It is one man's fault

[Southbank Old Boy]

Why are you changing tack every post and trying to start an argument?
I'm not interested.

I'm just responding to your posts.

You seem to be implying that Coppell isn't the one at fault or that it doesn't matter or that these problems weren't forseeable or avoidable. I'm not changing tack, just giving my opinions on how things have gone wrong. You have a different opinion, I'm just curious as to how you've come to hold it thats all.

[Smoking Kills Dancing Doe]

I think that this article from sportinglife.com contains the answers..........

COPPELL READY FOR ROYALS CRUNCH

By Mike McGrath, PA Sport

http://www.sportinglife.com/football/pr ... remiership

Steve Coppell will accept the blame if Reading are relegated from the Barclays Premier League next week - but a summer transfer kitty awaits if they stay up.
Coppell's decision not to spend at the end of last season or in January has backfired, leaving them needing a win at Derby and crucially for Fulham to drop points at Portsmouth on the final day of the campaign.
"It's arguably the biggest game in the club's history," said the Reading boss. "We enjoy playing in the Premier League and we want to stay here."

Chairman John Madejski, currently on crutches nursing a broken ankle, will then allow his manager to learn from his mistakes in the last transfer windows.
"We have already developed plans to make significant investment in the playing squad during the summer," Madejski said.
"But at the moment the short-term imperative of retaining our position in the top flight is our only focus."

After finishing eighth in their rookie campaign in the top flight, Coppell did not want to upset the balance of his squad by making radical changes.

"Since the chairman has come here he's built a club that's self-financing and that, ultimately, may be our downfall because I took the calculated risk not to spend as much money last summer and in January," Coppell said. "If it doesn't work it's my fault.

"Always, the manager always gets the blame. When the team win it's because the players are great. When the team loses, my shoulders are broad enough, I'll take anything that's coming."

Even though Coppell may not have had as much to spend as other clubs, there has still been a lack of inspiration that has led to six games without a goal. It means victory at Pride Park is not a formality.

"Other teams were spending £20-30million and we certainly didn't have that much," Coppell said.

"I made the decision that I didn't want to reward two years of success by telling half the team 'thanks a lot, but you're finished now'.

"We have a certain mentality. We never bought promotion and bringing people in from different countries, it's hard to integrate them to our mentality.

"If you are just buying the cream at the top of the tree, it doesn't matter you can bring anyone in. We can't afford that - when foreign players look at which club in England they want to go to, Reading is fairly low down on the register."

Coppell admits the only way to stay out of trouble is investment, even taking into account Reading's first season in the Premier League.
"That was the dream last year, we took advantage of teams who cocked up," he said. "We had momentum from the previous year, but you beat the system with money.
"It's the only way you can beat the system. I spoke with Sam Allardyce in the summer and I asked him what's the secret to what he did at Bolton and he said 'spend, spend, spend'. "Unfortunately, that probably is the secret."

*************************************************************************************************************************************************************

"Since the chairman has come here he's built a club that's self-financing and that, ultimately, may be our downfall because I took the calculated risk not to spend as much money last summer and in January," Coppell said."

Reading between the lines here, I think that SC has attempted to do his job within the confines of this "self-financing" business environment, but how much money was really on offer to him and how much got diverted off to finance the hotel?
I can sense JM saying "we have funds available, should you need any Steve," rather than "here is your transfer budget, Steve, do with it what you will."

Add to this the impressive track record of the squad, Coppell's human instinct's which lead him to treat his personnel fairly, foreign imported players that have not fitted into the squad and what have you got? Relegation (probably).

AH here we go again.

Same old shite.

The second that window open his tune will change.

I was sat at the fan forum at the end of last season when Coppell said we needed 5 - 6 players who would improve our starting 11 to make sure we don't strugle and of course he didn't even replace the players we lost.

Just remember after everything that has happened with Fae, in the summer Coppell justified not signing a right winger, cause Fae's gonna play there.

[Smoking Kills Dancing Doe]

You just said that you could have told RFC years ago that to 'stand still in the Prem' was a bad thing to do.
And now you're saying that you didn't last year because we weren't in the bottom three?

It was and it still is.
He didn't because it didn't seem relevent but there were a load of 'clueless' and 'negative' people doing it over the summer.

Well I said it time and time again. As did numerous people.

Only to be shouted down by the "experts".

Who funnily enough still consider themselves "experts" despite showing a total lack of understanding of football.

Where's that over reaction thread?!

[Ian Herring]

Sometimes it seems some fans can be as short-sighted and reactionary as the newer foreign owners in the game at this level. The cretinous Thaksin Shinawatra at Man City thinking that he can sack the manager of his own choice a year in to his first season at a club that has won little over the years other than obtain some kind of mythical status as Manchester’s ‘real’ or ‘people’s’ club while their neighbours do most of the winning. The Americans at Liverpool coming to grips with the reality that with all the money in the world, you still have to work hard to get past whoever is getting their hands on the silverware at first. Now, unless in there is a trophy created for every club so they don’t feel like they’ve ‘failed’ there’s only a finite amount of silverware out there. Three major domestics. And in Europe what was the European Cup dressed up as some kind of super-league and the UEFA cup which is like your old style Secondary Modern school for the chavs. Sometimes in football things work. Sometimes they do not. Some less-reasoned people on this forum are castigating Coppell as no good, as washed up, as being not up to the job. I’d like to see a video of them as they were as everyone was celebrating the way we won the Championship two years ago. Was Mr. Coppell useless then? My bet is he’s as he’s always been and as it is in football, occasionally things fall into place.

Unless your club is heavily established with a massive power base, fan-wise, and these days with money, the prospect of sustained success is difficult to achieve and if you’re realistic, impossible to imagine. I too have been frustrated at times by not seeing the team augmented and strengthened in areas which from the sidelines it has appeared obviously needed. But after last season, with a finish of eighth and with the football establishment applauding RFC as ‘refreshing’, wouldn’t it be difficult as a manager to believe a little of that publicity and think ‘I could do that again.’ After all, he and the players lived that season, we only watched it and didn’t see behind the scenes. As a fan, that’s all you ever get to do. Even then, with those things in place, it’s no guarantee of safety or success. We’re not down yet, Coppell has admitted himself he is at fault, yet many Reading fans are building the scaffold and preparing the noose. How refreshingly predictable. Several thousand people who’ve never managed a professional football club in their lives and never will, knowing better because they choose to watch the team they say they ‘support’.

In all the time I’ve watched Reading (since 1985) I’ve not see a manager more genuinely interested in the progression of the club who wasn’t only interested in it for his own means or a vehicle for his own ego. In Coppell’s case as far as ego is concerned you’d have to say the reverse! I’ll admit when he began here I didn’t ‘get’ him and was concerned when we had a losing spell in the Championship when he said he ‘didn’t know what to do’. Then the next season from nowhere things fell into place. Whatever he was doing paid off, whatever the players were doing it paid off, his signings paid off. This is how it works sometimes in football. The ‘spell’ rose, and now it’s waning. The same happened with McGhee’s side and both times we saw some sublime football. Some of these players in particular have had their day, shorter than some, in the limelight when they couldn’t possibly have predicted in their own minds when they joined the club it would have been with Reading. Listening to people say on here ‘this team is better than the one that got us up’ is simply irrelevant and naïve, at worst, spurious. Likewise they are not a disaster, just bloody poor, reasons for which we’ll never really know. The days of club unity in the porn-version of what the Premier League and its moral backdrop presents today is the reason some players’ heads turn, and why it is less possible to manage a squad of players who see the need to follow any kind of discipline – whether self or administered – as unnecessary as their income suddenly doubles or triples and they mix with the rich. Something good has simply unravelled, and spectacularly quickly. Some here have said Coppell’s track record in the transfer market is appalling. Last season many were saying it was good. Human bloody nature!

The litmus test is whether you could approach Coppell to his face and say he’s done a bad job without making yourself look foolish. It’s not only his responsibility. Yes, he’s paid well. The players more so. Who in football will always be young men of varying intelligence who may reflect a little of what their society consists. There are less people around these days of backbone. Less people around prepared to work hard and consistently, less people around generally who don’t suck in the Bling culture around them and do as little as they can for as much as they can and still ‘perform’ and sulk (Fae and Sonko anyone?). Less people who understand loyalty or diligence. Not just in football, but in every walk of life. Sometimes turn your Sky subscription off, get the football bores off the telly and ‘Talksport’ (Talkbollox more like), don’t read the crap in the newspapers and sit back and just watch what’s actually happening on the pitch. Two years ago the body language of the players said it all. As a betting man you’d have taken it as being a couple of points up on the bookies. Here was a horse ‘well within itself’. Two years on we’d stripped clean a division that this year has been as tight as a gnat’s arse, and spent our first season ever in top flight football successfully. On the pitch and on the sidelines every player looked ‘on message’ and the unity fair poured out of their genes. Coppell was a ‘genius’, the players ‘heroes’. Now they genuinely look like losers.

Is Coppell a failure for attempting to squeeze another season out of that spirit? Is he utterly responsible for being inside the heads of players who after the initial season of euphoria in the Premier League, began to believe their (or their own agents, probably) own publicity? Is football such an exact science that you can ‘fix’ as soon as something goes wrong? Back in October to me, as a lay person, as a fan, against West Ham in particular and then Bolton, Sunderland and Fulham we looked like a ‘relegation foretold.’ The players’ body language even then, said that something in some of their minds had changed. In short, some of them didn’t want it anymore. At least, not here at Reading.

Steve Coppell has achieved much of what many of us have wished for over the years. Top flight football at Reading. He’s done it in a manner where he has not embarrassed the club or fans in the media, has gained us a great deal of respect. He’s mature – a long-lost attribute these days in a juvenile society and the increasingly infantile sport of football. Most of all, he’s not a charlatan. He’s genuine. Many of us have laughed here at other clubs and their pathetic short term attributes. Mocked them for sackings and backings. Slagged off other managers for their histrionics and absurd posturing.

Coppell’s been man enough to admit to his own failings as he’s taken the plaudits when things have gone well. And this year he may have simply run out of ideas as things have not worked out. He’s most definitely made some errors. But some respect please, folks. He’s also been responsible for some fantastic times. And we’ve been more than happy to share them.

Whatever happens, and even in the short-term jingoistic circus that football is today, he most definitely ‘delivered’. I hope that most Reading fans would reflect some of the maturity he has brought to the club if we do go down. And instead of resembling some of the pig-ignorant tosh that spews out of other clubs’ fans’ mouths at times of strife as they have their moment of ‘grief’ crying for the cameras (grow up!) that there’s always a bigger picture.

But I ain’t holding my breath…

[readingbedding]

Why are you changing tack every post and trying to start an argument?
I'm not interested.

I'm just responding to your posts.

You seem to be implying that Coppell isn't the one at fault or that it doesn't matter or that these problems weren't forseeable or avoidable. I'm not changing tack, just giving my opinions on how things have gone wrong. You have a different opinion, I'm just curious as to how you've come to hold it thats all.

Where did I say that it's not Coppell's fault?

All I have said is that I believe that he made a mistake, albeit a genuine one and he's going to get some slack from me, because of the things that he has given to RFC.

"I didn't spend so much last summer and in January, if it doesn't work it's my fault.
"The manager always gets the blame, when the team do well the players take the credit, my shoulders are broad enough and I'll take it."

He's aware of the risk he took, if we go down, it was a risk that killed our Premiership hopes.
But I wouldn't sack him.

[Southbank Old Boy]

Where did I say that it's not Coppell's fault?

All I have said is that I believe that he made a mistake, albeit a genuine one and he's going to get some slack from me, because of the things that he has given to RFC.

"I didn't spend so much last summer and in January, if it doesn't work it's my fault.
"The manager always gets the blame, when the team do well the players take the credit, my shoulders are broad enough and I'll take it."

He's aware of the risk he took, if we go down, it was a risk that killed our Premiership hopes.
But I wouldn't sack him.

Maybe you haven't said it's not Coppell's fault outright, but your defence of some of his decisions suggest it, or perhaps that you just don't see the extent of the mistakes, eg that we couldn't have forseen the issue's with Fae not being good enough to get in the team.

I'm all for cutting Coppel some slack. He's delivered some excellent football and given us our most successful side ever but that doesn't mean he hasn't then cost us our Premiership status by taking his eye off the ball. You don't seem at all bothered that those mistakes are probably going to cost us our Premiership status and you don't seem to be willing to question Coppell's decision making because of a side he built pretty much more than two years ago.

For the record I don't think Coppell should be sacked for the mistakes he's made. It's a close thing though, because from what I can see from the outside he's had the opportunity to do something about it, and if I were JM I would be considering the way forward very carefully. If from JM's position he thinks Coppell can't motivate and take this group of players on again after this season then he should let him go. If he still thinks he's got the core of the squad fighting with him and Coppell shows him that he has the heart for building another team then I'd keep confidence with the most successful manager we've ever had.

[rhroyal]

One thing I would say about Coppell is his calm management style is not that appropriate now. Whilst we were good he was dour and kept everyone's feet on the ground, leading to consistency. It was the right attitude. However when you're in trouble you must change and show some emotion to get the players doing, which he hasn't done. He just has the same attitude of not getting too carried away and looking to the next game. When you're in trouble that's not right, you need to get players playing for their lives. My one hope for Sunday is that it really is now or never this time and the players will be properly fired up. Going into games against Fulham and Spurs we knew it looked bad if we lost, but this time it really is last chance and the players shouldn't need motivating.

[wolsey]

One thing I would say about Coppell is his calm management style is not that appropriate now. Whilst we were good he was dour and kept everyone's feet on the ground, leading to consistency. It was the right attitude. However when you're in trouble you must change and show some emotion to get the players doing, which he hasn't done. He just has the same attitude of not getting too carried away and looking to the next game. When you're in trouble that's not right, you need to get players playing for their lives. My one hope for Sunday is that it really is now or never this time and the players will be properly fired up. Going into games against Fulham and Spurs we knew it looked bad if we lost, but this time it really is last chance and the players shouldn't need motivating.

Apologies for this but...where were you when we were shit?

[rhroyal]

One thing I would say about Coppell is his calm management style is not that appropriate now. Whilst we were good he was dour and kept everyone's feet on the ground, leading to consistency. It was the right attitude. However when you're in trouble you must change and show some emotion to get the players doing, which he hasn't done. He just has the same attitude of not getting too carried away and looking to the next game. When you're in trouble that's not right, you need to get players playing for their lives. My one hope for Sunday is that it really is now or never this time and the players will be properly fired up. Going into games against Fulham and Spurs we knew it looked bad if we lost, but this time it really is last chance and the players shouldn't need motivating.

Apologies for this but...where were you when we were shit?

Piss right off. Firstly I'll start by saying I'm only 19 so it's not like I can remember when John Madejski rescued us from extinction or anything like that. Can I also add that if you read most of my stuff I've said plenty of times that Coppell has been a great manager and will always been remembered. I have started speculating about a replacement but that's because I think he will step down this season, I'm not saying we'll sack him.

Now I'll answer your question. I saw us semi seriously in Elm Park and the Mad Stad from 1996 - 1999. But because I wasn't brought up in a family into football I only really started going in 2000 or so when my Dad realised it mattered to me, so I was there when we were staring down the barrel of Division 3 football and everyone took their pants to the Wrexham game in protest. I also remember losing the Play-off final a season afterwards. Since then I'll admit I've had an easy ride, and indeed I've only really known 2 managers. But FFS what exactly do you expect me to do about that? I've been going to 15 odd seasons a year until ironically we reached the Premiership where travelling and going to Leeds uni got in the way a bit. So if you dare call me a plastic then you are one of those ignorant old fans who thinks that anybody who wasn't there for the Simod Cup is a 'plastic', even though I wasn't born at the time. Don't insult me again in that way you prick, I'm as loyal as any Royals fan you will find.

[Stranded]

Sometimes it seems some fans can be as short-sighted and reactionary as the newer foreign owners in the game at this level. The cretinous Thaksin Shinawatra at Man City thinking that he can sack the manager of his own choice a year in to his first season at a club that has won little over the years other than obtain some kind of mythical status as Manchester’s ‘real’ or ‘people’s’ club while their neighbours do most of the winning. The Americans at Liverpool coming to grips with the reality that with all the money in the world, you still have to work hard to get past whoever is getting their hands on the silverware at first. Now, unless in there is a trophy created for every club so they don’t feel like they’ve ‘failed’ there’s only a finite amount of silverware out there. Three major domestics. And in Europe what was the European Cup dressed up as some kind of super-league and the UEFA cup which is like your old style Secondary Modern school for the chavs. Sometimes in football things work. Sometimes they do not. Some less-reasoned people on this forum are castigating Coppell as no good, as washed up, as being not up to the job. I’d like to see a video of them as they were as everyone was celebrating the way we won the Championship two years ago. Was Mr. Coppell useless then? My bet is he’s as he’s always been and as it is in football, occasionally things fall into place.

Unless your club is heavily established with a massive power base, fan-wise, and these days with money, the prospect of sustained success is difficult to achieve and if you’re realistic, impossible to imagine. I too have been frustrated at times by not seeing the team augmented and strengthened in areas which from the sidelines it has appeared obviously needed. But after last season, with a finish of eighth and with the football establishment applauding RFC as ‘refreshing’, wouldn’t it be difficult as a manager to believe a little of that publicity and think ‘I could do that again.’ After all, he and the players lived that season, we only watched it and didn’t see behind the scenes. As a fan, that’s all you ever get to do. Even then, with those things in place, it’s no guarantee of safety or success. We’re not down yet, Coppell has admitted himself he is at fault, yet many Reading fans are building the scaffold and preparing the noose. How refreshingly predictable. Several thousand people who’ve never managed a professional football club in their lives and never will, knowing better because they choose to watch the team they say they ‘support’.

In all the time I’ve watched Reading (since 1985) I’ve not see a manager more genuinely interested in the progression of the club who wasn’t only interested in it for his own means or a vehicle for his own ego. In Coppell’s case as far as ego is concerned you’d have to say the reverse! I’ll admit when he began here I didn’t ‘get’ him and was concerned when we had a losing spell in the Championship when he said he ‘didn’t know what to do’. Then the next season from nowhere things fell into place. Whatever he was doing paid off, whatever the players were doing it paid off, his signings paid off. This is how it works sometimes in football. The ‘spell’ rose, and now it’s waning. The same happened with McGhee’s side and both times we saw some sublime football. Some of these players in particular have had their day, shorter than some, in the limelight when they couldn’t possibly have predicted in their own minds when they joined the club it would have been with Reading. Listening to people say on here ‘this team is better than the one that got us up’ is simply irrelevant and naïve, at worst, spurious. Likewise they are not a disaster, just bloody poor, reasons for which we’ll never really know. The days of club unity in the porn-version of what the Premier League and its moral backdrop presents today is the reason some players’ heads turn, and why it is less possible to manage a squad of players who see the need to follow any kind of discipline – whether self or administered – as unnecessary as their income suddenly doubles or triples and they mix with the rich. Something good has simply unravelled, and spectacularly quickly. Some here have said Coppell’s track record in the transfer market is appalling. Last season many were saying it was good. Human bloody nature!

The litmus test is whether you could approach Coppell to his face and say he’s done a bad job without making yourself look foolish. It’s not only his responsibility. Yes, he’s paid well. The players more so. Who in football will always be young men of varying intelligence who may reflect a little of what their society consists. There are less people around these days of backbone. Less people around prepared to work hard and consistently, less people around generally who don’t suck in the Bling culture around them and do as little as they can for as much as they can and still ‘perform’ and sulk (Fae and Sonko anyone?). Less people who understand loyalty or diligence. Not just in football, but in every walk of life. Sometimes turn your Sky subscription off, get the football bores off the telly and ‘Talksport’ (Talkbollox more like), don’t read the crap in the newspapers and sit back and just watch what’s actually happening on the pitch. Two years ago the body language of the players said it all. As a betting man you’d have taken it as being a couple of points up on the bookies. Here was a horse ‘well within itself’. Two years on we’d stripped clean a division that this year has been as tight as a gnat’s arse, and spent our first season ever in top flight football successfully. On the pitch and on the sidelines every player looked ‘on message’ and the unity fair poured out of their genes. Coppell was a ‘genius’, the players ‘heroes’. Now they genuinely look like losers.

Is Coppell a failure for attempting to squeeze another season out of that spirit? Is he utterly responsible for being inside the heads of players who after the initial season of euphoria in the Premier League, began to believe their (or their own agents, probably) own publicity? Is football such an exact science that you can ‘fix’ as soon as something goes wrong? Back in October to me, as a lay person, as a fan, against West Ham in particular and then Bolton, Sunderland and Fulham we looked like a ‘relegation foretold.’ The players’ body language even then, said that something in some of their minds had changed. In short, some of them didn’t want it anymore. At least, not here at Reading.

Steve Coppell has achieved much of what many of us have wished for over the years. Top flight football at Reading. He’s done it in a manner where he has not embarrassed the club or fans in the media, has gained us a great deal of respect. He’s mature – a long-lost attribute these days in a juvenile society and the increasingly infantile sport of football. Most of all, he’s not a charlatan. He’s genuine. Many of us have laughed here at other clubs and their pathetic short term attributes. Mocked them for sackings and backings. Slagged off other managers for their histrionics and absurd posturing.

Coppell’s been man enough to admit to his own failings as he’s taken the plaudits when things have gone well. And this year he may have simply run out of ideas as things have not worked out. He’s most definitely made some errors. But some respect please, folks. He’s also been responsible for some fantastic times. And we’ve been more than happy to share them.

Whatever happens, and even in the short-term jingoistic circus that football is today, he most definitely ‘delivered’. I hope that most Reading fans would reflect some of the maturity he has brought to the club if we do go down. And instead of resembling some of the pig-ignorant tosh that spews out of other clubs’ fans’ mouths at times of strife as they have their moment of ‘grief’ crying for the cameras (grow up!) that there’s always a bigger picture.

But I ain’t holding my breath…

Quite possibly the best thing I've ever read on here....

Come next Sunday we may stay up, we may go down...mistakes have been made but hindsight is a wonderful thing, we could have bought other players that could equally not have worked out and been in the same position...it's impossible to tell but we can debate it all summer.

If we do go down, overall we will still be in a better position than we were 3 years ago, 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 50 years ago. Relegation could well be a short term hit for a long term success....when we won the title two seasons ago most on here were happy for us to be a yo-yo club, well that may now be the reality delayed by 12 months due to the great momentum we built up.

Whatever happens next week, and come 5pm Sunday I'll be as disappointed as most if we drop, then we can look back and learn. This season is none person's fault, it's not Coppell's, it's not Madjeski's, it's not even the players individually, it's been a culmination of mistakes by all attached to the club. The wrong moves in the transfer market whether that be buying or not buying. The bad misses (Long V Brum, Hunt V Blackburn for example, although there have been many more - those two go in and we're safe as of now).

Whatever, next season will be a new dawn and it could be in a new division but it will certainly involve changes whether on the pitch or off (I would prefer just the former), we'll all be looking for the opening fixtures and come the first game in August will all be either looking forward to a tilt at promotion or an improved season in this division.

[rhroyal]

The likes of Bolton, Sunderland and Boro were all yo-yo clubs once, they look like they are on the way to success. Brum are in the process as are West Brom and I expect them to establish themselves up there one day if they keep on bouncing back. If we can do the same in the long run I'll be happy enough.

[wolsey]

One thing I would say about Coppell is his calm management style is not that appropriate now. Whilst we were good he was dour and kept everyone's feet on the ground, leading to consistency. It was the right attitude. However when you're in trouble you must change and show some emotion to get the players doing, which he hasn't done. He just has the same attitude of not getting too carried away and looking to the next game. When you're in trouble that's not right, you need to get players playing for their lives. My one hope for Sunday is that it really is now or never this time and the players will be properly fired up. Going into games against Fulham and Spurs we knew it looked bad if we lost, but this time it really is last chance and the players shouldn't need motivating.

Apologies for this but...where were you when we were shit?

Piss right off. Firstly I'll start by saying I'm only 19 so it's not like I can remember when John Madejski rescued us from extinction or anything like that. Can I also add that if you read most of my stuff I've said plenty of times that Coppell has been a great manager and will always been remembered. I have started speculating about a replacement but that's because I think he will step down this season, I'm not saying we'll sack him.

Now I'll answer your question. I saw us semi seriously in Elm Park and the Mad Stad from 1996 - 1999. But because I wasn't brought up in a family into football I only really started going in 2000 or so when my Dad realised it mattered to me, so I was there when we were staring down the barrel of Division 3 football and everyone took their pants to the Wrexham game in protest. I also remember losing the Play-off final a season afterwards. Since then I'll admit I've had an easy ride, and indeed I've only really known 2 managers. But FFS what exactly do you expect me to do about that? I've been going to 15 odd seasons a year until ironically we reached the Premiership where travelling and going to Leeds uni got in the way a bit. So if you dare call me a plastic then you are one of those ignorant old fans who thinks that anybody who wasn't there for the Simod Cup is a 'plastic', even though I wasn't born at the time. Don't insult me again in that way you prick, I'm as loyal as any Royals fan you will find.

I'll continue in my patronising manner: -

a) because I enjoy it,
b) because you deserve it.

When did I classify you as "plastic"?...length of service has never necessarily been (and never will be, as far as I'm concerned) an indication of commitment. I was just belittling your lack of perspective

When all is said and and done, if we don't get the necessary points (which by the way I think we will) all that will happen is that we will be playing the likes of Wolves, Forest, Leeds (probably...good for you ...cut down on your overdraft)..we wil survive, and thrive, and come again.

[rhroyal]

Sorry if that was a little over the top, it was when I read on some board that anyone who couldn't recall our 1997-98 relegation squad was a plastic and I regurgitated the rant I posted in that case to you. What you're saying is basically right. The Championship is a good enough league and we have a strong set up that should allow us to bounce back. Teams like Forest, Leeds, Bradford, Barnsley, Leceister and others who have sunk further either had financial problems or had a much smaller fan base and no club set up that was ever capable of the Premiership. If we'd gone up in 1995 that would have been much more of a risk.