Coppell to Brighton?

[Deadlock]

I love the ways these artists impressions always show stadiums surrounded by green fields.

The drawings for our extension (LOL) showed lovely parkland where there is in fact a retail park.

To be fair, in this case it's pretty accurate. The view is from north of the railway line and to the south of the stadium site are lots of green fields. On the other hand, immediately to the north (and out of view of the image) is a sixties concrete jungle otherwise known as the University of Sussex. "Area of outstanding natural beauty" my arse.

[Victor Meldrew]

I think the view from Falmer stadium will be nearly as good as the M4 and Whitley from ours.
Apparently Steve is the bookies' favourite for the job at Brighton and although he was wanted by Tranmere he does seem to be settled in the south these days.
Brighton is a very well supported club and the fans still love Coppell so the potential could well appeal to him.

[Royalee]

Coppell managed Manchester City in Division 1. One of his games in charge was a 2-0 defeat to Reading at Elm Park, goals scored by (there's only one) Lee Nogan. That in itself should be a big clue as to what level City were at then...

Oh dear royalee, still lets not get facts in the way of an opinion shall we.

My point still stands with regards to us and Palace. Also, Man City had only just been relegated at the time and were still very much seen as a big club - walking out after just over a month is still a sign he can't take pressure.

[Royalee]

Royalee is too young to actually remember the complete and utter shambles that was Manchester City Football Club in the mid to late 90's

True, they had a very unbalanced squad, one or two good players and the rest were worse than what Tommy Burns signed on transfer deadline.
Most of them left Man C at some stage and never really made a career at any level.
Take for example Rae Ingram. John Foster. Mike Quigley. Gerry Creaney. Martin Phillips. Carl Griffiths.
Then you had the established ones that weren't really any good either, like Steve Lomas.
Basicly they had two decent players, Kinkladze and Rösler.

I don't think Coppell was able to sign a single player while he was manager there.

Basicly I think Royalee doesn't know what he's talking about, as always.

You're telling me Lomas, Edghill, Summerbee, Kinkladze, Kit Symons, Michael Brown, Uwe Rosler and co weren't good enough to mount a reasonable promotion challenge over a decade ago when the standard of the Football League and Premiership were comparatively lower? Give that we managed to finish 4th relying on Doyle with our piss poor midfield, you'd think Brown, Kinkladze and Rosler would be able to do some damage at this level.

[Royalee]

City are a Premiership-size club and the fact that he couldn't take the pressure of managing them even at Championship level would suggest that sustained Premiership football is beyond him because he hasn't got the stomach for it and can't manage the modern day top flight footballer as we saw with some of our players.

Coppell is very good at finding clubs which given their facilities and potential should be in the top flight, which is why he's picky with his jobs. He can't handle pressure and he can't turn teams which are in real adversity around, which is why he took us back down, had no answers last season despite 'learning lessons' and did the same at Palace and Brighton in his first spell, he also couldn't stick with Brentford after he failed to take them up. The mark of a real top manager is to be able to face adversity, take things by the scruff of the neck and make a change - he hasn't done this once in his career, he's just built on positive momentum and then stepped down when that has evaporated.

I think you seem to forget that Coppell 'over achieved' with Reading considering his budget restrictions. He got on with it and did the best he could. If he's given a squad similar to the year we wnet down and with the investment needed to keep it up, he would've shown he's a Premiership manager. Don't be such a cock in the future.

Budget restrictions? You mean the restrictions where he was able to spend £800k on Convey, £1 million on Lita and so forth without bringing in any revenue from player sales other than Hughes, who he wanted to keep hold of anyway? I suppose budget restrictions were why we paid Stephen Hunt £25k a week under his leadership. Perhaps if the money had been spent more wisely and not on Hunt, Emerse Fae and Greg Halford, you might have half a point.

[Deathy]

City are a Premiership-size club and the fact that he couldn't take the pressure of managing them even at Championship level would suggest that sustained Premiership football is beyond him because he hasn't got the stomach for it and can't manage the modern day top flight footballer as we saw with some of our players.

Coppell is very good at finding clubs which given their facilities and potential should be in the top flight, which is why he's picky with his jobs. He can't handle pressure and he can't turn teams which are in real adversity around, which is why he took us back down, had no answers last season despite 'learning lessons' and did the same at Palace and Brighton in his first spell, he also couldn't stick with Brentford after he failed to take them up. The mark of a real top manager is to be able to face adversity, take things by the scruff of the neck and make a change - he hasn't done this once in his career, he's just built on positive momentum and then stepped down when that has evaporated.

I think you seem to forget that Coppell 'over achieved' with Reading considering his budget restrictions. He got on with it and did the best he could. If he's given a squad similar to the year we wnet down and with the investment needed to keep it up, he would've shown he's a Premiership manager. Don't be such a cock in the future.

Budget restrictions? You mean the restrictions where he was able to spend £800k on Convey, £1 million on Lita and so forth without bringing in any revenue from player sales other than Hughes

You forget though that we always budgeted for one 'big' summer signing. Convey one summer, Lita the other... Back a little further, Nicky Forster for about £625k... Then we'd carefully add tit bits around them.

We've always been 'careful' money wise. Call it tight, call it a restricted budget, call it what you will.

[Royalee]

Hardly massive restrictions - he wasted money on a load of rubbish like Owusu, Morgan, Keown, Ferdinand, Brooker, etc. Of course we were never going to be able to spend stupid amounts like Sunderland, but from the position at which he began the job, we didn't need to.

[Deathy]

Hardly massive restrictions - he wasted money on a load of rubbish like Owusu, Morgan, Keown, Ferdinand, Brooker, etc. Of course we were never going to be able to spend stupid amounts like Sunderland, but from the position at which he began the job, we didn't need to.

You can call it wasted if you like, but the likes of Morgan, Owusu, Brooker et all were as cheap as chips, and we needed numbers and new blood at the time of their arrival. They served a purpose and were moved on when more suitable players were available.

You can call Keown and Ferdinand a waste if you like, but you don't know how valuable their experience was to the club. Don't forget it was only the following season we went on to win the Championship with a record 106 points. Just because they didn't play much, it doesn't mean they didn't contribute to our continued improvement.

[Royalee]

We needed extra quality when Brooker, Morgan and Owusu arrived, not bodies.

As for Ferdinand and Keown, I doubt their experience rubbed off in the short time they were here and we brought in several players that summer anyway who wouldn't have played with them. Again people talk about intangibles and hypotheticals when it comes to defending Coppell's poor signings.

[Deathy]

We needed extra quality when Brooker, Morgan and Owusu arrived, not bodies.

As for Ferdinand and Keown, I doubt their experience rubbed off in the short time they were here and we brought in several players that summer anyway who wouldn't have played with them. Again people talk about intangibles and hypotheticals when it comes to defending Coppell's poor signings.

Yes we did, and you know Coppell had the money for this so called quality? I'm sure if he did, we'd have seen a couple of better players come in. So he went with what he knew, who he'd previously 'successfully' worked with, and they were cheap and available. (Owusu took a wage drop from the then League 1 Sheffield Wednesday to join us).

You doubt players of Ferdinand and Keown's experience rubbed off on any of our players? Just LOLz.

[Wycombe Royal]

We needed extra quality when Brooker, Morgan and Owusu arrived, not bodies.

As for Ferdinand and Keown, I doubt their experience rubbed off in the short time they were here and we brought in several players that summer anyway who wouldn't have played with them. Again people talk about intangibles and hypotheticals when it comes to defending Coppell's poor signings.

The simple fact is, poor signings or not, Coppell constructed a team that holds the record number of points in a Championship/Division 1/Division 2 season. So I don't care how bad some of his signings were prior to his constructing that team (which also finished 8th in the Premiership).

[Deathy]

I actually find it embaressing that any Reading fan actually tries to knock what Steve Coppell did here. Quite frankly, it's sad. The man was amazing for us, a legend in every aspect of the word. It really is sad that anyone wants to even pick faults in his time here. Nobody is perfect, but we'll do well to ever find another manager as good as Steve Coppell again!

[Royalee]

I'm not knocking what he did in his first 4 years, but after that he failed and he still gets hero worship, which I find is rather over the top.

[AthleticoSpizz]

I'm not knocking what he did in his first 4 years, but after that he failed and he still gets hero worship, which I find is rather over the top.

the first 4 years are why he still gets hero worship

[Royalee]

He undid those 4 years in the 2 which followed unfortunately.

[Deathy]

He undid those 4 years in the 2 which followed unfortunately.

What a pathetic statement if ever there was one!

[Royalee]

Why? Where did we finish at the end of last season, where did we finish in 2003? What state was the playing staff left in when Brendan came in?

[Royal With Cheese]

Why? Where did we finish at the end of last season, where did we finish in 2003? What state was the playing staff left in when Brendan came in?

I'd say with Doyler, Rosenior, Harper and Bikey here significantly better than now.

[Royalee]

Rosenior and Harper are both shite and Doyle and Bikey were leaving regardless, down to Coppell failing to take us back up.

[Vision]

Why? Where did we finish at the end of last season, where did we finish in 2003? What state was the playing staff left in when Brendan came in?

So using your logic "Brendan" must be a complete disaster what with us being 17 places below where we finished last season. Makes your hero worship of him a little odd really particularly when you were predicting 1st place finish this season.

If the playing staff were so bad when "Brendan" came in then why the 1st place prediction?