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It's hard to tell Owen Coyle's post-match interviews apart. From one match to the next he always talks (positively) about working hard and giving a lot of effort. This annoys the hell out of me. Why? Coyle is surely not alone. Pundits do the same thing. Even supporters, whenever there is a poor performance by their club, go on and on about "playing for the shirt" and "Showing grit and heart." I have news for you, it is all rubbish (and not the charming type of rubbish you find here on Lion of Vienna Suite).
Here is the thing; No players want to lose. No players intend to play badly. No managers purposely pick a poor side. Well, maybe Steve Bruce does when he plays Manchester United, but that is it. No player reaches this level of football without working tremendously hard. Even a supreme natural talent, even someone we want to hate like Cristiano Ronaldo, has to spend thousands of hours working at his craft. But that is the British mentality, we can do better, we just have to work harder. Please stop.
Anyway, that off my chest, here is what Owen Coyle said about the overall performance at Hillsborough:
"Our performance was of a very high standard. We scored two good goals and could have had five or six."
As I said, overly positive. Bolton certainly played better than they have in earlier matches this season, but it was a sloppy game with a lot of chances for both sides, more due to poor defending than incisive attacking. Maybe when he talks about our defending Owen will temper his enthusiasm a bit:
"We had to be strong defensively. Sheffield Wednesday are very dangerous opponents and have a great home following. They create a very passionate atmosphere at Hillsborough"
Again he is saying we were "strong defensively." Wednesday scored one and had several other good chances. He could have said we had improved defensively, and I would be fine with it.
One more, and you know this one is my personal favorite:
"We have the spirit, drive and desire to win games, and it has been frustrating that we haven't been able to bring that together consistently."
The desire to win games. Whereas, most other clubs have no desire to win games?
I am trying to like Owen Coyle, I really am. But it has reached the point where he is really wearing on me. Maybe if we put together a good run of results I'll get back on the bandwagon, but for now, I would just like to hear a reasoned analysis of our performance.