shiv

Great book, would encourage anyone here to read it.

Brendan Rodgers played a part in KDH’s development, doesn’t mean he’s not a terrorist.

All of which played for some of the best academies in the country? He did well with England youth but let’s not pretend he’s the one that gave Sterling & Trent their Liverpool debut

If we are going for someone out of work I would much rather we took a gamble on someone like RvN.

I couldn’t care less that Cooper managed Forest. In the Championship he played pretty direct football, but let’s not forget with Forest he had a very good squad with some great loan players. I understand why he just focused on getting results in the PL, but he played absolute turgid football and barely scraped them over the line. In the last 5 years or so, the gap between the bottom 2-3 teams and the rest of the league has been staggering. It’s only taking ~36 points to stay up these days and you’re consistently having at least one team finish on sub 30 points. In 2022/23 Forest finished on 38, which to be honest with the squad they had I would say was definitely the bare minimum. Yes they had a lot of signings but they had the likes of Felipe, Lodi, Aurier, Mangala, Navas who were all playing Champions League football not long ago. So for me, that’s why I am absolutely not keen on Cooper. The England youth set up success is not a reason to appoint someone (as we saw with Peter Taylor).

I can see why people think he’d be solid. But, aside from 2 out of his 4.5 years at West Ham which he got them to 6th & 7th, they were largely an average team. Yes he won them the Conference League but they had a much easier run in than our year and had Paqueta, Rice & Bowen who are arguably top 4 players. In the PL they were very bang average, they finished 14th in 22/23 and although they finished 9th last year the points totals for the league were turgid (Fulham finished 13th in 48 points). I’d say on the whole he’s been pretty crap since leaving Everton. 2 good years in 11 doesn’t fill me with confidence tbh.

I know there were reports of a player revolt but the main reason he left is because the PSV board sold Gakpo & Madueke when they were challenging for the title. His work with the academy was brilliant and he got Xavi Simons banging goals in for fun at just 19. He also played a good style of football and was more similar to Bielsa’s Leeds in terms of intensity. Players complained because they thought he trained them too hard, but frankly I don’t see that as a real issue and we’ve seen what happens when players have too much control.

As I said - was always going to get a club competing in Europe.

I agree about not wanting him here, but his last 4 clubs have been Chelsea, Man Utd, Spurs and Roma. To think he will suddenly not get a single offer from a club competing in Europe is a little naive. There’s absolutely no way he considers a club like us at this stage of his career. Why would he come to a club with FFP issues, a potentially huge points deduction and a clown of a DoF? His stock hasn’t fallen that much just yet. Maybe in 5 years we’ll see him managing mid-table teams but can’t see that happening any time soon tbh.

He absolutely will command peak Jose wages and is probably next in line for the Portugal or England job. No chance whatsoever. He’s more likely to go to Saudi than to join us.

People that think we could attract Mourinho We have a seriously deluded fan base. We’d be lucky to get RvN or Potter.

RvN would be a gamble but has pedigree and started his managerial career relatively successfully. Plays good football, promotes academy players and is a big name so could attract some good players. Cooper is garbage. Had near unlimited funds at Forest and still almost got them relegated. They were turgid away from home too under him. No thank you. Would genuinely rather have Moyes than Cooper (and I think Moyes would be the complete wrong appointment).

He left PSV because the board sanctioned the sale of Gakpo & Madueke in January when they were in with a shout of the title. He’s also been out of work for a year and PSV just won the title so his stock has probably gone down a little. Wouldn’t be impossible and we should go all out for him IMO.

Against teams that play a low block there’s not really a lot else you can do aside from “tika taka bollocks”. But against teams that don’t play a low block, we’re by far the best in the league as we’ve shown most of this season. So whilst I agree we do play better when we’re more purposeful, unfortunately it’s not as simple as that.