Steve Cooper - New Manager

[Nolucklcfc]

7 hours ago, guest123 said:

how many of his games have you been to watch?

All including pre season. 

[Nolucklcfc]

7 hours ago, guest123 said:

that comment suggests you didn't go, the first half was pretty shite and as others have said, not sure what they are actually trying to do. almost as if the instructions are "go out and enjoy yourselves". we won, and that's a positive, and i said nothing negative during the game, but that first half was a million miles away from the standard we'll need saturday against villa

I did go. I thought the first half was alright, just a bit flat. It was just obvious we needed to lift it a bit which we did and won comfortably. 

[guest123]

10 minutes ago, Nolucklcfc said:

All including pre season. 

in that case you'll have seen exactly what people are moaning about. no clear direction, no clear style of play, no creativity. that first half was crap, against a league 2 team. i at least expected him to have the players running through brick walls for him, but apart from the 25 minutes in the 2nd half against spurs half the players look like they've been asked to perform a weird sex act on the pitch

[JimJams]

7 hours ago, foxile5 said:

Moved from my usual seat opposite the dug out to behind it for today and one takeaway -

Chinese?

[Steve Earle]

7 hours ago, foxile5 said:

Moved from my usual seat opposite the dug out to behind it for today and one takeaway -

 

Cooper seemed pissed off at Stephy multiple times for taking risks. I was pretty deflated at that as it was necessary to move at the defense. I think that does tell us a bit about Cooper's expectations.

Mav's first half performance was appalling - over-elaborate, poor decision-making, showboating, no end product. He just about redeemed himself second half, no doubt after a word from Coops. 

[Paninistickers]

8 hours ago, Collymore said:

I really fear he'll come a way from today thinking Skipp, Ndidi, Winks are going to be an attacking force. Worrying. 

You know, I'm one of those weird people that think, particularly for Villa, we need that with Wilf at the top 

 

He's very fit and strong. He's a nuisance. He'll lead the press and despite his misses, he actually has that occasional glimmer of skill in the box (saints away last year, the cross for KDH at west Brom) 

 

Skipp looks really tidy and I just like players who have a good touch. It buys you an extra half a second all the time. 

 

We need fitness,. strength, speed and a bit of arrogance v Villa. And play it 'cup tie' style 

[Nolucklcfc]

1 hour ago, guest123 said:

in that case you'll have seen exactly what people are moaning about. no clear direction, no clear style of play, no creativity. that first half was crap, against a league 2 team. i at least expected him to have the players running through brick walls for him, but apart from the 25 minutes in the 2nd half against spurs half the players look like they've been asked to perform a weird sex act on the pitch

No I think we are two league games into a season and we haven’t even lost both games. I think people are going way over the top with how bad it actually is. Almost like people aren’t expecting any kind of adjustment, it really hasn’t been that bad. It’s just because people don’t like the manager … 

[guest123]

Just now, Nolucklcfc said:

No I think we are two league games into a season and we haven’t even lost both games. I think people are going way over the top with how bad it actually is. Almost like people aren’t expecting any kind of adjustment, it really hasn’t been that bad. It’s just because people don’t like the manager … 

go on then lets flip this round, what has been good in all those matches?

 

i didn't want him, stated that many times, BUT always support the team and want Cooper to prove me wrong, but so far he's given me very little to think he's a decent choice

[Nolucklcfc]

4 minutes ago, guest123 said:

go on then lets flip this round, what has been good in all those matches?

 

i didn't want him, stated that many times, BUT always support the team and want Cooper to prove me wrong, but so far he's given me very little to think he's a decent choice

I think he managed to make changes at half time against spurs that completely changed the game and we could have won. I think Fulham was flat at times but actually wasn’t that bad. We are clearly lacking up front and I don’t agree with not playing Mavididi and Ricardo, we won 4-0 last night. I just don’t think it’s been THAT bad. Look at Everton … 

[guest123]

Just now, Nolucklcfc said:

I think he managed to make changes at half time against spurs that completely changed the game and we could have won. I think Fulham was flat at times but actually wasn’t that bad. We are clearly lacking up front and I don’t agree with not playing Mavididi and Ricardo, we won 4-0 last night. I just don’t think it’s been THAT bad. Look at Everton … 

so nothing good apart from the spurs 25 minutes, like i've said

[murphy]

Reading through many of the threads it's seems that most of FT has made its mind up about Cooper and it's still only August.  They probably made their minds up before he arrived and it seems to me that they are just feeding off each other and queuing up to stick the boot in at every opportunity.  I get the sense that some are waiting for him to fail so that they can be proven right and I find the levels of vitriol both childish and depressing.

 

I'm not sold on Cooper myself.  I think he has made some strange decisions and I get the impression that our recruitment strategy is being driven by him in terms of targeting workhorses but I recognise that we are only two games in and he has been given an almighty task to keep us up.  He is most likely still finding his feet and working on finding the right formula.

 

I'm old enough to remember O'Neill's Leicester and that infamous Sheff Utd game during which the fans turned-on him loudly.   The abuse was embarrassing.   It was early in his reign and I remember that he said that believe it or not, we don't actually ask the players to launch hopeful balls forward.  In other words,  he had not yet been able to mould the team in his image.  O'Neill soon turned it around, we were promoted and the rest is history, but he never forgot and that night permanently tainted his relationship with the fans.  Its a new generation now but we never learn.

 

I'm not saying Cooper is O'Neill and I'm not saying we shouldn't be critical but fair, however if you're prejudiced because of Forest connections, please grow up.  No really.  Grow TF up.  I think we should all have try to have an open mind because for good or for ill he is here and one thing's for sure if we turn against him so early on, we are only making the job harder and making it more likely that we fail.  

 

 

 

 

[guest123]

5 minutes ago, murphy said:

Reading through many of the threads it's seems that most of FT has made its mind up about Cooper and it's still only August.  They probably made their minds up before he arrived and it seems to me that they are just feeding off each other and queuing up to stick the boot in at every opportunity.  I get the sense that some are waiting for him to fail so that they can be proven right and I find the levels of vitriol both childish and depressing.

 

I'm not sold on Cooper myself.  I think he has made some strange decisions and I get the impression that our recruitment strategy is being driven by him in terms of targeting workhorses but I recognise that we are only two games in and he has been given an almighty task to keep us up.  He is most likely still finding his feet and working on finding the right formula.

 

I'm old enough to remember O'Neill's Leicester and that infamous Sheff Utd game during which the fans turned-on him loudly.   The abuse was embarrassing.   It was early in his reign and I remember that he said that believe it or not, we don't actually ask the players to launch hopeful balls forward.  In other words,  he had not yet been able to mould the team in his image.  O'Neill soon turned it around, we were promoted and the rest is history, but he never forgot and that night permanently tainted his relationship with the fans.  Its a new generation now but we never learn.

 

I'm not saying Cooper is O'Neill and I'm not saying we shouldn't be critical but fair, however if you're prejudiced because of Forest connections, please grow up.  No really.  Grow TF up.  I think we should all have try to have an open mind because for good or for ill he is here and one thing's for sure if we turn against him so early on, we are only making the job harder and making it more likely that we fail.  

 

 

 

 

Couple of points, not seen 1 single person slate him for being a former forest manager, and it’s weird it keeps being mentioned. 
 

ive also not heard anyone turn against him at any of the games yet and I doubt he’s bothered about reading here. There’s a small number of

posters that think he’s crap and want him sacked but the majority are commenting on what we/they have seen so far, and that can’t be changed

[Nolucklcfc]

1 hour ago, guest123 said:

so nothing good apart from the spurs 25 minutes, like i've said

What do you expect? We are a newly promoted team. We are going to lose lots of games this season. 

[filbertway]

3 hours ago, Nolucklcfc said:

I think he managed to make changes at half time against spurs that completely changed the game and we could have won. I think Fulham was flat at times but actually wasn’t that bad. We are clearly lacking up front and I don’t agree with not playing Mavididi and Ricardo, we won 4-0 last night. I just don’t think it’s been THAT bad. Look at Everton … 

Spurs were well on top till we scored a goal from nowhere, think they had 2 or 3 good chances in the 10 minutes before we scored. Then they just mentally folded.

 

The momentum swing to me felt more like a product of us scoring than any tactical changes.

Edited 28 August by filbertway

[Richmondfox]

13 hours ago, The Doctor said:

from two long rangers and a penalty, against a midtable league two team. there doesn't seem to be a clear strategy still on how we're going to create chances it's fair to say

I couldn’t see a clear strategy.

When they sat back Faes would do his kamikaze runs when a quick pass to Ricardo would be better to try and break down. Ricardo seemed reluctant to put a ball into a dangerous area. I would’ve thought that would be useful with a shithouse like Ayew. I’d like to see Fatawu and Ricardo running with the ball and attacking together. 
 

I did like how Skipp looked more progressive and wanted to get up the pitch quickly, shame it was to Ndidi in the attacking roll. No one would run into space to help out the wingers so Mav had to take everyone on or Kasey runs to the middle and overthinks so ends up doing nothing. He’s so much better around the box when he can just react. 
 

Hopefully the CBs stop with the walking football so high up, like against Fulham and get the ball to Skipp quickly. 

[The Doctor]

1 hour ago, Nolucklcfc said:

What do you expect? We are a newly promoted team. We are going to lose lots of games this season. 

almost like the criticisms are based on performances and patterns of play, not results 

[Wizerud]

It’s just two games, I wouldn’t expect to see anything close to a “final product” yet. At this stage, I do expect a bit of experimentation and a lack of consistency, fluidity and identity while Cooper figures out this team and the system in which they can maximise their abilities. Having said that I would like to see an improvement over the next 10 games in all those areas and won’t be worried unless we stagnate into the often directionless mess that our current play indicates we’re in. Again though, that not unexpected. The arrival (hopefully) of new players will again change the dynamic and might even delay the final product that we eventually see.

In short, I won’t be worried unless we don’t see the expected generally upwards trajectory in terms of our overall effectiveness. Hopefully that will lead to more entertaining football but I struggle to think of the last time we were genuinely entertaining other than the first half of last year vs championship opposition and that was before the rest of the league figured out how to nullify Maresca-ball. 

[guest123]

1 hour ago, Nolucklcfc said:

What do you expect? We are a newly promoted team. We are going to lose lots of games this season. 

I don't expect anything, i'm not that arrogant, what i'd hope for though would be signs of some tactics and style of play without the just humping it forward hoping it lands near one of our fast players. i'd also hoped we'd have a team looking like they'd run through brick walls for this supposed brilliant man manager that was spoke about so much during the hiring process. i'd also hope the players looked like they knew what they're supposed to be doing and hoped by the 8th match in charge, because that's how many games he's had, he'd know his best players and where to play them.

 

[Nolucklcfc]

1 hour ago, guest123 said:

I don't expect anything, i'm not that arrogant, what i'd hope for though would be signs of some tactics and style of play without the just humping it forward hoping it lands near one of our fast players. i'd also hoped we'd have a team looking like they'd run through brick walls for this supposed brilliant man manager that was spoke about so much during the hiring process. i'd also hope the players looked like they knew what they're supposed to be doing and hoped by the 8th match in charge, because that's how many games he's had, he'd know his best players and where to play them.

 

So your belief is that they are going into games with zero tactical instructions, zero patterns of play, basically no clue what’s going on? 

[guest123]

17 minutes ago, Nolucklcfc said:

So your belief is that they are going into games with zero tactical instructions, zero patterns of play, basically no clue what’s going on? 

didn't say that did i? where did you get zero from?

[Nolucklcfc]

48 minutes ago, guest123 said:

didn't say that did i? where did you get zero from?

Oh I thought that from this comment “apart from the 25 minutes in the 2nd half against spurs half the players look like they've been asked to perform a weird sex act on the pitch” 

 

[Fox92]

4 hours ago, Nolucklcfc said:

What do you expect? We are a newly promoted team. We are going to lose lots of games this season. 

Also, we are also a newly promoted team with a manager that walked out and now have a new manager that has inherited this squad. Most teams in our position would be the same.

[honeybradger]

6 hours ago, murphy said:

Reading through many of the threads it's seems that most of FT has made its mind up about Cooper and it's still only August.  They probably made their minds up before he arrived and it seems to me that they are just feeding off each other and queuing up to stick the boot in at every opportunity.  I get the sense that some are waiting for him to fail so that they can be proven right and I find the levels of vitriol both childish and depressing.

 

I'm not sold on Cooper myself.  I think he has made some strange decisions and I get the impression that our recruitment strategy is being driven by him in terms of targeting workhorses but I recognise that we are only two games in and he has been given an almighty task to keep us up.  He is most likely still finding his feet and working on finding the right formula.

 

I'm old enough to remember O'Neill's Leicester and that infamous Sheff Utd game during which the fans turned-on him loudly.   The abuse was embarrassing.   It was early in his reign and I remember that he said that believe it or not, we don't actually ask the players to launch hopeful balls forward.  In other words,  he had not yet been able to mould the team in his image.  O'Neill soon turned it around, we were promoted and the rest is history, but he never forgot and that night permanently tainted his relationship with the fans.  Its a new generation now but we never learn.

 

I'm not saying Cooper is O'Neill and I'm not saying we shouldn't be critical but fair, however if you're prejudiced because of Forest connections, please grow up.  No really.  Grow TF up.  I think we should all have try to have an open mind because for good or for ill he is here and one thing's for sure if we turn against him so early on, we are only making the job harder and making it more likely that we fail.  

 

 

 

 

I am sure there are quite a few people on here like me who were content with the Cooper appointment as we thought he had 2 qualities that would work well for us:

 

1. Youth development - It's fair to say now that Cooper is not pro youth development. Ben Nelson is further from the first team than he was last season, with Okoli who might as well be a youth prospect being in front of him. Alves is now also behind Reid (who also might as well be a youth prospect based on his performances), Alves looked good against league 2 opposition, Reid has looked terrible against PL opposition. Is Alves better than Reid? We haven't seen enough of Alves to conclude that as Cooper barely played him in pre season. I think he is better than Reid though.

 

2. Pragmatism - Enzo got plenty of criticism from our fans for his lack of tactical inflexibility but at least his tactics allowed for our best players to be on the pitch. I would argue that Cooper has been even more tactically inflexible so far than Maresca was. He has benched one of our best, if not our best player in Ricardo Pereira just because he is set on playing the RB as a centre back. If he wants to do well at this football club then he has to adjust his tactics to get Ricardo onto the pitch.

 

Now that we have more of a clear picture of what Cooper at Leicester looks like some of us are not liking what we see and personally for me so far it hasn't been about the performances which can change on a dime but the transfer strategy and his approach to our key players

Edited 28 August by honeybradger

[Big_Nige]

I think the thing for me that I’m struggling with, and this included yesterday’s game against Tranmere, especially in the first half, is the lopsided wingback / winger tucking inside formation. I don’t think it works at all with the personnel we currently have at the club. if he’s intent on playing that way we should have gone all out for a new left or right sided specialist wingback. Someone with attacking output. VK is a steady left back and a willing runner, but not one who will offer great quality in the final third, and JJ and Ricky (as much as I love him) are not the same in terms of bombing up the right since their respective injuries. So we’ve got 3 fullbacks at the club who can’t play that role effectively, and 2 wingers in Mavidid and Fatawu who aren’t technical enough to step inside where it’s congested. 
 

The way I see it is we’re effectively trying to set up exactly the same as last season when attacking. But instead of Mavididi we’re using VK and instead of KDH we’re using Bobby Reid. That’s about 50 goal contributions taken out the team, and replaced by players that between them we’ll be lucky to see 6 or 7. So we’ve hamstrung ourselves, nullified our left side completely, when in reality Cooper inherited a squad, that with a few tweaks would be far more threatening going forward. 
 

This is obviously complete guesswork, but I can’t imagine any of our squad had ever played with an inverted fullback before last season, yet Enzo drilled into every player where they should be, how to beat the press in that shape and how to move the ball up the pitch by the time pre-season was over. Whatever way you feel about Enzo’s football he is clearly an elite coach. As a manager the jury is probably still out, but that debate has been done to death. I just can’t see any work done under Cooper on the training pitch translate at all at the moment. The players have no structure when trying to play through a press, half the time resorting to going long or drifting out the the fullback to win a 50/50 header. The coaching just is not on the same level, especially if we’re playing in a lopsided way that again most of the players won’t find second nature.

 

I really hope he does well, and I really hope he makes me eat my words, but I just don’t think it’ll get any better. We’ll compete in most games, but come up short time and time again
 

 

[guest123]

31 minutes ago, Nolucklcfc said:

Oh I thought that from this comment “apart from the 25 minutes in the 2nd half against spurs half the players look like they've been asked to perform a weird sex act on the pitch” 

 

they do, it doesn't mean they've come out with zero anything does it ffs