Time to go

[Peter Thompson]

And going back to the Chairman - admittedly he's led us through some good times up until 4 years ago - but he's also the guy who sat back and allowed the least popular manager in modern day BWFC history spunk shed loads of money we couldn't really afford (£20M was it ?) when he clearly had no long term future with the club.

He's also allowed our record signing leave for nothing, and our current biggest asset run his contract down....

[Prufrock]

There's an implied 'consistently' there. Obviously I'm not suggesting we stick with OC till he dies, but the clubs who give their managers every opportunity, and only pull the trigger when things look irredeemable tend to do better than any run by Milan Mandaric. Sometimes sacking is the right decision, but the teams who do it often go down.

Up until the Stoke game Coyle was better than Allardyce and now he is worse than Lee, someone even said worst manager ever. Dear me.

[Hoboh]

Apparently (stats from another site), its now only 4 wins out of 19 premier league games stretching back to Feb / March, with no draws since Feb - that's only 12 points from half a season.

That's not what I would call a short period of time....

No arguement there!

Pru, on the 1 in 4 managers Megson had money and where did we progress too? if you rate megson's tenure as good then..........
For me last season should have been comfortable even dismissing the Wembley disaster Coyle had plenty to work with and was found wanting. I argued earlier that with our fixture list this term not many would be too upset about losing but the City game apart we may as well have taken the day off and forefitted the points! Its the vibes coming out the club that don't feel right along with the evidence of our eyes, little is changing, little to give any hope for a brighter future Coyle is a one trick pony and it seems HIS backroom staff are too!

[lovethesmellofnapalm]

two major niggles for me
one- would a "good" manager have allowed the rest of the season to be a write off after a semi defeat? counterfactual of course but had we turned over Stoke would Stoke have had the sort of run since that we have had? i somehow doubt it.
two - were we really so utterly brilliant before Stoke? i seem to remember plenty of occasions when we weren't - round about this time last year Birmingham at home when we were gash and Chelsea in the Sir Nat match spring to mind.

Not saying we should get rid ............... but if OC has lost his luck that tbh he definately rode at times last year then maybe it would be better done quick

What the fvck are you expecting we are Bolton not Barca we are a mid table team at best where gonna have bad runs (talking last season ofcourse)

That chelsea result sticks in the throat abit for the obvious reason

but i think he should be allowed the stoke game at least

So we should get behind Coyle and the lads

thanks you've made my point for me
there's plenty on here who have us down as much much better than we actually were in the early part of last season.
where we finished was our correct position - we didn't finish top six because over the season we weren't that good not because we just couldn't be arsed after Wembley

[Peter Thompson]

Anyway last post on this from me....until after the Stoke game, because its pointless as unfortunately PG will not sack Coyle, he'd rather lose 1000's of fans again (like under Megson) than admit to his 3rd mistake in 4 years.

I'd actually give Coyle more time, if he'd just admit to his obvious weaknesses and bring in an experienced assistant / coach to help with tactics, setting the team up, studying the oppositions strengths & weaknesses etc...He can't do everything, like all managers he's only as good as the staff he has underneath him - and unfortunately IMO his Burnley pals just arn't upto it as premier league coaches and it shows on the pitch week in week out, we have so called premier league players being coached on a daily basis by coaches who have only ever played lower league football.

If he wants to buy himself some time with the fans, then he's got to act quickly and get shut of his Burnley backroom staff / pals, and at least look like he's trying to address things.

But I doubt he will so he has to go....

[Athers]

RE: any mention of money, remember it takes money to stand still the majority of the time.

It does not take money to defend set pieces and be organised though!

[One Hump Or Two?]

It's not the losing that bothers me, so much as the cluelessness with which we're playing. (So much so that I had to join and post!)

We had bad runs under Big Sam, but you always felt that with a bit of luck and a couple of players raising their games, we could turn it around. This feels different. We are being outclassed by even mid-to-low-table fodder (Swansea, Norwich) and our performances against the bigger teams - Man City apart -have plumbed Megsonian levels of ineptitude. The tactics and starting line-up against Chelski were a joke, SKD playing on the right, the dreaded Petrov/Robinson combination on the left, Ricky in centre mid and neither of the other two looking like they'd had any instruction to shield the back 4. Anybody could see we were going to ripped apart, mostly down our left, and it duly happened. Switching to 4-5-1 only counts as evidence that OC is starting to turn it around if he can actually make the formation, you know, work. Losing Holden was bad luck but no manager worth his salt should be so reliant on one player.

I'm not saying that Coyle should be sacked now. It's not too late in terms of league position, and October is stupidly early to get rid of a manager who generally did well for us last year. I'd give him one more month, at least. But right now we're in freefall and nothing Coyle has said or done recently makes me think he has a fvcking clue where the parachute ripcord is.

[BWFC_Insane]

There's an implied 'consistently' there. Obviously I'm not suggesting we stick with OC till he dies, but the clubs who give their managers every opportunity, and only pull the trigger when things look irredeemable tend to do better than any run by Milan Mandaric. Sometimes sacking is the right decision, but the teams who do it often go down.

Up until the Stoke game Coyle was better than Allardyce and now he is worse than Lee, someone even said worst manager ever. Dear me.

I get what you are saying Pru, but because of the finances of top flight football, we are in a position where we HAVE to avoid relegation at all costs.

If Coyle continues to look like he's taking us down, then we HAVE to roll the dice and change it.

Sadly by the standards and finances of today I think Owen is at the point of running out of chances.

Think of paying fans as well. 13 defeats in 15 is it? Only so much of that people can take!

[Prufrock]

We've played ten games, and are two points from safety. There's still plenty of time. Two wins and we'd be probably be about 14th.

After the Everton game if we are still in the bottom three and starting to get cut adrift I think then there'd be a strong case.

[BWFC_Insane]

We've played ten games, and are two points from safety. There's still plenty of time. Two wins and we'd be probably be about 14th.

After the Everton game if we are still in the bottom three and starting to get cut adrift I think then there'd be a strong case.

Not sure I see the logic of waiting till we are cut adrift before making a change!

[officer_dibble]

We've played ten games, and are two points from safety. There's still plenty of time. Two wins and we'd be probably be about 14th.

After the Everton game if we are still in the bottom three and starting to get cut adrift I think then there'd be a strong case.

Not sure I see the logic of waiting till we are cut adrift before making a change!

There would be if we hadn't lost a semi final 5-0 and every other f*cking game bar one after it last season.

I dunno, I like Coyle and really want him to turn it round, but at the moment, 14 defeats in 18 (?) or thereabouts I'm worried. And at the end of the day I'll support em whatever division they are in...whether I rate the manager or not matters jot, what I can say is that I can see there being a few twitchy faces at Reebok HQ come Monday. If it were my club that I owned on this run I'd be fecking twitchy!

[Prufrock]

We've played ten games, and are two points from safety. There's still plenty of time. Two wins and we'd be probably be about 14th.

After the Everton game if we are still in the bottom three and starting to get cut adrift I think then there'd be a strong case.

Not sure I see the logic of waiting till we are cut adrift before making a change!

That'd be why I'd change it once we started to get cut adrift! But, you know, before we actually did. Equally, no point changing it when there is no real outstanding candidate out there, and we are only one win from being out it. We've seen the flip side, and as good as it was Coyle wasn't Jesus then, we were probably just riding our luck and playing above ourselves. Equally he isn't useless now, and we aren't having any luck and are playing below ourselves. The reality lies somewhere between the two. He is a decent manager, and we are a decent team.

[Tombwfc]

The Gartside thing is obviously shite, both Coyle and Megson were the right appointments at the right time and contributed to our survival in the Premier League. I'd be happy enough to have a new manager every two seasons so long as we stay up.

As for Coyle, it really is only the fact that I really like the bloke that is stopping me from calling for his head. The season may only be 10 games old, but deep down I genuinely don't believe he can turn it around. At our very best, we've just about bordered on mediocre, and even then I think it said more about the opposition than it did about us.

He's a good young manager and I'm sure he'll be a success somewhere, but I think he's ended up here with a squad that he just can't manage. It's not entirely his own fault, but we've got players who can't play the way he wants to and he's just flailing about trying anything.

It will be unbelievably disappointing if he does go, because this should've been perfect, and looked for a while like it might be. If he could come back in about a years time and try again then maybe we'd be on to something, but at this rate we won't be in the league. It's an uninspiring squad we've got and we need a manager (or at least somebody around the manager) with a bit of experience and know-how to get some kind of organisation in the team.

[One Hump Or Two?]

both Coyle and Megson were the right appointments at the right time and contributed to our survival in the Premier League. .

Steady on there.

Megson was a desperation appointment because we got knocked back by our preferred targets; with the finest achievement on his CV taking West Brom into the PL and then getting relegated immediately; with fans from every club he'd managed (apart from West Brom) rushing to warn us about his putrid, negative football.

I don't care if we stayed up the first year, he was never the right appointment. At any time.

If it was a choice between scraping to 17th in the PL every year watching Megson-type displays, or getting relegated, knocking around the championship for a few seasons and eventually rebuilding under a Big Sam or Paul Lambert type, I would honestly take the latter.

[Lord Kangana]

The elephant in the room still remains lack of funds. When facing this scenario 4 years ago, we shovelled JCB loads of cash at the problem, more than we've ever done before or since .We don't have that option open to us now.

So based on our current squad, and our current injury crisis, I'm not sure there is the requisite level of miracle worker curretly available on the open market. I'm pretty certain candidates like Hughes will not lower themselves if we haven't a pot to piss in.

[BWFC_Insane]

The elephant in the room still remains lack of funds. When facing this scenario 4 years ago, we shovelled JCB loads of cash at the problem, more than we've ever done before or since .We don't have that option open to us now.

So based on our current squad, and our current injury crisis, I'm not sure there is the requisite level of miracle worker curretly available on the open market. I'm pretty certain candidates like Hughes will not lower themselves if we haven't a pot to piss in.

In that season what we actually did was sell our bes player and buy three players using that money.

Similar could happen this time though obviously because we've let his contract run down we won't have as much.

Hughes might consider doing till the end of the season to get himself back in the game.

[bobo the clown]

If it was a choice between scraping to 17th in the PL every year watching Megson-type displays, or getting relegated, knocking around the championship for a few seasons and eventually rebuilding under a Big Sam or Paul Lambert type, I would honestly take the latter.

The trouble is no-one knows the scope of the black-hole of debt and demoralisation that would involve.

Sure, if we knew we'd regroup & bounce back they fck it, why not. But I fear that we could be playing Morecambe in about 5 seasons if we let it go.

It's a bloody site easier not to be one of the worst 3 from the PL, than be one of the best 3 in the Championship.

[Tombwfc]

I don't want to turn this into a Megson thread, but he was brought in with a very specific job to do and he did it. Later when it proved he wasn't good to do anything else, we moved him on and got somebody more inspiring in.

We don't need a miracle worker, our players aren't great but they're better than those available to at least three other teams. It's not about who's better, it's a horses for courses thing. Maybe in two years time we'll be all be bored shitless again and Curbishley or whoever will get the sack too, but at least (hopefully) we'll still be in the league.

[BL3]

not replacing quality with quality (Sturridge, Elmander etc...) has been Coyle or Bolton's undoing

We brought in around £7M in player sales and that's what he was given to spend. Are you suggesting that he could have replaced those sort of players for that sort of money? He wanted to keep Sturridge but no-one made a big enough offer for Cahill, so he didn't have the funds. It's not that complicated.

If money was so tight, then perhaps he shouldn't have wasted £2.5M on Alonso then....

He wouldn't have needed to sign Alonso at all if Megson hadn't wasted £4.5m on two of the worst full-backs in the Premier League.

[BWFC_Insane]

not replacing quality with quality (Sturridge, Elmander etc...) has been Coyle or Bolton's undoing

We brought in around £7M in player sales and that's what he was given to spend. Are you suggesting that he could have replaced those sort of players for that sort of money? He wanted to keep Sturridge but no-one made a big enough offer for Cahill, so he didn't have the funds. It's not that complicated.

If money was so tight, then perhaps he shouldn't have wasted £2.5M on Alonso then....

He wouldn't have needed to sign Alonso at all if Megson hadn't wasted £4.5m on two of the worst full-backs in the Premier League.

Aye so the answer to that problem is to spend 2.5M on one who isn't good enough to replace either.

Genius!