Cocu at PSV

[SSD]

Cocu built a great team at PSV, struggled for a season, came back the season after and won the league. He doesn't seem that bad of a manager? He got truly stitched up whilst he was in Turkey and he's been stitched up in his first season in England.

Off the field this has been one of the worst season's I can remember for some time, I'm surprised we've not done a Sunderland or Leeds special and resigned ourselves to relegation doom. Any level of manager would have struggled getting this dross of players to pick up results. The Keogh incident has affected the club far greater I think supporters realise. He was the heart of the dressing room. 

Whilst I was in the final year of my apprenticeship, myself and a number of colleagues went out one evening into Nottingham for a few beers. Sadly for my manager, who was also with us, things got out of hand and he ended up being sacked from his position (won't go into details). The guy really helped me learn and develop my career and from a work point of view, a great person to look up to. This was the same for many of the other people in the team, he was like Mr Reliable. All of a sudden, he was gone. We were shell-shocked. Things were never the same and I ended up leaving once I received my qualification. My point is, regardless of what profession you work in, having a massive leader just disappear overnight is a huge change. Huge. Granted, the players have got to perform a lot better what they are currently showing, I cannot see how Cocu is the primary fault for our poor season. I've questioned a few of his decisions on the pitch, I understand though as mostly this is due to having a constant battle with injury problems within this dreadful squad.

I think the spine of the team has been good for the last 6 seasons. A quality goalkeeper, two great centre halves, a decent midfield (defensively it was a problem but Johnson fixed it last season), and we've always had good strikers when fit. Look at the state of it now.

Cocu currently has a okay back-up keeper as his first choice. A centre half coming to the end of his career, a left back who hasn't been fit for 2 years all of a sudden is playing centre back. A promising defensive midfielder who I don't think has been fit properly all season. We have about 4-5 central midfielders who are very similar and offer no creative spark, have zero control of the middle of the pitch in the majority of games. This leaves 3 good strikers at the moment with nothing to work with. How are supporters expecting this to be a successful season? I've seen better squads go to be relegated. With many of the high earners going at the end of the season, it will be the perfect opportunity for Cocu to start from square 1. I think supporters need to accept that sometimes, you will have poor seasons, that's the nature of competitive sport. "I don't want to pay to watch crap". Well then don't bother turning up, sadly this is football, only 3 teams go up out of 24. You will have glorious times and terrible years of viewing garbage on Saturday afternoons.

The worst thing we can do is sack the manager. More instability and more mess. I don't mind having a "Norwich type" season of mediocrity if it meant long term success for the club.