Pim had no respect a year ago or is Les on the wind up?

[Mr_Bojangles]

Look there are probably elements of truth to the claim - but it might not have happened exactly the way it was written. The problem is with the he said/she said claims is that they are almost impossible to prove one way or another.

I would expect his teamates to rally around Neills version as they probably enjoy playing international football. Any other official may still be connected to the team so is hardly going to comeout publicly.

Les will be happy as people will buy the book as a collectors item, Neill has received a full retraction so everyone is a winner.

What I am surprised about is that Les would resort to this kind of tabloid reporting to fill his book - did he learn nothing from the whole Slater/Kewell team dinner incident?

You're right, we'll never what happened and there probably was an element of truth to the claims. What gives me the trots about the whole thing is that following qualification it became the new black to bag pim out for this tactics. Wasn't everyone chuffed to safetly qualify the way we did? Don't blame him for trying to park the bus against a side that also embarassed England and Argentina.

 

[western royboy]

You're right, we'll never what happened and there probably was an element of truth to the claims. What gives me the trots about the whole thing is that following qualification it became the new black to bag pim out for this tactics. Wasn't everyone chuffed to safetly qualify the way we did? Don't blame him for trying to park the bus against a side that also embarassed England and Argentina.

I think Les probably embellished the story a bit and that's what really pissed Lucas off, from tit bits that I have heard off the record, there is some truth to the story - whether he used the whiteboard I'm not sure.

I think the major criticism of Pim (and certainly mine) was it appeared at the last minute he lost faith in his game plan or the players to execute it and that loss of faith was made evident to the team - who in turned were stunned - and then lost faith in the Coach.

Can't fault the qualification process one bit. But the Germany game was a massive let down and the guys played like stunned mullets - so you have to query what was going on inside the tent.