The_Rorab

I think the biggest issue I have with Cooper isn't necessarily even down to Cooper himself - it's about us as a club. Say what you want about Maresca, but it felt like we actually had a plan as a club going forward after years of stagnation under Rodgers - there was a concrete intention of playstyle, that seemed to map up with players we'd signed or already had at the club (Winks, Ricardo, Vestergaard etc), there was a real sense of momentum and whilst I know a fair few people had misgivings about the potential of Maresca in the Premier League, I at least felt like we'd have an ethos to stick to, patterns of play, playing an 11 that seemed to understand the tactics and know what to do. Obviously, there's not a lot we could have done about Maresca leaving, and obviously we were hamstrung by the at the time looming PSR points deduction, but the appointment of Cooper just felt like the absolute antithesis of everything we'd just done and built. He doesn't seem to have much of a tactical plan, he has a history as Ric keeps mentioning of horrific away form, his entire ethos seems to be as far away from what we were doing last year as possible - and it just seems so self-inflicted. His marginalisation of Ricardo, the 3-year contract extension to Vestergaard who didn't even make the bench against Palace, the fact that for large stints of games we seem clueless about how to even do the basics right from being a well-drilled unit, the signings of players in the profile of Bobby Reid, the complete lack of Alves in the matchday squad over Soumare, the shambolic game management against Palace of just lumping on as many defenders as possible and hoping. Obviously these aren't all equal issues, and some are subjective opinion, but there's very little that feels like Cooper is doing right currently - and I don't feel confident that he knows how to change things. For some attempt at balance, I do think the grit we've shown in a few games is absolutely something to laud him for - I think he's likely a pretty good man manager and motivator. The problem is that you have to be able to pair that up with tactical ability, otherwise you end up in the Southgate scenario, and we don't have nearly as good players to compensate for a bad tactical manager as England did. I have some sympathy given that we definitely would have struggled more in the transfer window with the looming PSR threat, and I appreciate that he's only been in charge for a few games, I'd absolutely love it if we suddenly clicked and showed more signs of being a solid team, but right now I struggle to see where points come from. I don't think it should come as much of a surprise that we are near the bottom for a decent chunk of statistical metrics so far this season. Yes, we're newly promoted, but many newly promoted teams manage to acquit themselves in the Premier League far better than we seem to be, and given how we played last year, it feels like there should have been groundwork for playing at lest somewhere slightly better than this. Which is the frustration really - the only recourse I think people have is lashing out at Cooper himself, and I both understand and feel similarly, but it's hugely on the board as per usual as well in my opinion - we've ripped up everything good we did last year in a panic and now we're left with what seems to be a complete mishmash of personnel and tactical style which just isn't getting the best out of anything - and it just feels like such a letdown after what felt like we actually had some semblance of real long-term planning for once. I genuinely think Cooper as a bloke seems pretty decent. I don't dislike him, the way I utterly loathed Rodgers by the end, he seems like a fairly straight-talking well-meaning guy. The problem is that that isn't enough, and without success on the pitch, my patience is very thin for him being a decent bloke versus our play so far.

I get your overarching point, but this... didn't happen? So I don't think that it's in any way relevant? It could have worked brilliantly bringing on an attacking midfielder and we could've scored more for example - but we'll never know so we can only judge on what did happen - he subbed Coady on and we ceded momentum and he conceded a penalty. You've literally rewritten what happened to fit your narrative whilst complaining about the same thing? I personally think Cooper's only positive is his man management and instilling of work ethic, as you've touched on, and we have shown some positives from it but in my opinion his tactical shortcomings outweigh that. Hopefully I turn out to be wrong and we pick up some wins In the next few games.

I mean, based on the 112 year history, I'm going to go with they would probably, given that they've been doing it for 112 years. I'd be surprised if you think they've never been desperate for points in 112 years - although whether they'd play youth players versus try to buy better Basque players from elsewhere, I couldn't say - I don't exactly follow Bilbao. Anyway, I don't think Ric or anyone is genuinely suggesting we should be only playing English players, or even that our academy players should be constantly playing every game - I think there's a balance that can easily be struck here - Alves for example could be on the bench for games over the likes of Soumare surely? Then he could be used or not used as the situation may allow. It shows the progression and pathway, but can be situational - and doesn't really jeopardise anything unless you think Soumare can offer something off the bench for us (which I do not). Like it or not, we need to keep producing players through the academy in order to compensate for less than stellar financial management - and for me, what Cooper is currently doing with Alves in not having him in any first team squads is a mistake. Which isn't to say he won't do something different going forward, but I don't think it's surprising that it's a disappointment in a thread about our youth players.

I mean, they've been playing only Basque or Basque-raised/related players since 1912, and have been in seasons where they could have been relegated such as a 17th placed finish in 06/07 where they didn't decide against the policy - I highly doubt they'd suddenly reverse 112 years of tradition for a relegation fight.

I don't understand the concept of not trying players with zero experience - playing them is how they get experience and there are countless examples of players thrown into first team football and thriving. There obviously are cases of players being thrown in and not succeeding too, I'm not saying it will always succeed - but this idea that you just can't ever throw in inexperienced players into a first team is ridiculous, especially if it's just stuff like being given sub appearances off the bench on occasion with the huge amount of subs we are now afforded. Sure, loan players out too to give them experience yeah I can get behind that but if you're always too concerned about experience then you'll never develop players and always have to spend more money, which we can't really afford to do. And people saying oh well we can't blood players this year, we're in a relegation battle - when exactly do you want to blood youngsters? Next year will the line not surely either be we desperately need to avoid relegation again or get promoted back at the first opportunity? Why would that be a better scenario for playing youngsters exactly than now? I'm not saying let's just play every academy lad but I dare anyone to give me a valid reason to have Soumare on the bench over Alves for example. It just screams of our short-termism that seems to be part of every decision we make.

To be fair Cooper is dead right that we'd likely known we'd have no new signings for the first week's fixtures and that it's not the club's fault that we've made no signings for it - as he said it's a slow market all-around! I mean, it's hard for a newly promoted club to make signings the week before the season starts - look at Ipswich... wait, they've signed Kalvin Phillips on loan and Sammie Szmodics this week? Well, they're clearly the outlier to be fair, Kalvin Phillips has been awful for the last few seasons, and Szmodics is a completely unknown quantity at this level, Southampton having only gone up through the playoffs and therefore having had less time than us to prepare surely will show how hard it is... They've signed Cameron Archer and are about to loan in Lesley Ugochukwu? Well. Uh. Neither are exactly proven Prem quality players! It doesn't show anything, the market is just incredibly slow and difficult for every team to navigate, not just us! I mean, it's just incredibly difficult to get a striker in - but I mean luckily we've got Vardy, Daka, Cannon... oh. Vardy and Daka are out injured for the foreseeable future? Well, surely we've tried our best, and surely no other promoted teams have signed strikers in the same period that we knew we'd be desperate for literally any kind of reinforcement??? Right??? Well. At least there's always the academy players that we can trust in to have greater roles to play with how colossally difficult it is for ALL teams to make transfers in this slow window! If there's one thing you can say about Cooper it's that he'll definitely be good for the youth players and give them a fair shake - thank god we blooded them in pre-season so we could compensate for the gaping holes in the first team squad and not have to play players like Soumare in the league this season... So there's no way we could even think to lay any blame on the club at all, it's all just so helplessly out of our hands! What else COULD we even conceivably have done??? Right?

I'm disappointed, but I think a lot of my frustration is simply that this disrupts us at a time that I'd prefer we could focus solely on signings given how shambolic we can sometimes be in the transfer window. Plus, I was hoping Maresca would be able to put some pressure on Rudkin's role at the club in some capacity, and I presume that will end with his departure. At the end of the day I would have been very happy to see him stay, but I'm not heartbroken by him leaving either - a bit sad, especially given the camaraderie he seemed to instil in the squad but I'm more just concerned about the next appointment. This is a huge appointment given our situation and it needs to be the right man for what is clearly going to be a very tough season. I'd have preferred him to stay, but here's hoping we don't balls up the next appointment.

I feel like Moyes is an appointment that would have to see a dramatic shift from the board and Top in terms of preferred playstyle - the noises we heard with Maresca's appointment were that he plays the possession style of football that Top wants us to be playing - and that's DRASTICALLY different to the kind of football we'll play under Moyes I'd have to assume - so I have some doubts we'd go for Moyes. I think Potter is more of a match for how Top wants us to play - though having reportedly rejected Ajax I don't really think he'd be eager to come here. Of the three most voted on candidates here I think Corberan is the likeliest unless Top suddenly decides he doesn't care about playstyle.

I can't remember which player it was, but a few seasons back wasn't there someone we had loaned out mentioning that absolutely no-one at the club had kept any sort of contact or dialogue with them whilst out on loan? It does feel like there are areas we lack sometimes when it comes to structural organisation and care.

There's a lot to say and none of it good but I just wanted to pick up on something a few people here have said about the Summer transfer window that has baffled me. I've seen at least 2 or 3 posts essentially saying well it's okay we won't have much money we can always sell KDH for 30mill or what have you. In what world is that a positive??? Sure, we'd have 30mill, but we'd be severely weakening ourselves Sheffield United style. Sure maybe we'd be able to use those funds to frankenstein ourselves more options elsewhere, but it boggles my mind that anyone can think that move would be positive for us.

I cannot fathom that we didn't seem to have any sort of backup option to signing Sensi if we knew it was contingent on selling someone. It's not as if we'd have been unsure how interested other clubs might have been in our players. Casadei left, so surely we could have at least loaned someone else in to replace him. They've had weeks to plan this. It's just negligence. Pure and simple.

The oh it's not his fault we just don't know what's happening behind the scenes you couldn't possibly ever hold someone accountable when you don't know exactly everything he's done, he should be given credit for previous things at the club just screams to me as a similar logic as some of the head in the sand Rodgers defenses that went on last year. Maybe that's harsh, but for me there's echoes of it in the idea that not knowing every single element of something or previous success makes someone above reproach. Obviously different circumstances and remits, but I'm of the opinion that despite having a great manager, we are still in all likelihood an absolute clownfest behind the scenes. Nothing has changed my mind on this, so thank god we're competent on the pitch right now and that largely distracts me from thinking about it. Hopefully we don't get any key injuries or anything going forward.

I do agree with you that securing loans must be difficult with a lot of different variables and there is definitely an oversimplification of the process in the eyes of someone frustrated by it. The issue for me isn't that we aren't seemingly able to loan academy players out, it's that basically every other club IS - we are largely the odd ones out in this, whether that's through failure or a difference in strategy or anything else. I looked at the number of loans we had out in the Prem I think last year and if I remember correctly we were one of like 2 teams with fewer than 10 loans out or something like that. (Apologies for the lack for specificity but I can't be arsed to trawl through my posts to fact check, but will if needed.) Surely it can't be the often touted no one is interested in them, unless we singularly in all of the Championship and Prem teams just have bad players that no-one wants, when everyone else does not. Why would every other club get rafts of loans and absolutely no-one be interested in our players? That argument largely makes zero sense unless you think our youth are uniquely shite. Whether by mistake or design, we don't seem to loan out players at anywhere near the rate of most other clubs. Again this isn't the be all and end all, we still have a great propensity for bringing through academy players into the first team, but it is something that sticks out compared to other teams. So you're right, it isn't a cushy job and likely has a lot of moving parts, but why we aren't showing the same level of output in generating loans as other clubs are is something I wonder about.

I think one thing that can be difficult to reconcile as a fan watching us right now is the thin line between adaptation and proficiency. From the looks of it, we are currently in a natural period where Maresca has been relatively tactically inflexible, and this is ostensibly because both he has his identity and style of football and he is attempting to bed that style into the squad. As a result he likely doesn't want to make changes or any drastic alterations because he believes his tactic will create chances and also the more they familiarise with it the better we should theoretically get, even if in the short-term it doesn't always work out. I don't expect to see him mess around with anything tactically for a good while, even if there are particularly bad games. If things spiral or just never pick up to a particularly high level I'd hope then that some form of adaptation of tactics might occur - but that'll be the test of his capabilities as a manager if and when things aren't going our way. Currently though we're very much solely in the gaining proficiency stage of the tactical setup - I think ostensibly because whilst he could adapt things game-by-game in the way that we, seeing the game and how it pans out might feel would make us better, but too much change too fast when we've only just started to learn a certain tactical style could be detrimental to that instilling of fluency. Which can be frustrating to watch - but fingers crossed it actually benefits us long-term

My biggest concern is simply the pervasive notion and mantra of "when we come good", comparing us to Burnley last year etc. I should state I think it's likely a positive that we're trying to establish a distinct style of play, and I think in general the one we're attempting to create is a positive style that should allow us to generally have the better of teams. I also think that it's way too soon in the season to be truly concerned, implementing what we are will obviously take time given the shambles of preseason and general squad instability amongst other things. However every time I see someone say wait until we really kick into gear when we've adapted to it, or that we'll be brilliant when we've had time with the system I can't help but be concerned that we'll still be repeating that mantra of when it clicks it'll be amazing halfway through the season or more. I do think we'll likely get better with the system, but there does seem to be an almost surety going round that at some point it will definitely all click and we'll canter to promotion. Hopefully it will, and really this is all just a load of nothing really because we've started brilliantly points-wise even if performances have been a bit hit and miss, and it's off the back of only one loss. I really hope it does all click down the line but by no means do I think it's a surefire bet that we'll magically unlock HMS Piss the League mode after a while of adaptation. We'll see how it goes in the next few games!