Steve Cooper - New Manager

[Legend_in_blue]

2 hours ago, sdb said:

I've not heard anything he's said yet, and a brief skim read of this page sounds positive, but I'm certainly not convinced yet.

 

We were second best for the best part of an hour and could've been a few goals down. Our turnaround seemed to be completely sparked by a few players and the fans, and then once on top Cooper seemed to diffuse our momentum and hand it back to them.

 

The players do seem on board with him, going by body language, and I'm hopeful he'll buy into our underdog status, which tends to suit us nicely. But we do need to improve over 90 mins, and if he doesn't see Ricardo as one of our best players, then I need some convincing still.

 

I think that's a little harsh on Cooper.  We were well on top until the long stoppage for the concussion.  The momentum was lost when this happened, that's not on Cooper, that's just how the game goes sometimes.  Without the stoppage, we may have well gone on to score a second goal, Spurs were all over the place.

[Matt]

Puel, Rodgers, Maresca, all spoke quite often about lack of intensity.

 

Last night was all about pace of game and intensity.

[Gamble92]

3 minutes ago, Matt said:

Puel, Rodgers, Maresca, all spoke quite often about lack of intensity.

 

Last night was all about pace of game and intensity.

Puel never spoke about intensity

 

He spoke about intensiteeeeeeeeeee

[filbertway]

27 minutes ago, Matt said:

Puel, Rodgers, Maresca, all spoke quite often about lack of intensity.

 

Last night was all about pace of game and intensity.

It was for about 15 minutes after we scored...the majority of the game was us sat on the edge of our box watching Spurs play around with the ball at walking pace.

[Cadno'r Cymoedd]

45 minutes ago, Legend_in_blue said:

 

I think that's a little harsh on Cooper.  We were well on top until the long stoppage for the concussion.  The momentum was lost when this happened, that's not on Cooper, that's just how the game goes sometimes.  Without the stoppage, we may have well gone on to score a second goal, Spurs were all over the place.

Spot on. That unfortunate injury took away momentum away as Cooper said and Spurs regrouped although I did laugh when their keeper gave the young debutant a bollocking. Not good from a senior player. 

[Fox92]

3 hours ago, sdb said:

I've not heard anything he's said yet, and a brief skim read of this page sounds positive, but I'm certainly not convinced yet.

 

We were second best for the best part of an hour and could've been a few goals down. Our turnaround seemed to be completely sparked by a few players and the fans, and then once on top Cooper seemed to diffuse our momentum and hand it back to them.

 

The players do seem on board with him, going by body language, and I'm hopeful he'll buy into our underdog status, which tends to suit us nicely. But we do need to improve over 90 mins, and if he doesn't see Ricardo as one of our best players, then I need some convincing still.

The injury killed the game, not just our momentum. We had Spurs on the ropes after we scored. Cooper didn't diffuse it.

[foxes_rule1978]

29 minutes ago, filbertway said:

It was for about 15 minutes after we scored...the majority of the game was us sat on the edge of our box watching Spurs play around with the ball at walking pace.

What it was the whole second half, first half terrible but second we were better and could have even won it. Cooper actually looked disappointed we didn’t actually win the game  

Edited 20 August by foxes_rule1978

[BenTheFox]

I wasn't really in favour of his appointment, but no matter how bad that first half was, I came away from the game convinced that we have a far better chance of staying in this league under Cooper than if Maresca had stayed. 

[dooflip]

1 minute ago, BenTheFox said:

I wasn't really in favour of his appointment, but no matter how bad that first half was, I came away from the game convinced that we have a far better chance of staying in this league under Cooper than if Maresca had stayed. 

I’m with you on that.

If we can play with that level of pashun and intensiteeeeee every week we won’t have the lowest points tally ever, and we have a good chance of staying up.

 

Absolutely loved the flies on sh*t vibes from our highest players whilst being forced in to a low block. We haven’t seen that kind of hunger for a long time.

[sdb]

2 hours ago, Legend_in_blue said:

 

I think that's a little harsh on Cooper.  We were well on top until the long stoppage for the concussion.  The momentum was lost when this happened, that's not on Cooper, that's just how the game goes sometimes.  Without the stoppage, we may have well gone on to score a second goal, Spurs were all over the place.

Partly agree, but the substitutions did not help either. Felt they took most of our threat away 

[LVFox]

Refreshing to hear a manager describe what we all saw post-match. No sugar coating, first half wasn't good enough and he made sure that changed.

 

If he can harness that 2nd half for the majority of the season, it's a style that the fans will really get behind.

[ALC Fox]

Obviously extremely early days and it's clear the squad needs improving massively.

 

But the second-half turnaround was excellent. If he can get those players fighting like that all season we might just be alright.

 

Not getting carried away but watching us go for a winner after turning that game around and seeing him stalking the touchline like a lion stalking its prey, I can see the fans falling in love with him very quickly.

[Gamble92]

2 hours ago, filbertway said:

It was for about 15 minutes after we scored...the majority of the game was us sat on the edge of our box watching Spurs play around with the ball at walking pace.

Which I think was planned. Just not to that degree. 

 

I tell you what Spurs are going to be in trouble this season with Ange's style. I admire that he loves his team to play but their backline in possession is absolute suicide. We easily could have scored 3 last night and only really pressed properly for that 25 minute window. 

[HybridFox]

2 hours ago, Matt said:

Puel, Rodgers, Maresca, all spoke quite often about lack of intensity.

 

Last night was all about pace of game and intensity.

The only reminiscent game last season was Southampton at home when we put them to the sword and Maresca came out afterwards moaning we didn't play like he wanted 

Edited 20 August by HybridFox

[HybridFox]

Steve Cooper said at the Q&A that he wanted fans to come away from matches saying that's my club. Performances which have some sort of identity whatever it may be. We're only one game in, long way to go but feels like a step in the right direction

Edited 20 August by HybridFox

[filbertway]

25 minutes ago, Gamble92 said:

Which I think was planned. Just not to that degree. 

 

I tell you what Spurs are going to be in trouble this season with Ange's style. I admire that he loves his team to play but their backline in possession is absolute suicide. We easily could have scored 3 last night and only really pressed properly for that 25 minute window. 

They are going to be struggling if he sticks with Johnson, Solanke and Maddison. Couldn't believe Kulisevski didn't start.

 

I said last night, some games it'll click for them and they'll blow some teams away. But there's not much consistency between those 3. Madders being the most talented but disappears at the first sign of trouble/as soon as the clocks go back.

 

They could have conceded 2 or 3 for sure, but they also could have scored 7 or 8 if their forwards had any sort of composure. Not just the people shooting, but people making wrong decisions at key moments. We were genuinely fortunate not to be 2-3 down in 15 mins.

 

I really hope it wasn't Ange's decision to spunk a massive wedge to get Solanke because I'll lose a lot of respect for the man. The guy reeks of championship football.

 

[Gamble92]

6 minutes ago, filbertway said:

They are going to be struggling if he sticks with Johnson, Solanke and Maddison. Couldn't believe Kulisevski didn't start.

 

I said last night, some games it'll click for them and they'll blow some teams away. But there's not much consistency between those 3. Madders being the most talented but disappears at the first sign of trouble/as soon as the clocks go back.

 

They could have conceded 2 or 3 for sure, but they also could have scored 7 or 8 if their forwards had any sort of composure. Not just the people shooting, but people making wrong decisions at key moments. We were genuinely fortunate not to be 2-3 down in 15 mins.

 

I really hope it wasn't Ange's decision to spunk a massive wedge to get Solanke because I'll lose a lot of respect for the man. The guy reeks of championship football.

 

They could have scored more first half but there's also something about the great teams where when that doesn't happen, they don't just relentlessly try the same thing. In Spurs case that means they are often quite tired in phases and still playing a high line with not very capable passers at the back. They could absolutely do with a phase where they sit in and counter. I think bringing Brennan Johnson on when teams are nackered is a better option. No way he's getting enough goal contributions to warrant starting. He won't create enough for them when they need it. 

[cityfanlee23]

3 hours ago, filbertway said:

It was for about 15 minutes after we scored...the majority of the game was us sat on the edge of our box watching Spurs play around with the ball at walking pace.

Sounds like our opponents last season 😂

[Gamble92]

It's great to be able to see pragmatism from a manager. We've waited a long time for it. 

 

Cooper is perfect for a dogfight. Okay we had to have a lot of luck first half but we absolutely could have won it in the second half and not one person watching the game thought that could happen. We can only take positives from that. 

 

You have to think the difference between that first half where we could be 2 or 3 down with an extremely toxic atmosphere on and off the pitch compared to the scenes second half could make all the difference to new players and the season as a whole. 

 

This is exactly why the friendly choices were another in a long list of absolute cock ups from the club. 

 

I try and be as positive as possible for Leicester so the one and only negative for me is the likes of Rudkin just about doing enough to get away with things again. Every time others like Cooper do their jobs, I feel like it vindicates Rudkin to Top. 

[The Doctor]

14 hours ago, Fox92 said:

Hermansen was superb, don't take anything away from him. But the best chance of the game probably fell to Vardy anyway, which he missed.

 

I spoke to a Spurs fan pre game in the pub. He said they don't take their chances. I think post match he was right.

 

Anyway, I thought you were one of those that refer to XG all the time? Our XG was higher than Spurs' last night. Shows who had the best chances, surely?

 

 

 

 

slight correction, I'm into analytics. xG is one of them, and has had the most public cut through, however it's not the only metric. given our xG wasn't consistently higher than Spurs, understat and Fbref models both put it lower: 

https://understat.com/match/26611

https://fbref.com/en/matches/62eea1d6/Leicester-City-Tottenham-Hotspur-August-19-2024-Premier-League 

you can't really say we had the best chances, arguably equivalent (not that I've seen a model that puts our xG higher but I'll trust your claim there is one).

 

As for analytics - there's nothing much impressive in our stats as a whole. Pressing is non-existent, there's no creativity in there (we made 7 passes into the penalty area all night, Porro nearly matched that on his own). not exactly happy at the waste of Hermansens skill in there either, mans got better passing than half the midfielders in this division but is spending half his time punting it long.

 

[Bob Weasel Fox]

Like many others I really wasn't impressed when we got Cooper as manager however willing to give him chance. I think his honesty is refreshing and I think he will try and galvanise the fans which is what we need. 
 

i still think he needs to start well as if we have dips in form and sit near the bottom for large parts of the season peoples patience will wear thin quickly but you could say that about any manager coming in to be fair 

[Gamble92]

None of the Enzo purists can tell me how we played in that 2nd half doesn't get the whole crowd going more than any of his football ever did.

 

I much prefer us playing like this. Shoot me.

[pmcla26]

35 minutes ago, Gamble92 said:

None of the Enzo purists can tell me how we played in that 2nd half doesn't get the whole crowd going more than any of his football ever did.

 

I much prefer us playing like this. Shoot me.

Horses for courses. Enzo's football probably better for being one of the better sides in the league, Cooper's tactics the other night better suited for our current predicament. 

 

Hopefully we retain the ball a bit better against sides in the bottom half of the league, though. But it was good to see us look a threat on the break in the second half. 

[Jimbo]

1 hour ago, Gamble92 said:

None of the Enzo purists can tell me how we played in that 2nd half doesn't get the whole crowd going more than any of his football ever did.

 

I much prefer us playing like this. Shoot me.

Football fans will always, always take grit, determination and tempo with over slow, boring and technical 

 

The national team had their most successful period in 60 years, everybody hates it

 

Don't get me wrong, winning is great, but how boring was last season? I fully agree with you

[Foxmeister]

I'm thinking Cooper will be a bit Brian Little like with selections. A squad of similarly talented players pragmatically selected to suit the challenges presented by the opponents.