Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

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Hipper
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Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Post by Hipper » Wed Nov 20, 2019 10:21 am

Devils_Advocate wrote:I agree it was a no win situation for pretty much everyone involved. I actually dont blame Laws or have too much criticism around him taking us down.

For me where the disaster of the appointment was truly shown was in what he did with the parachute payments and our golden chance to bounce back because after 6 months to assess the team Laws should have made a much better fist of mounting a challenge on promotion back to the top league
I'm not sure there was a golden chance to get back up.

Coyle's team was full of mostly aging journey men or upper end Championship players that played out of their skin to get us in the Premier League and to do what they did. It would have required wholesale changes to get a team back up again.

I agree that Laws approach - Iwelumo for goodness sake - was not the way and that Howe actually got it right as far as player recruitment was concerned, but it would have meant a couple of seasons in the Championship.

Coyle's achievement was phenomenal and unlikely to be repeated.

TVC15
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Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Post by TVC15 » Wed Nov 20, 2019 10:32 am

Hipper wrote:I'm not sure there was a golden chance to get back up.

Coyle's team was full of mostly aging journey men or upper end Championship players that played out of their skin to get us in the Premier League and to do what they did. It would have required wholesale changes to get a team back up again.

I agree that Laws approach - Iwelumo for goodness sake - was not the way and that Howe actually got it right as far as player recruitment was concerned, but it would have meant a couple of seasons in the Championship.

Coyle's achievement was phenomenal and unlikely to be repeated.
Coyle did do well for sure but Dyche in his first promotion had less money to spend than Coyle did all those years before. Dyche did repeat what Coyle did - and then some !
He brought in free transfers in Heaton, Jones and Arfield.

Tripps, Ings, Mee, Vokes etc had not looked world beaters by a long stretch under Howe - so whilst we can say now he inherited a better team than Coyle you could argue strongly that it was Dyche who turned them into better players and they had showed little or no evidence before Dyche that they were going to be anything like the players they ended up.....Dean Marney a perfect example of some of our fans giving Laws credit for this signing when he was pretty poor / average under Laws and Howe (but brilliant under Dyche).

Grateful to Coyle but it’s been proven since that this was a flash in the pan / perfect storm and you have to say there was a large element of good fortune involved.

Dyche delivered transformational and sustained long term success that may have changed the club for ever - it’s Dyche’s achievements that will never be repeated.
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Hipper
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Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Post by Hipper » Wed Nov 20, 2019 12:00 pm

No argument about Dyche and no argument about Coyle being a flash in the pan, although he didn't do so badly at Bolton initially and he did have bad luck their with injuries.

Devils_Advocate
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Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Post by Devils_Advocate » Wed Nov 20, 2019 12:09 pm

Hipper wrote:I'm not sure there was a golden chance to get back up.

Coyle's team was full of mostly aging journey men or upper end Championship players that played out of their skin to get us in the Premier League and to do what they did. It would have required wholesale changes to get a team back up again.

I agree that Laws approach - Iwelumo for goodness sake - was not the way and that Howe actually got it right as far as player recruitment was concerned, but it would have meant a couple of seasons in the Championship.

Coyle's achievement was phenomenal and unlikely to be repeated.
We came 8th in what was a pretty chaotic season on and off the pitch. Had a Howe or Dyche took over when Laws did I would have expected us to follow relegation with at least a top 6 finish and be challenging for top 2.

We might not have gone up but it was our golden chance in the sense that but for the miracle that was Shaun Dyche we would not have been near the top 6 for a long time to come if ever after messing up that first season

Fretters
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Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Post by Fretters » Wed Nov 20, 2019 10:22 pm

A couple of comments on here say Marney was poor under Howe. He wasn't at all, I even remember Howe singling him out as they player he'd been most impressed with. He then took it up another level when he got a proper midfield partner in Jones.

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Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Post by Claretforever » Fri Nov 22, 2019 7:12 am

Quicknick wrote:The first part of the last paragraph contradicts the first paragraph.
Sort of. I accept our players weren’t good enough for the Premier League as a whole and, should we have stayed up despite clearly punching above our weight, would have needed practically a new team. That being said, due to the early season form, they could have still kept us up if they hadn’t downed tools as they have picked up more points. The hard work in the early part of the season certainly wasn’t on show when we played the likes of Wolves, Portsmouth and Blackburn. The performance levels just weren’t there and we seemed disinterested.

As it happened we were possibly just 6 inches from staying up too. We hit the post late on at Wigan and, had that gone in, they wouldn’t have gone down the other end and scored, so we’d have stayed up (based upon results afterwards).

With all that’s happened this past few years I’m glad we didn’t stay up now. It’s worked out just fine.

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