Lord Kangana wrote:
It would have been his McCann moment, no doubting it.
I have to disagree, LK.
I mentioned McCann in another post but the point was that bringing on McCann (hard worker) for Klasnic (goal threat) against Hull was seen as the nadir of Megson's miserable defensiveness. To sum up Coyle's overly optimistic attacking outlook, he'd have to bring on a goal threat when a hard worker was needed. That's exactly what he did, and (whether by decree or disaster) we surrendered control in a vital game.
Had he brought on Vela for a forward and still dropped two points, it would have caused angst and widespread catcalling but it
wouldn't have been seen as typical of a blinkered managerial approach. It would have been a different calamity, but not the personification of the manager's major fault.
We've suffered all season because we didn't have enough diligent midfielders - whether through injury (Holden), fitness (NRC lately), failure to adapt (Mavies), being dropped/subbed (Muamba). Some of that is bad luck for Coyle. Some is his bad decision-making. For the last 14 months, since we stopped being able to rely on Holden and Muamba doing the work of three men in central midfield, we have simply had too soft a centre. To quote a Yeats poem I quoted in
Tripe 'n' Trotters when we last went down in disorganised shambles:
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned.