovethesmellofnapalm]

23rd of February is Hull at home.

Coyle either needs to turn this around sharpish, or feck off come mid-September. The Watford game on the 15th is the target, for me. We play Derby, Forest, Watford at home and Hull away. Being completely realistic here, if we don't have 8 points at least from those four, it'll be clear that we're in no shape to be promoted. Thus, Coyle will have failed in his seasonal objective for the second year running, and he NEEDS to be out of the door.

unfortunately -because i wanted it all to come good .. this is about where i am at now.... perhaps longer than September but since Wembley its been one long litany of failure

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

My two pennies...

Lots of disagreement on here, but most on the Coyle out side of things. I think we can all agree that the last 18 months have been unacceptably shit. There have been some extenuating circumstances, but the lions share of it rests with Coyle and his decisions, be it recruitment of players and staff, tactics, training or stubbornness.

I had hoped that through the summer and the early part of the season we would have seen lessons learnt and improvements in our failings of last season. What we have seen in pre-season and yesterday are exactly the same problems and bewildering decisions. If yesterday he thought lets give it one last crack because the standard is lower and it should work where it failed last season, then the guy needs to go now.

It isn't rocket science. We need to get the basics right. We haven't gotten the basics right for over a year. In any other walk of life a manager that consistently gets the basics wrong gets the sack. If anyone thinks that once Stu is back things will improve are very much as deluded as Coyle. Stu and Moo were a great partnership. As good as Stu is, the partnership he had with Moo was greater than the sum of the individual parts. In a 4-4-2 we don't have anyone that would be remotely as effective in a partnership with Stu. We're headed for mid table obscurity at best.

The players have no confidence, direction, leadership or desire. If a manager is not there to provide/instil these things then what purpose does he serve? As much as I hate saggy face, he is an example of what happens when you have a reasonable bunch of players and you instil these things. If you can't instil these things then you better be fecking good at tactics and discipline.

[Worthy4England]

Here's what happened today:

Good day out at an old stadium in the Lancashire hills.

Much better atmosphere than many a Premier League game.

Coyle started the wrong team in the wrong formation.

Fred Dibnah's statue would be more effective than KD.

Mears is rubbish.

There's a few players who didn't turn up today - no fight, no movement off the ball and general lack of effort. No excuse when you make that kind of money week in and week out.

There are some who did turn up today and that's the Sky boys who boo'd their team after the first game of the season. Not on in my book.

Oh and the " Coyle can't get a team organised" crew turned up on here.

"Organised" is a word that's thrown around that appears to have no definitive meaning but I think it's on the lines of "The players were shit today but we need to blame Coyle for everything. We would be much better off with Mark Hughes or Souness".

You missed off "and then WW turned up on here, to make some bizzare points, that somehow today was the problem of the"Sky boys" and the "Coyle can't get a team organised crew""

The "Sky boys" might go away if, we were still in a league where Sky showed lots of games - we're not, and now we seem to be judging success on 1) Is it an old ground in the Lancashire hills and 2) Is it a better atmosphere than many Premier League games. When FIFA and UEFA start giving points for this sort of criteria, Barca will be royally fooked - so thanks for pointing out the long term plan to me.

"We started off with the wrong team in the wrong formation" - No shit Sherlock, how much of a shock did that come as? I can understand some of the "knee-jerk" reactions on here, because we ain't seen this one at any time in the last season and a half, have we? A little clue for you, that word organised that the Manager doesn't seem to be able to grasp - formation and the personnel that play in it - they're part of "Organised"

Like many of the "It's nowt to do with Coyle, sympathists", you're doing exactly what they all do, judging each game and saying overall, it's not the fault of the Manager. When we win, it goes quieter and you're well pleased, but what the "Coyle can't get a team organised crew" are looking at, is a much longer term trend - one in which he's:

1) Generally picked the wrong formation
2) Generally then put players into it that are incapable of playing it - and he's signed more than a teams-worth since he's been with us - so we would have expected to see this perfect 4-4-2 at least once by now
3) Consistently points to chances created - which begs the question "why are no feckers converting them?"
4) Fails to spot that defence is as important as attack and organise us to defend as a team as well as attack as a team
5) If his players aren't responding to him and what he's telling them - that's his fcuking job - that's why he's called "Manager" - Do we need to explain this one alongside "Organised"
6) I can understand why you might think Coyle isn't the problem, now I know you don't understand the word "Organised". It makes more sense now. Someone who couldn't understand the word "Organised" might have problems spotting it was shit.
7) Managers organise - They also carry the can for the performance of the team, which (and this might come as a shock) is heavily influenced by "Management" and "Organisation" - Coyle has already pointed out that these are his can to carry, so why pretend it's anyone elses?

[Worthy4England]

Oh and the " Coyle can't get a team organised" crew turned up on here.

"Organised" is a word that's thrown around that appears to have no definitive meaning but I think it's on the lines of "The players were shit today but we need to blame Coyle for everything. We would be much better off with Mark Hughes or Souness".

This is what people who support Coyle being sacked need to realise. Whilst he may not be doing great right now, his track record isn't that bad and look at the people who would potentially replace him. You've got your usual useless managers, who are proven failures, like Dowie, Souness, McCarthy, Reid and so on. We aren't in any sort of position to get a good quality manager and we'd either get someone who is old and out dated or someone who is young and inexperienced as a manager, just like Coyle.

It may well be a case of 'better the devil you know'. If someone can come up with a list of better alternatives, I'd like to read it, and I hope nobody responds with the tired old nonsense like "Anyone could do better than Coyle!".

Speaking of tired old nonsense - just remind me which out of your list of bogeymen are currently managing at:

1) West Brom
2) Swansea
3) Norwich
4) Southampton
5) Reading

What's that? NONE?

Well what a fooking shock that is.

[jimbo]

Missed the game last night. Instinctively Sky plussed MOTD before I went out last night. That makes it hurt just a little bit more..............