Cooper - OUT

[coolhandfox]

8 hours ago, Bilo said:

I don't think his being ex-Forest is necessarily the problem given our greatest ever captain was too. If we'd had the start that, ironically, Forest have had and were playing decent stuff, I guarantee nobody would care.

 

The problem is that it's another stick to beat him with when it's not going well. The results are horrible, the performances are dire and the players clearly don't look happy. 

It doesn't help, for some people it's not a issue but for a section of the fan base it mean they weren't having him from the start.

 

It just additional baggage we didn't need, another disadvantaged in a season were we need all the help we can get.

 

If he had a great record in the PL I could understand it the club taking the risk.

 

More evidence of a lack of strategic thinking by the club.

[Bilo]

56 minutes ago, coolhandfox said:

It doesn't help, for some people it's not a issue but for a section of the fan base it mean they weren't having him from the start.

 

It just additional baggage we didn't need, another disadvantaged in a season were we need all the help we can get.

 

If he had a great record in the PL I could understand it the club taking the risk.

 

More evidence of a lack of strategic thinking by the club.

I agree there. The notion of 'not only is he shit, but he's ex-Forest' isn't helpful.

 

I do feel as though the former is more important than the latter, mind. For example, if we'd been madly ambitious in the transfer market and signed Morgan Gibbs-White, I suspect he'd be lauded as a coup. 

 

For me, the job is still just about attractive. We have a decent squad, world class training facilities and a transfer budget to develop it, no points deduction coming and are not yet in the bottom three, let alone cut adrift. The problem is that some of those will no longer apply by December if Cooper stays.

Edited Thursday at 06:58 by Bilo

[The Doctor]

2 hours ago, Bilo said:

I agree there. The notion of 'not only is he shit, but he's ex-Forest' isn't helpful.

 

I do feel as though the former is more important than the latter, mind. For example, if we'd been madly ambitious in the transfer market and signed Morgan Gibbs-White, I suspect he'd be lauded as a coup. 

 

For me, the job is still just about attractive. We have a decent squad, world class training facilities and a transfer budget to develop it, no points deduction coming and are not yet in the bottom three, let alone cut adrift. The problem is that some of those will no longer apply by December if Cooper stays.

come February when they get rid out of desperation it'll only be the training facilities and no points deduction left, because you know full well he'll sell good players like Ricardo and Mavididi to bring in more "premier league experience". Expect Serge Aurier and a club record move for Dwight McNeil come January 

[guest123]

13 hours ago, inckley fox said:

So training games count? In that case we should have fired O'Neill after every pre-season. And given Taylor and Levein eight year contracts.

They count towards him getting the message to the players and working out who is best players are, which he hasn’t done because he’s a clueless clown

[The Doctor]

 

for those defending him on the basis we're not currently in the relegation zone... what happens when the fixture difficulty difference starts to equalize and Wolves/Ipswich pull away from us? do we then cling on to Everton, Southampton and Palace continuing to be shit?

 

 

[john ridley]

This "well we're not in the bottom 3" excuse  is the same as those who say the same about when we've  got games in hand .Once the games in hand have gone ,we're  fvcked  and it'll  be the same  with the not in the bottom 3 bollocks .We are going to be in the bottom3 very soon ,maybe this weekend .Cooper ,as been pointed out on here many times is out of his depth but I guess Top ,Rudkin etc will do fvck all till it's too late .Get relegated  ,have an internal  review  and plod on regardless rinse and repeat. 

[Jobyfox]

The theory that we should “give him time” isn’t, in itself, a bad position to take. We appointed the manager after a period of due diligence. It’s only right that you should then back that decision over a reasonable period of time. 
 

The problem is that this appointment looked a bizarre one from the outset. There was no continuity of strategy from what we’d rebuilt under Maresca. I think fans would have been more forgiving if they could understand the sense of direction. 
 

Sacking him asap looks the correct decision because we should never really have appointed him in the first place. I don’t think that he’ll be sacked in the immediate short term, however, as to do so would be to admit that the process of his recruitment is just the latest embarrassing chapter of our decline 

Edited Thursday at 09:41 by Jobyfox

[GingerrrFox]

Someone mentioned it previously but the parallels between how Ranieri and Cooper ended up managing our club are very similar. A new leader coming into the club after a period of success. So we as fans have already seen this kind of situation play out before and we’ve seen how a new manager coming in and making subtle tweaks can build on the previous man’s foundations. That being said Cooper set himself up to fail from the outset for me.
 

Despite saying he wanted to build off last season, what we are seeing has no resemblance to how the team performed under Enzo. Enzo was meticulous in planning, he made sure that every player knew their role within the 11 man team if they were selected for a game and the team functioned as a cohesive unit pretty much from the start. I remember watching the first half hour of football against Liverpool in pre-season and thinking “this is impressive to have a new group of players performing like this so early on”.
 

The players were almost robotic in that they knew exactly where the ball should go when faced with different scenarios on the pitch and the patterns of play were rhythmic at best. Cooper has come in and taken that structure away, you can see it in the training videos, Enzo and his coaching staff would use the same training drills and repetition was key, Enzo essentially acted like a conductor for an orchestra, making sure players were all on the same page. Cooper and his staff have taken the opposite approach and are trying to get the players to be expressive and work out solutions themselves and the players clearly aren’t reacting to this, this is why we look so lost in games, you can’t go from an environment of heavily structured play to completely removing the structure, it has to be a process. 
 

He’s alienated the two vital cogs in the Enzo machine, Vestergaard and Ricardo and he’s made the roles they played null and void in his new setup. He’s also not getting the best out of Harry Winks, this new system we are playing does not play to his strengths and going back to a double pivot in midfield instead of a full back inverting will not work unless he plays a midfielder alongside Winks that can receive the ball under pressure, turn and get us up the field. Both Fulham and Everton focused solely on marking Winks out of the game and leaving Ndidi free in deep areas of the pitch because they knew we couldn’t play fluidly through the 3rds of the pitch when building from the back with Ndidi.  
 

Not to mention throughout the summer, Cooper would make it clear that he felt the team wasn’t good enough in attacking areas and needed reinforcements, it’s not a great message to a group of players that you’ve worked with for a matter of weeks and then imagine being a player from the squad last season and look at who your new leader has brought in;

 

BDCR - no better than what we already have and now preventing the development pathway of the likes of Alves, McAteer and Golding.

 

Ayew - no better than Mavididi, Fatawu, Vardy, Daka and albeit a better player than BDCR, does he really improve us at this stage of his career?

 

Buonanotte - clearly a good player and does improve us but won’t be here after this season

 

Bilal - jury’s out but based on his performance on Saturday he’s gonna need time and nurturing to get up to speed

 

Edouard - no better than Vardy or Daka and we spent the bulk of our transfer money on Skipp and Okoli in positions that we can’t say are of a real need in comparison to us screaming out for a proper striker who can start to take the mantle from the legend that is Jamie Vardy. 
 

He’s ****ed it because he’s not at the level of the previous manager and he’s thrown away pretty much everything Enzo built upon last season, despite what he may claim in the media. 

[mod hero]

Has he got a presser today?

[jim5000]

26 minutes ago, Jobyfox said:

The theory that we should “give him time” isn’t, in itself, a bad position to take. We appointed the manager after a period of due diligence. It’s only right that you should then back that decision over a reasonable period of time. 
 

The problem is that this appointment looked a bizarre one from the outset. There was no continuity of strategy from what we’d rebuilt under Maresca. I think fans would have been more forgiving if they could understand the sense of direction. 
 

Sacking him asap looks the correct decision because we should never really have appointed him in the first place. I don’t think that he’ll be sacked in the immediate short term, however, as to do so would be to admit that the process of his recruitment is just the latest embarrassing chapter of our decline 

It’s clear we only got Cooper in because

 

A) He was cheap 

B) Nobody else wanted the job

 

I doubt very much that there was much football planning in the decision other than he has Premier League experience.

[moseeds]

22 minutes ago, GingerrrFox said:

Someone mentioned it previously but the parallels between how Ranieri and Cooper ended up managing our club are very similar. A new leader coming into the club after a period of success. So we as fans have already seen this kind of situation play out before and we’ve seen how a new manager coming in and making subtle tweaks can build on the previous man’s foundations. That being said Cooper set himself up to fail from the outset for me.
 

Despite saying he wanted to build off last season, what we are seeing has no resemblance to how the team performed under Enzo. Enzo was meticulous in planning, he made sure that every player knew their role within the 11 man team if they were selected for a game and the team functioned as a cohesive unit pretty much from the start. I remember watching the first half hour of football against Liverpool in pre-season and thinking “this is impressive to have a new group of players performing like this so early on”.
 

The players were almost robotic in that they knew exactly where the ball should go when faced with different scenarios on the pitch and the patterns of play were rhythmic at best. Cooper has come in and taken that structure away, you can see it in the training videos, Enzo and his coaching staff would use the same training drills and repetition was key, Enzo essentially acted like a conductor for an orchestra, making sure players were all on the same page. Cooper and his staff have taken the opposite approach and are trying to get the players to be expressive and work out solutions themselves and the players clearly aren’t reacting to this, this is why we look so lost in games, you can’t go from an environment of heavily structured play to completely removing the structure, it has to be a process. 
 

He’s alienated the two vital cogs in the Enzo machine, Vestergaard and Ricardo and he’s made the roles they played null and void in his new setup. He’s also not getting the best out of Harry Winks, this new system we are playing does not play to his strengths and going back to a double pivot in midfield instead of a full back inverting will not work unless he plays a midfielder alongside Winks that can receive the ball under pressure, turn and get us up the field. Both Fulham and Everton focused solely on marking Winks out of the game and leaving Ndidi free in deep areas of the pitch because they knew we couldn’t play fluidly through the 3rds of the pitch when building from the back with Ndidi.  
 

Not to mention throughout the summer, Cooper would make it clear that he felt the team wasn’t good enough in attacking areas and needed reinforcements, it’s not a great message to a group of players that you’ve worked with for a matter of weeks and then imagine being a player from the squad last season and look at who your new leader has brought in;

 

BDCR - no better than what we already have and now preventing the development pathway of the likes of Alves, McAteer and Golding.

 

Ayew - no better than Mavididi, Fatawu, Vardy, Daka and albeit a better player than BDCR, does he really improve us at this stage of his career?

 

Buonanotte - clearly a good player and does improve us but won’t be here after this season

 

Bilal - jury’s out but based on his performance on Saturday he’s gonna need time and nurturing to get up to speed

 

Edouard - no better than Vardy or Daka and we spent the bulk of our transfer money on Skipp and Okoli in positions that we can’t say are of a real need in comparison to us screaming out for a proper striker who can start to take the mantle from the legend that is Jamie Vardy. 
 

He’s ****ed it because he’s not at the level of the previous manager and he’s thrown away pretty much everything Enzo built upon last season, despite what he may claim in the media. 

Great post sums up the predicament city are in at the moment.

 

I would argue that the robotic-enzo-cccp-style isn't the only way to play football. Ancelotti and even Ranieri showed they may be old school but building team spirit is a great way of allowing players to express themselves within a general strategy. That general strategy is either WIP or totally absent with Cooper.

 

So much of the current malaise is a result of Cooper's body language and demeanour. It doesn't project confidence at all. Combined with the lack of strategy the holes in the current setup are amplified to the point some fans want him out in a matter of minutes.

 

I'm not convinced he's cut out to be a top-level manager. And it seems neither are the players.

[Bourbon Fox]

27 minutes ago, Jobyfox said:

The theory that we should “give him time” isn’t, in itself, a bad position to take. We appointed the manager after a period of due diligence. It’s only right that you should then back that decision over a reasonable period of time. 
 

The problem is that this appointment looked a bizarre one from the outset. There was no continuity of strategy from what we’d rebuilt under Maresca. I think fans would have been more forgiving if they could understand the sense of direction. 
 

Sacking him asap looks the correct decision because we should never really have appointed him in the first place. I don’t think that he’ll be sacked in the immediate short term, however, as to do so would be to admit that the process of his recruitment is just the latest embarrassing chapter of our decline 

Sadly I think the most part of the due diligence was asking the question, 'will he come here?'

[Kp1984]

The fans that called in on talk sport all happy with cooper I’m not sure what there watching 

[trooky]

I wonder if we actually have the budget in our PSR accounts to sack him?

[deep blue]

3 minutes ago, Kp1984 said:

The fans that called in on talk sport all happy with cooper I’m not sure what there watching 

It's hard to understand.  You only have to look back to our relegation season to remember that, although there were many on this forum who saw the way things were going early in the season, Rodgers appeared to command loyalty and acceptance from the majority in the stands (and the board) right to the end.  

[GingerrrFox]

12 minutes ago, moseeds said:

Great post sums up the predicament city are in at the moment.

 

I would argue that the robotic-enzo-cccp-style isn't the only way to play football. Ancelotti and even Ranieri showed they may be old school but building team spirit is a great way of allowing players to express themselves within a general strategy. That general strategy is either WIP or totally absent with Cooper.

 

So much of the current malaise is a result of Cooper's body language and demeanour. It doesn't project confidence at all. Combined with the lack of strategy the holes in the current setup are amplified to the point some fans want him out in a matter of minutes.

 

I'm not convinced he's cut out to be a top-level manager. And it seems neither are the players.

I do agree that the modern positional based approach isn’t what purists love about the game and it definitely isn’t the only approach to the game, I think the biggest issue is that you can’t go from a structured, methodical approach and then turn that off and completely change the way you are asking the players to see the game. You have to take small steps to go from one extreme to the other and Cooper hasn’t done that. You are right that confidence is a huge part of football that often gets overlooked and for me from day one Cooper hasn’t given that air of confidence that he can build on from last season and doesn’t give the players an authoritative leader to get behind. 

[indierich06]

17 hours ago, Clarkey123 said:

I don’t. He inherited a decent squad with a clear playing style, like Ranieri all he had to do was continue in the same pattern - the players already knew the style implemented. Instead he drew from his ego and ripped up the entire script, shafted some of our best players and now we look a mess.
 

His job wasn’t that difficult and made 5x easier by getting off on PSL. We’re  supposed to be buzzing but we look disjointed. 

Ok cool, you sound nice. Good chat.

[sporter113]

Even though sacking him would be a case of 'a stitch in time saves nine' for us, and could be the difference between avoiding relegation or not, it might prevent us finding a good replacement.

 

A manager on the outside is not going to have watched many/any of our games, and see a club who have sacked their manager:

- After only 5 league games

- Outside of the relegation zone when we're expected to be relegated

And think, 'I'm not touching that job with a 10 foot barge pole.'
 

Even though it's probably the right decision, the way the club is perceived from the outside can be important, especially in terms of recruitment. It is a case of 'damned if you do, damned if you don't', in terms of sacking right now.

 

Really he was the wrong appointment to begin with, and we're screwed now 😂

[SafewayFox]

On 25/09/2024 at 12:34, Babylon said:

1) 6 teams didn't have a win at this stage last season from what I can see, we'd be in exactly the same position last season. Out of the bottom three the season before and 16th the season before that (6 teams without a win again), and 16 th the year before that.   I'm failing to see what's so drastically different.

 

2) Subjective of course, and it's not been great by any stretch. But it is just 5 games. 

 

3) Who would you drop instead of Skipp? Presuming you don't want the 3 DM's people have constantly moaned about? Ndidi got two assists against Palace, and I don't really see Skipp as another Winks, personally. 

The media are definitely making a thing of the amount of clubs not picking up all 3 points yet but interesting to see about the past couple of seasons.

 

I typed out a long reply re:5 or 15 games seems irrelevant when there is zero evidence but realise I sound like a broken record.

 

As for Skipp, now the “how much??” noise has died down, I confidently believe he’s our most rounded CM.

 

There is zero history to suggest that dropping Ndidi to play in a double pivot with a playing out from the back ethos that he’ll do a good job and it was evident that we looked worse without Skipp IMO.

 

 

Edited Thursday at 12:24 by SafewayFox

[Sol thewall Bamba]

29 minutes ago, Kp1984 said:

The fans that called in on talk sport all happy with cooper I’m not sure what there watching 

Was it Graham Brock?

[CosbehFox]

20 minutes ago, SafewayFox said:

The media are definitely making a thing of the amount of clubs not picking up a victory but interesting to see about the past couple of seasons.

 

I typed out a long reply re:5 or 15 games seems irrelevant when there is zero evidence but realise I sound like a broken record.

 

As for Skipp, now the “how much??” noise has died down, I confidently believe he’s our most rounded CM.

 

There is zero history to suggest that dropping Ndidi to play in a double pivot with a playing out from the back ethos that he’ll do a good job and it was evident that we looked worse without Skipp IMO.

 

 

Last season at this stage it was 4 teams rather 5 hadn't won/  

 

Tellingly if we lose on Saturday and compare that to Matchday 6 23/24, we'd be in the bottom three (3 winless teams & ignoring the Ev's points deduction last season) 

[Gamble92]

As much as I do want us to stick with Cooper, I find it incredibly patronising to have pundits base opinions on us as a fanbase from their extremely limited knowledge of the situation.

 

Simon Jordan, to be fair to him, was probably the only person outside our club that I seen speak well about Rodgers and judge the situation exactly from our view that he should take way more accountability. But even then, Simon Jordan is only doing his usual stance of criticising the manager because of his Chairman background. As intelligent as he is, he's extremely biased towards owners when any scenario about managers and players is discussed. 

 

On this, I am a fan of Cooper but couldn't give a shit what people like Jim White want to say. It's their kind of uniformed nonsense that enabled Rodgers to stay in a job as long as he did. 

Edited Thursday at 11:13 by Gamble92

[Viva]

1 hour ago, The Doctor said:

 

for those defending him on the basis we're not currently in the relegation zone... what happens when the fixture difficulty difference starts to equalize and Wolves/Ipswich pull away from us? do we then cling on to Everton, Southampton and Palace continuing to be shit?

 

 

A bit of a simplistic way of looking at it. Ipswich lost to Liverpool and Man City, but I'd also expect them to lose both matches against Spurs and Villa who would be classed as easier. Ipswich, Southampton, us and Everton will probably be fighting it out for the 17th spot. That is the reality of newly promoted teams. 

[Tommy G]

48 minutes ago, SafewayFox said:

The media are definitely making a thing of the amount of clubs not picking up a victory but interesting to see about the past couple of seasons.

 

I typed out a long reply re:5 or 15 games seems irrelevant when there is zero evidence but realise I sound like a broken record.

 

As for Skipp, now the “how much??” noise has died down, I confidently believe he’s our most rounded CM.

 

There is zero history to suggest that dropping Ndidi to play in a double pivot with a playing out from the back ethos that he’ll do a good job and it was evident that we looked worse without Skipp IMO.

 

 

I agree, impressed with Skipp

[RoboFox]

37 minutes ago, Sol thewall Bamba said:

Was it Graham Brock?

Is that the bloke that seems to want to get his voice on the Radio Leicester podcast every week and popped up the other day saying "so far so good" and basically calling the fans moaners?