LondonBristolian

In this case your 'inconvenient truth' is actually an 'inconvenient factual inaccuracy'. Not to let facts get in the way of a good rant but he's got 9 years of league experience over 12 year with three different clubs. I apologise for calling you ignorant but, in this particular case, you do have your facts wrong.

To be honest, anyone who would turn down Lars Lagerback is a fool. Massively experienced and respected manager who did well with Sweden has worked miracles with Iceland. However firstly I'm sure he could do better than a Championship club, secondly I don't think he's going to turn his back on a final European Championship this Summer and thirdly it's a completely moot point as he's already announced his attention to retire. However the fact that there are fans on here dismissing him just shows fans' ignorance of global football.

I'm not backing us to sneak into the playoffs on this evidence...

I'd obviously go for Moyes if he said yes.but don't believe he would. Of more realistic options, I'd be happy with Garry Monk or Di Matteo. Or indeed Chris Powell. In terms of leftfield options that are showing up on the bookies' lists, I'm a bit intrigued by Jaap Stam and wonder if the board should interview him and see if they like what he has to say. Pearson'd be interesting but it'd basically be signing the closest thing we could find to a carbon copy of Cotterill and it'd make me wonder about the logic of replacing him in the first place. I'm massively against Warnock for one reason alone, which is that I'm aware he doesn't sign or play young players for the future because he only wants players who'll make him look good in the short-term rather than building clubs for the long-term. I also think we need someone who's more of a head coach than a conventional control-all manager.

Giving youth a chance too. Hurrah!

A few weeks ago I'd have agreed. But Cotts isn't going to change. If he's not going to pick Reid and Burns when we've two games in 48 hours, not going to pick them for the next match after a 4-0 defeat and only going to bring one on 8 mins from time when we've not had a shot on target and one with 1 minute to go when we're a goal don. we have to accept he isn't going to pick them. There's no point in counting on suddenly Cotterill becoming a person he isn't. The club have to decide whether we make to do with the manger he is or whether to change. And they have to decide now whilst there's till time in the transfer window to make the change. To my mind, there's ten days until our next league game and only one decision that can be made.

The thing is I can forgive a poor performance and I can forgive players not being good enough. What I can't forgive is playing the same system and same players week on week even though it's not working and then refusing to make substitutions even when you have players who are clearly fatigued (as last Saturday), losing (as on Monday), or had no shots on target (as today). Or bringing players in on loan and refusing to play them. Ultimately when things aren't working you have to try something different. And, as you say, we desperately need players. But didn't SL say quite recently SC hadn't even approached him to suggest potential targets? If SC has got ideas for players we need that are likely to want to come here, are likely to make a difference and are going to enable us to vary the way we play a bit then fantastic. But, at the moment, Cotterill seems bereft of ideas and the team seem bereft of fight. And much as we need players, I actually think the problem runs deeper than anything one or two singings are going to fix...

Apart from anything else, I think it's proved to everyone else in the squad - Reid, Burns, Little etc. - that no mater what they do, the manager is not going to give them a chance. And it proves to everyone in the team that, no matter how abject they are, they'll continue to get picked unless we sign anyone. Not really much of a motivator is it?

For me, Cotts is taking a big gamble using the same line-up after 1 win in 13 games. Especially with this being our 3rd game in 8 days, and how bad we were Monday, you'd think we'd have to try something to see if we can get a different result - whether that's a different shape, playing Reid or Burns or whatever. It might not work but we know that it's not working with the players we've got. Surely there's a point where you have to try something? I seriously hope Cotterill and the team prove me wrong but another poor performance and another heavy defeat and surely that HAS to be the final straw?

For me, the failure to make subs is the final straw. If we're playing like we are, and the manager isn't even prepared to take risks that might improve things even when there's nothing to lose, there really is nothing else to say. I don't want us in league one next season and that's where Cotts is taking us.

I think the worst thing is the crushing inevitability. The transfer window can't open quickly enough...

Completely disagree. We were utterly comfortable throughout. At times we let Walsall have the ball in areas where they couldn't hurt us but, a slight wobble mid-way through the first half aside, there wasn't a single moment where I thought Walsall might score and I reckon our players had more than enough in the tank to respond if Walsall had got a goal from someone. I thought it was a thoroughly professional performance. What also really struck me, from sitting right up at the top of the stadium and looking down on the action from above, is how fluid our formation is. At different points of the game we were be 3 - 5 - 2, 5 - 3 - 2, 3-2-4-1, 4 - 4 - 2 and 4 - 3 - 1 - 2 and it made it pretty much impossible for Walsall to pick players up or know where they'd be. Seeing the team in a big stadium with a quality pitch just emphasised how good they actually are.

I utterly agree with this. These debates seem to inevitably collapse into SOD vs Cotterill and that muddies the water so I don't want to go down the road but Cotterill has not impressed me at all and has shown absolutely nothing that suggests to me he can find a way to lift the club and improve our fortunes. I completely agree with how bad the transfer activity and coaching seems to be. We've had the slight improvement of fortunes that clubs tend to get for a few games when they get a new manager but, now that has passed, there is not very much left.

There comes a point though, where the manager has to start doing something about that and I just don't think he is. Obviously it's not SC's fault we're in the position we are but I'm increasingly convinced he's not the man who's going to save us from it. When he was appointed, I genuinely wanted to give him a chance but bizarre team selections, players being dropped for no particular reason, perseverance with formations that don't work and a general lack of ideas are extremely concerning. I'm not normally the first in the 'sack the manager' queue - I was all in favour of giving Johnson, Millen, McInnes and O'Driscoll time to prove themselves (in some cases perhaps wrongly) butI honestly think that the sooner this arrogant, clueless no-mark gets out of our club, the better it'll be all round.

To get someone who can rebuild us over the summer. I know full well that was the plan with SOD last season and it didn't work but it was the wrong manager rather than the wrong plan.

Initially McInnes, Millen and SOD all seemed to be improving things too.

He confirmed he would have been if an opportunity had come up at the right time in the past. He's said several times that he does not want to manage now. Our fans just choose to ignore that repeatedly.

Fair point. I didn't mean to suggest SOD was in any way a golden age. The results were awful for the most part and, as I said, he didn't seem to motivate the squad. What I do think is he brought in a group of players in order to play a certain way and, if we'd got a manger in to build on that, we'd be be in a better position than bringing in a manager who seems to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There were, of course, several things that needed to be improved from the SOD era but I'm just not convinced Cotterill is improving them.

Thing is we do need a long-term plan. But there's no point in talking of transition or patience when the manager seems to have no clue of what he's trying to achieve. I really, really don't want him to have more time to make poor signings over the summer.

I'm not sure there even is a short-term answer. We keep trying them and they always end in disaster. One thing I would say is that - having always in the past been in favour of giving managers a chance - I really think it's time to pull the plug on Cotterill. I actually think SOD assembled a promising squad - albeit one that probably wasn't ready and that he struggled to motivate - but I genuinely do not understand what Cotterill is trying to do. The signings have made no sense, Moloney seems to be being forced out of the club at random, our best centre-back is suddenly a right-back and the long-term plan seems to have been scrapped for journeymen singings and random team selections. We need to identify a promising young manager with the ambition and confidence to rebuild the club and give him time to do it. Cotterill is not the answer and is just undoing the few good things that SOD put into place.

Absolutely. A great result last night but we've got to be aiming 8 or 9 points from the next 4 matches. I'm not saying it's easy but it's doable. And I reckon getting those points on the board will put us a long way towards safety. But if standards slip again, we're right back we started.

I don't know why our best centre-back is suddenly playing as a right-back and our best right-back is being used in emergencies only.

I remember a couple of years ago when McInnes picked an utterly baffling line-up away at Southampton and it proved to be a tactical masterstroke as we came away with a 1-0 win. I really hope something similar happens tonight - on paper that line-up concerns me a lot...

I think that is a key point, though and one that a lot of Baldock's detractors are missing. Yes, he misses a lot of chances but much of the reason he scores a lot is because he makes himself available for chances in a way many strikers struggle with. Maynard was a great player of us when on form and a more clinical finisher than Baldock but I don't think he was great at getting himself inside the box and available for the ball and I don't think we'd be creating anywhere near as many chances if we still had Maynard in the side as we do with Baldock. I suspect the number of goals Maynard would get would still be similar as he'd put more of the chances he did get away but I don't reckon Maynard would be out of sight by now on number of goals scored simply because I don't think Maynard would have had anywhere near as many opportunities.

That's a bit much too read into one team selection. Isn't Williams coming back from injury anyway? I'd probably take Williams over Flint but, to be honest, I think we've relied on Williams a lot more heavily than anyone (even him) expected at the start of the season. There's plenty of time for him to force his way back into the picture and hopefully we'll finally have four decent centre-backs...