Was Coyle that bad?

Hi everybody. Let me ask a question. Was Coyle all that bad? Really?
To some the answer is a resounding yes! But I know things are not always so straight forward...

There are a few angles to approach this from. And non of them are intended to give a pro-Coyle spin on things.

So we got relegated. We all assumed that the players we had would prosper after the drop and some even thought we would storm the league. Gartside thought we would go straight back up. Coyle thought we would. 90% of the supporters thought that the team we had going into the season was good enough to win promotion. Even the bookies thought that Bolton had it in them to win the league.

But here we find ourselves a couple of months into the season - hovering precariously at the wrong end of the division. At the start of the season it was put down to a relegation hangover or taking time to adjust to the pace of the Championship. Then it was put down to Coyle being unable to organise the team or set them up properly to win games.

It was always claimed that Bolton had a strong enough squad, good enough players, and plenty of depth and resources. It must be Coyle doing something wrong!

But LSL and JP plus DF have managed 8 games between them and mustered 11 points from a possible 24. All the while they supposedly had a good enough squad to compete for the title, indeed "walk it" in some people's opinion.

But as the games have passed and points have continued to slip away the opinions have started to change. Suddenly "Freedman can't be expected to do anything until he can bring in his own players" and "we can't get the results, regardless of tactics with the bunch of useless players Coyle has left us with".

But hang on a minute! I thought the players were good enough and Coyle's tactics were to blame! So which is it? Both. Ok fine. But if the players we are left with are really not up to scratch then we ALL made the same mistake that Coyle did!

Everybody thought that the squad Coyle had ready for the start of the season was good enough! Pretty much every Bolton fan I know was enthusiastic about our chances. People said our defence was pretty solid with the likes of Knight and Ricketts and Alonso and Ream etc. We thought our midfield would rule the league with Eagles and Lee, Petrov, Mavies, etc. We assumed that Kevin Davies would enjoy greater success as would Ngog and Sordell.

Coyle simply made the same error as the rest of us. He thought that that group of players could do it - but they proved they could not. Can you blame him for thinking those players were good enough?

jayjay23 wrote: Can you blame him for thinking those players were good enough?

Yes he saw them everyday in training, brought most of them and ruined their confidence/ fitness with his poor tactics/selections/training regime.

Dougie is our saviour.

I look at it this way, it's a results business and with Coyle still in charge, we simply would not have rescued the Bristol City, Wolves & Brighton games and would never have been in a position to beat Cardiff, hold Leicester to a 0-0 draw and get a draw away at Blackpool.

The only result that I think would have been the same is Barnsley, but even then, some people would argue we would have lost it under Coyle.

I'm still giving Dougie the BOTD (he is unbeaten after all). I realised Coyle needed to go after the 0-3 humiliation at home to Fulham last season. If we had made a change then, I think we would now be in the Premier League, maybe even in a Wigan position rather than a QPR position as well!

Yes Coyle was truly awful.

I blame him for our relegation and the over-rated* and underperforming squad he left us with. I also blame him for not selling SKD when he had a chance, buying Sordell and effectively never using him and having less understanding of football tactics than just about anyone else in football management.

I certainly didn't think our squad was good enough to guarantee promotion. I am record as predicting at best a midtable finish if Coyle stayed.

*how so many pundits had us as favourites for automatic promotion beggars belief at their so-called expert opinions

It's more than just the players Jay Jay, it's to do with how you use them!

Coyle was predictable with his tactics and team selections - so the opposition simply planned for it - blindingly obviously really.

He had a squad that was totally unbalanced - we have more wingers than we can shake a stick at, yet hardly any central midfielders. If we relied on Holden so much for Coyle's tactics to work, then why didn't he look to find a replacement for him knowing he'd be out of the team long term - now over 18 months and counting!

We had no left back to speak of yet he didn't get one in over the summer - why not?

I could go on about his training of the players - or should I say non training of them - even Gartside had to tell him to bring someone in to do it (Sammy Lee) but miles, miles too late.

There appeared to be non of the science behind the club in ensuring players were at their optimum fitness.

His dealings in the transfer market were woeful and it seems they (Watford and their ex boss Malky at Cardiff) saw him coming and stitched him right up for Sordell - blowing all our oh so crucial January transfer budget on the lame duck.

You'd think big warning signs like letting in 100 goals in 50 matches following the Stoke semi game, or the two away clean sheets in nearly two years of away matches, or the worst ever Bolton home record in a season in the entire history of the club might have rung a bell with him that something had to be done to address these huge issues - but no - same team, same tactics, week after week - with exactly the same end results.

Freedman and Phillips and Lee before him have at least proved that the team could stop losing - only one defeat in the last 8. If Coyle had closed a few games down for the draw rather than continually going gung ho for the win we'd still be in the Premiership.

As far as I'm concerned Coyle is the worst manager the club as had in my lifetime - and that stretches back to the Nat Lofthouse era.

Coyle (and Gartside for not acting at least a year sooner) have fucked the club but I'm hoping that a better use of the players we have by Freedman can hopefully turn us around - if not this season the next - otherwise it's going to be a long time in the wilderness for us - and I mean bloody long time!

In a word, yes.

He bought most of these players, he chose to play most of them, he never changed formation, he was tactically inept and did not have any answers or a plan b.

Lovely guy but not a football manager. In dougie freedman we have someone who actually has a clue, someone willing to drop players, change things and someone who doesn't bullshit the fans.

He knows we were dreadful at Brighton.

Coyle would probably have blamed our 3rd kit for the performance...

Coyle got off lightly.

He is the worst manager in the history of football. How someone who played football for a living can be so devoid of tactical nouse is totally beyond me. Despite probably ruining this club for many years to come, he's come out of this with his reputation intact and I have no doubt some foolish Championship team will take him on very soon.

The day he started telling the world he knew more than the fans was the end as far as I am concerned. He wasn't a nice bloke, he was a total twat who would blame anyone but himself.

Boggersbelief wrote:

Coyle would probably have blamed our 3rd kit for the performance...

or the referee.

Coyle was worse than many people think. He was miles worse than Megson but got away with it because he scored a few goals for us in the 90's. Terrible manager who cost us our place in the Premier League.

Sluffy wrote:It's more than just the players Jay Jay, it's to do with how you use them!

Coyle was predictable with his tactics and team selections - so the opposition simply planned for it - blindingly obviously really.

He had a squad that was totally unbalanced - we have more wingers than we can shake a stick at, yet hardly any central midfielders. If we relied on Holden so much for Coyle's tactics to work, then why didn't he look to find a replacement for him knowing he'd be out of the team long term - now over 18 months and counting!

We had no left back to speak of yet he didn't get one in over the summer - why not?

I could go on about his training of the players - or should I say non training of them - even Gartside had to tell him to bring someone in to do it (Sammy Lee) but miles, miles too late.

There appeared to be non of the science behind the club in ensuring players were at their optimum fitness.

His dealings in the transfer market were woeful and it seems they (Watford and their ex boss Malky at Cardiff) saw him coming and stitched him right up for Sordell - blowing all our oh so crucial January transfer budget on the lame duck.

You'd think big warning signs like letting in 100 goals in 50 matches following the Stoke semi game, or the two away clean sheets in nearly two years of away matches, or the worst ever Bolton home record in a season in the entire history of the club might have rung a bell with him that something had to be done to address these huge issues - but no - same team, same tactics, week after week - with exactly the same end results.

Freedman and Phillips and Lee before him have at least proved that the team could stop losing - only one defeat in the last 8. If Coyle had closed a few games down for the draw rather than continually going gung ho for the win we'd still be in the Premiership.

As far as I'm concerned Coyle is the worst manager the club as had in my lifetime - and that stretches back to the Nat Lofthouse era.

Coyle (and Gartside for not acting at least a year sooner) have fucked the club but I'm hoping that a better use of the players we have by Freedman can hopefully turn us around - if not this season the next - otherwise it's going to be a long time in the wilderness for us - and I mean bloody long time!

Spot on Sluffy! Perhaps a bit understated... you failed to use the word "clueless" and there is that element that needed to be said. I'm still miffed about the drop and blowing a 2-0 lead with 15 minutes to play. Those points would have kept us up. And yes, OC should have been let go a long time earlier. You are certainly right in saying that the opposition knew our game plan each and every game. OC never took the time to look at the opposition and try and counter it. Sheer lunacy. I think a computer would have prepared better than OC.

I'm to angry to talk about the useless prick, and i get sick of hearing what a nice bloke he is, fucks that to do with anything,i blame gartside more than coyle ,how the fuck is he still in a job.

Yeah, he was. The reasons have all been stated above. Did you notice that with all the chopping/changing of Managers that has taken place, he is still out of a job?

Thank you, good replies...

You can blame our board for bringing him down here if you like.

Not to mention the players like Mears, Blake and Eagles who provided him with the opportunity to manage Bolton.

Any regrets Mr Coyle?

Of course you haven't, being as you are deluded, self centered and very slimey.

People still complain about Fat Sam not being given the budget to convert our years of top 8 premiership places into a title-challenging team. They still talk about the profligate spending of Megson.

What is glossed over is that Coyle was perhaps our first manager told to preside over the biggest cost-cutting exercise in our history - he had a negative budget. Dumping 15 players, many of whom were experienced top level professionals not only decimated our resources but put a great deal of pressure on the remaining players.

My issue with Coyle is that he was dogmatic about the playing style and team selection - although there was a suggestion that at some stage, the younger players would be asked to step up. But that didn't really happen whilst he was in charge and his inflexibility was his downfall.

He does deserve some sympathy for the (financial) situation he inherited though. IMO.

I am one of the people who "still complain about Fat Sam not being given the budget to convert our years of top 8 premiership places into a title-challenging team" and the money Megson was given. I also initially welcomed the appointment of Coyle.

However Coyle did turn out to be a crap manager. Yes he had a reduced budget but some of his decisions were unbelievably bad just in financial terms. for example buying Sordell, the 4 year contract given to Pratley, selling Al Habsi, not selling SKD, etc. Then there are all the footballing reasons for him being described as a very bad manager. In fact in purely footballing terms does he have any redeeming features at all?

And finally, the whole nice guy thing is frankly no fucking use whatsoever. I wouldn't want to meet him and have a drink with him after what he did to BWFC.

Was he that bad? Well we're 18th in the championship and leak goals like water through a tap. He is probably the worst manager we have had in 20 years IMO.

He had us playing alright for the first half of the season which we got to wembley but our bad run started long before that, christ it started before holden got injured if you look at the results.

The game against wolves at home in the same season where sturridge came on was one of the worst games I have ever seen in years, we would have been in the bottome half of the table long before if it hadn't been for him.

Every club at this level has had a Coyle - a clueless idiot who's thinking people could seldom make sense of and cost the club big time. But I sense a delusion across Bolton fans that in him, we had the only tactically inept manager the top flight has ever seen. Worse jobs have been done in better circumstances than Coyle, 2011/2012. Three teams get relegated every season. At least one of them's fans will likely hold a similar view on the manager concerned to our's on Coyle.

So yes, he was diabolical...but that's all!

The most basic 2 questions to ask oneself as to whether Coyle was as bad as we all thought:-

1. Would we have gained 7 points from the last 5 games under Coyle?

2. Did Coyle ever go 5 games unbeaten?

The one thing that Coyle lacked is a football brain, and was never going to achieve anything with the stooges he had around him, Gartside is as much to blame for blatantly giving him more time than he deserved though.