I didn't want us in the playoffs this season anyway!

[swaledale]

Where have I said I’m not ‘worried’, Swale?

I’m very concerned about how this is going to unfold but ultimately it’s not going to be determined by what happens on the pitch.

Like last season we contrive to come unstuck against teams from the bottom - Bolton, Rotherham - but the only thing that will send us down is a points deduction, imo, and that IS a major ‘worry’.

As regards Cocu and ‘drinkgate’ please don’t try and tell me that any drinking culture at the club and TL’s alleged alcohol issues suddenly materialised in the six weeks or so between Cocu’s appointment and ‘Joinersgate’.

It was, I believe, there long before and seems actually to have often been applauded under ‘just one of the lads’ Lampard...but of course that was when we were winning.

Was it reasonable for a foreign manager, still within his first two months at the club, to expect the club captain and other grown men/professional sportsmen to get themselves home safely after a club day/night out?

In my opinion...absolutely and utterly reasonable. He’s a manager not a child minder. Cocu may or may not prove to be the answer, but the problems we face are emphatically not of his making.

really|? Not of Cocu's making? A good manager comes into a club and stamps his authority on the players, makes it clear what he will and will not tolerate. Usually you see a rise in performance from such a change, but with Cocu we saw the reverse.

One players problems with drink I agree not Cocu's making, BUT if he didn't know about it more than 2 months in then his failure.

Not about child minding, its about setting standards, clearly players don't respect him otherwise drinkgate wouldn't have happened - not sure why your an apologist for this but then thats your forte I guess. For me the blame for the issues especially on the pitch lie with the manager.

Not sure why your worried about a possible pts deduction, aint gonna happen this season if at all, IF what the club statement says is true then this will be the subject of legal wrangling that could take months if not longer to resolve.

Overall the standard of football has been dire, I think I actually saw better under Clough Jnr and I was no fan of his approach. When a manager says "I didn't expect that defensive display" when his team do it time and time again away from home then words fail me! Cocu knows there is an issue playing away, yet he has failed to address it.

The sooner this dreary boring unimaginative and frankly second rate manager goes the better as far as I'm concerned, I was distinctly underwhelmed by his appointment and nothing has changed my mind over the season so far.

[ramAnag]

You’re bizarrely argumentative at times, Swale and I don’t think I’m an apologist for anyone let alone that being my ‘forte’.

It’s clear to most people that this was going to be a rebuilding season. Lampard went for a quick fix...it didn’t work and once the ‘heart’ of last season’s side was removed we were always going to be up against it in terms of qualifying for the play offs.

‘Setting standards’ not ‘child minding’. I doubt there’s any manager in Europe at the moment, possibly the World, who has set standards and transformed a club’s fortunes more than Jürgen Klopp at Liverpool and yet he had exactly the same problem with Firmino. Was Klopp held responsible for Firmino’s drink driving? Of course not. Why? Because people are fickle and Klopp, Firmino and Liverpool have, in direct contrast to Cocu, Lawrence and Derby, subsequently been successful.

I am undecided on Cocu...he seems to me to be a knowledgeable, intelligent and articulate football man.
He knows infinitely more than me - or even you - although I recognise why people think he tinkers too much and at times I don’t always follow his tactical decision making, but I don’t think he’s been given enough time yet, while his latest - and only real window of transfer opportunity - has been undermined by events off the pitch.

We’ll have to agree to differ, but it is beyond me how a manager can be blamed in any way for either the off field ‘out of hours’ stupidity and irresponsibility of his ‘staff’ - including his captain and leader - or the calling into question of financial ‘dealings’ that happened long before Cocu had probably even heard of Derby.

Perhaps you need to recall how that paragon of virtue, Brian Clough, started at Derby. I don’t actually remember it having been in the same position as Cocu until late 1972, but I’m told there were plenty who doubted him in the early days.