[Albion] Steve Cooper.

[Mr Bridger]

Let him go then.

The cold didn’t bother him anyway.

 

[Baldseagull]

Could be a disastrous move for Roberto it’s not like the elite clubs are knocking down his door since he put himself in the market for a new role. With most of the hot seats now filled he may find himself out of work next season

Until the next Chelsea coach gets sacked, about 10 games in.

 

[Withdean11]

I fear due to what has happened prospective managers are avoiding us and we are working down the list

That was my fear since the day RDZ left.

Somehow I think.. “We will sell one of our best players each summer and replace them with an 18 year old, for a fraction of the price, who you will develop until we sell again. Whilst we expect you to aim for a top 10 finish with a lower half wage structure.” .. won’t sound very convincing to prospective promising managers.

 

[oldboyroy]

Well he should have been.

After going AWOL because he didn't get what he wanted in January, he only managed to beat Sheffield Utd, Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa (who were very out of sorts, having been knocked out of Europe 3 days earlier).

In 19 league games this calender year he picked up just 15 points.

Absolutely fair point.

 

[Colonel Mustard]

Ever shortening odds at the bookies

Explained many times how odds appear and shorten, and it’s certainly nothing to do with numerous people having inside information. It’s people reading threads like this and wasting a few quid betting on it, thereby shortening the odds further and driving up the temperature of speculation here, leading to more bets and more gossip. Rinse and repeat.

 

[raymondo]

Could be a disastrous move for Roberto it’s not like the elite clubs are knocking down his door since he put himself in the market for a new role. With most of the hot seats now filled he may find himself out of work next season

True, but a few managers across Europe will be sacked by Xmas... so he'll probably be in then

 

[dippy2449]

 

[Reddleman]

But even that can be reframed:

Heavily backed = always knew that we would not stand in the way of players and predictably sold our £140m centre-mid pairing, but replaced with two hand-picked expensive signings, one a supposed wonder kid from Barcelona (a regular at one of the biggest clubs in the world prior to injury).

The board are not remotely as culpable in my view. Yes, they are "culpable" for not keeping up to last season's standards but you can bet RDZ was told all about the way the club operates when he was offered the job and were entitled to expect a lot better than we saw in his final half-season.

Agree regarding Cooper. I still think we'll end up with someone nobody has heard of.

The board are culpable because Tony Bloom signs off every signing and two or three from last summer haven worlked out at all.

 

[oldboyroy]

Until the next Chelsea coach gets sacked, about 10 games in.

Or Manchester United come calling

 

[Han Solo]

That was my fear since the day RDZ left.

Somehow I think.. “We will sell one of our best players each summer and replace them with an 18 year old, for a fraction of the price, who you will develop until we sell again. Whilst we expect you to aim for a top 10 finish with a lower half wage structure.” .. won’t sound very convincing to prospective promising managers.

They're not prospective, or promising, managers to us if they're not interested in developing players or only interested in the idea of working in one of the five or six clubs in Europe that doesn't sell their best players. It doesn't need to sound very convincing to those managers because we're not trying to convince them to get here.

Luckily quite a few of those who go into coaching likes to... coach. Improve players and take them to new heights. Our "problem" getting a new manager is much more likely connected to a wealth of options rather than a lack of it.

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

I think Cooper is perfectly decent, a similar appointment to Potter probably, not as good as Potter, not as creative or tactically astute, but equally not going to have half the support up in arms. So we trade off manager quality for avoiding supporter unrest, and everyone will be perfectly content with that. I can see getting another 11th or 12th with Cooper and that will be fine

 

[Flounce]

I think Cooper is perfectly decent, a similar appointment to Potter probably, not as good as Potter, not as creative or tactically astute, but equally not going to have half the support up in arms. So we trade off manager quality for avoiding supporter unrest, and everyone will be perfectly content with that. I can see getting another 11th or 12th with Cooper and that will be fine

I wonder if potentially the style of football is likely to change and whether this is seen as important by TB. Both GP and RDZ have had us playing out from the back and the risks went up dramatically with RDZ. Will TB be happy to appoint a manager who plays counter attacking football in a more CH style (with better players than CH had) and hoofing far more than we have done under the last two managers?

Will a complete change of style be OK with you as long as we stay out of the relegation zone and will your enthusiasm go up or down if it happens? Some will bloody love an end to fannying about at the back, not me btw.

Somehow I expect TB to hang out as long as it takes to find a manager who’ll keep us playing as similarly as possible to how we have been under GP and RDZ. The options as far as I can see are pretty limited unless we are going to go very left field and appoint someone with no experience of English football.

Cooper is not one of those options more like a safer one, not convinced TB is going to be any more enthused about a step back than what seems, to me, like the majority of those on here would be.

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

I wonder if potentially the style of football is likely to change and whether this is seen as important by TB. Both GP and RDZ have had us playing out from the back and the risks went up dramatically with RDZ. Will TB be happy to appoint a manager who plays counter attacking football in a more CH style (with better players than CH had) and hoofing far more than we have done under the last two managers?

Will a complete change of style be OK with you as long as we stay out of the relegation zone and will your enthusiasm go up or down if it happens? Some will bloody love an end to fannying about at the back, not me btw.

Somehow I expect TB to hang out as long as it takes to find a manager who’ll keep us playing as similarly as possible to how we have been under GP and RDZ. The options as far as I can see are pretty limited unless we are going to go very left field and appoint someone with no experience of English football.

I don't know much about Cooper's style, but believe it is fairly similar to Potter? I know he took over Swansea after Potter and did well with that squad. I'm pretty sure that TB's main aim is to have continuity, so I expect the style to be similar - pretty much every manager does this now anyway, don't think it will be hard to find. What TB wants no doubt is someone who challenges the way football should be played, is not just doing it the way everyone else does it but has new ideas. Poyet, Potter, RDZ were all special in that regard, at the time.

On the other hand I think that RDZ had taken it TOO far, virtually no other manager will go to the extremes that RDZ did, and I remember at the timing posting about how I was annoyed with the binning off of Sanchez in favour of Steele, because it was apparent that the skills Steele brought to the table over Sanchez were not going to be as highly-valued by RDZ's successor. It was very short-termist and potentially has set us back. But it was fun, no doubt.

 

[DarrenFreemansPerm]

Still massively MEH! on this one, feels like a colossal downgrade.

 

[Rookie]

I wonder if potentially the style of football is likely to change and whether this is seen as important by TB. Both GP and RDZ have had us playing out from the back and the risks went up dramatically with RDZ. Will TB be happy to appoint a manager who plays counter attacking football in a more CH style (with better players than CH had) and hoofing far more than we have done under the last two managers?

Will a complete change of style be OK with you as long as we stay out of the relegation zone and will your enthusiasm go up or down if it happens? Some will bloody love an end to fannying about at the back, not me btw.

Somehow I expect TB to hang out as long as it takes to find a manager who’ll keep us playing as similarly as possible to how we have been under GP and RDZ. The options as far as I can see are pretty limited unless we are going to go very left field and appoint someone with no experience of English football.

Cooper is not one of those options more like a safer one, not convinced TB is going to be any more enthused about a step back than what seems, to me, like the majority of those on here would be.

The entire club has a style of play built around ‘fannying around at the back’, that will not change

 

[Super Steve Earle]

I wonder if potentially the style of football is likely to change and whether this is seen as important by TB. Both GP and RDZ have had us playing out from the back and the risks went up dramatically with RDZ. Will TB be happy to appoint a manager who plays counter attacking football in a more CH style (with better players than CH had) and hoofing far more than we have done under the last two managers?

Will a complete change of style be OK with you as long as we stay out of the relegation zone and will your enthusiasm go up or down if it happens? Some will bloody love an end to fannying about at the back, not me btw.

Somehow I expect TB to hang out as long as it takes to find a manager who’ll keep us playing as similarly as possible to how we have been under GP and RDZ. The options as far as I can see are pretty limited unless we are going to go very left field and appoint someone with no experience of English football.

Cooper is not one of those options more like a safer one, not convinced TB is going to be any more enthused about a step back than what seems, to me, like the majority of those on here would be.

Cooper feels like such a safe option that his appointment would just be met by indifference. As to changing the style of football, it is ingrained through every age group. Hard to see it changing.

 

[Mancgull]

The more I think about Cooper the more I think that he has all the main attributes apart from being an expert on the style of play that we have engrained in all levels of our teams over the past 5 years.
This has become part of our identity and as such I think we have to look beyond him. If there is a better candidate out there then they aren’t obvious.

 

[raymondo]

That was my fear since the day RDZ left.

Somehow I think.. “We will sell one of our best players each summer and replace them with an 18 year old, for a fraction of the price, who you will develop until we sell again. Whilst we expect you to aim for a top 10 finish with a lower half wage structure.” .. won’t sound very convincing to prospective promising managers.

I agree with your point with regards to A list managers, but we'll still be a very attractive proposition to B list managers IMO... and I think that's the sea we're fishing in for managers for a while yet.

 

[Lenny Rider]

I think Cooper is perfectly decent, a similar appointment to Potter probably, not as good as Potter, not as creative or tactically astute, but equally not going to have half the support up in arms. So we trade off manager quality for avoiding supporter unrest, and everyone will be perfectly content with that. I can see getting another 11th or 12th with Cooper and that will be fine

And out of interest, after the initial furore, where would you see us ending up with Potter?

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

And out of interest, after the initial furore, where would you see us ending up with Potter?

A bit higher