Cooper - OUT

[SafewayFox]

Maybe I’m naive but the media thing is a stupid concern.

 

They’ll do their negative thing, sadly positive new stories don’t get the same clicks but it would quickly get forgotten about and replaced by a bigger story.

 

What seriously (but probably isn’t) scenario needs to happen is that Rudkin/Top are starting a search outside of the usual PL cloggers and testing the waters now so we could move swiftly if Cooper’s tenure doesn’t rapidly improve.

[Plastik Man]

On 25/09/2024 at 07:30, CrazyKopCorner said:

Sack him first 

 

On 25/09/2024 at 07:33, volpeazzurro said:

Yes that's fair, just shoot him if he refuses to go?

Just don't delegate the task to Daka!

[Wortho]

16 minutes ago, SafewayFox said:

Maybe I’m naive but the media thing is a stupid concern.

 

They’ll do their negative thing, sadly positive new stories don’t get the same clicks but it would quickly get forgotten about and replaced by a bigger story.

 

What seriously (but probably isn’t) scenario needs to happen is that Rudkin/Top are starting a search outside of the usual PL cloggers and testing the waters now so we could move swiftly if Cooper’s tenure doesn’t rapidly improve.

Remember when a lot of the media were telling us that Rodgers was great. And that we should be grateful to have him as manager. 

[Muzzy_no7]

Gothmog still here I take it? 

[SafewayFox]

6 minutes ago, Wortho said:

Remember when a lot of the media were telling us that Rodgers was great. And that we should be grateful to have him as manager. 

Exactly.

 

The media thing is just noise to me.

 

I don’t sadly have any faith in Top/Rudkin and we all know that Cooper will be safe well past his sale by date.

[guest123]

Well I’m glad that’s cleared up then, ****ing idiot

[orangecity23]

We are pretty consistent about not having any attacks for the first 60-70 minutes at the moment, must be pleasing for him.

[JimJams]

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.

 

[Babylon]

18 minutes ago, JimJams said:

 

You are correct, didn’t notice they’d split home and away into different columns on the one I looked at. But it was 5 teams last season and has been numerous times. Anyone making out we are somehow fortunate this season because of it are wide of the mark, because it’s happened with 5 teams plenty and basically makes little difference.

[JimJams]

It's too early for people to make judgements based on points and position alone. Ipswich for example have got results in all 3 of their games against teams outside the top 2!

So currently it's probably better to use the other 'P' to make judgement.  Performances. And they've been shit. For the most part. 

[Muzzy_no7]

3 minutes ago, JimJams said:

It's too early for people to make judgements based on points and position alone. Ipswich for example have got results in all 3 of their games against teams outside the top 2!

So currently it's probably better to use the other 'P' to make judgement.  Performances. And they've been shit. For the most part. 

We are in a false position atm, absolutely no doubt about it. 

[Micky]

7 hours 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. 

Give him time. FFS.

[Trav Le Bleu]

4 hours ago, Muzzy_no7 said:

Gothmog still here I take it? 

Going to be replaced by Morgoth.

[Muzzy_no7]

7 minutes ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

Going to be replaced by Morgoth.

Hahaha more like Shagrat 

[HankMarvin]

12 minutes ago, Muzzy_no7 said:

We are in a false position atm, absolutely no doubt about it. 

Expected points 

18th

expected goals scored 

19th

expected goals conceded 

15th 

[GingerrrFox]

11 minutes ago, Micky said:

Give him time. FFS.

To quote Orangecity23:

 

“The team looked bad in pre season

The team looked bad in competitive PL games

The team looked bad in the cup vs a League 2 team

The underlying stats are bad, and indicate results will get worse than they already are if things revert to a mean level with finishing / goalkeeping. If things had gone according to XG, we'd have lost every game.

The manager's past is riddled with bad stats that indicate he cannot correct his current long run without a win

The manager's past indicates he is very poor at winning away games in the Premier League

In game tactics are bad and not working, with noticeable problems with poor team shape and positioning, and players looking confused as to where they should be or what they should be doing

There is very little change of tactics or formation on a game by game basis to try to correct this

Team selections have been poor

Subsitutions have been dreadful, to the point of not even making sense

 

What, exactly, are we supposed to be looking to give us any hope that he is worth retaining, other than vague platitudes about "needing more time", or falsely labelling everyone wanting his gone as being solely motivated by his Forest links - what will he implement with more time? There is no evidence that a better style or cohesive team emerges from more time under his coaching, if his Forest team is any evidence.”

 

 

Edited Thursday at 17:09 by GingerrrFox

[SafewayFox]

11 minutes ago, Micky said:

Give him time. FFS.

How much time will you give him until we’re too cut adrift based on Cooper’s obvious mistakes both here and at Forest?

[lcfcbluearmy]

22 hours ago, Dahnsouff said:

Because the majority of the squad was not there for 12 games, only 5, and then not even complete until the last game.

Not excusing, but let’s not make it worse than it is.  

The majority of the squad have been here for 7 games you have to include the cup games because they are competitive 

[SecretPro]

31 minutes ago, Micky said:

Give him time. FFS.

Why do you hate this club so much? 

[Clarkey123]

7 hours ago, indierich06 said:

Ok cool, you sound nice. Good chat.

Cracking input pal. 

[Wasyls Pec Deck]

I know him wanting to put it right is framed as a reactions to fans, but part of me wonders if it’s also a message to the board regardless of if they have actually had a word with him? Either way, I think his days are numbered. 

[Iwebema]

3 minutes ago, Wasyls Pec Deck said:

I know him wanting to put it right is framed as a reactions to fans, but part of me wonders if it’s also a message to the board regardless of if they have actually had a word with him? Either way, I think his days are numbered. 

Either way, he will know his record with forest ended awfully and he's still not got a win with us heading into Arsenal away. He's on one hell of a winless streak which won't be going unnoticed by people in the game. Lose a couple more with us and he might struggle to find a way back to a decent job. 

[SafewayFox]

10 minutes ago, Wasyls Pec Deck said:

I know him wanting to put it right is framed as a reactions to fans, but part of me wonders if it’s also a message to the board regardless of if they have actually had a word with him? Either way, I think his days are numbered. 

More waffle.

 

Did he come in and not show the players how good of a coach he is previously?

 

He’s just a basic coach that has been left behind by the much more stylish brand of managers who can articulate to the players what/how he wants them to play.

 

Cooper’s a moment coach rather than a philosophical one and when throw in his cautiousness, we get the turgid footie that we’re seeing.

[bovril]

2 hours ago, JimJams said:

 

Gap between the top and bottom is huge now. In 96/97 the gap between 1st and 18th was 35 points, last season it was 65. Almost doubled. 

Edited Thursday at 19:09 by bovril

[Ric Flair]

On 25/09/2024 at 13:07, inckley fox said:

Very well put.

 

When I've looked back over page after page of this, picking out the most common criticisms, there are some that seem like big, important question marks over Cooper. The fact that things didn't really improve as time went on at Forest. The very defensive set-ups. The slowness to make changes, even when fatigue is visibly an issue, in games.

 

Then there are the questions which may or may not have sensible answers. The exclusion of Ricardo and Vestergard, where you can look at how they got on for us when they were last playing at this level for us. The unspectacular results which, nonetheless, aren't disastrous for a team in our position at such an early point. The rumours of unrest from dodgy sources.

 

But then you get the pure vitriol. He's ugly. He's ex-Forest (as if that's never worked out well for us before). He's changed all of Enzo's great work (which wasn't looking too promising in the second half of last season). He doesn't deserve another chance at PL level.

 

It's the prevalence of the latter which makes me wonder whether the fans are going to contribute to such a negative atmosphere around the manager, who's already in a very tough job, that success becomes even more difficult. I wonder whether it's a Leicester tendency to turn prematurely on some managers (Milne, O'Neill, Pearson). Or maybe it's that their expectations aren't realistic regarding where we are now. Alternatively, are some people putting too much stock in what worked for us at a lower level? I go through all of these things in my head and increasingly come to the conclusion that a significant number of people simply don't like him, and decided that that was how it was going to be from the outset. I mean, I felt that way from start to finish about Brendan Rodgers, but understood quite quickly that he was doing fine and, not being any sort of expert, I should bite my tongue. But on this occasion, there hasn't been (and there's unlikely to be) anything which dramatically lifts everyone, and their negativity.

Whilst you raise some fair points, I'd just like to pick up on our fans being too quick to judge managers. You've quoted 3 managers, all many years ago. Pearson was immense right from the off so I presume you mean the struggles from his 2nd stint in his 1st full season back where we blew automatic promotion and then the 1st season back in the Prem? I don't think that's got anything to do with accepting a manager to start with. You're always going to get growing questioning when things go badly wrong for large periods.

 

O'Neill was a curious one. He started OK here, then it got very very iffy and because of the frustrations of falling short in previous years and the unravelling of the early promise from McGhee it wasn't a great environment was it and as fans we have to accept we got that wrong.

 

Can't comment on Milne I was about 3 but if that's the long and short of where we may have got it wrong it's really not thst hideous.

 

As an aside, almost every manager we've had that's done anything this century has started well here. Pearson did when he got us back to the Championship and took us within a shot of back to back promotions. Ranieri completed football with us inside a season and Rodgers had us averaging the points total that gets you top 6 immediately and that carried on for 2.5 years and we won the FA Cup for the 1st time.

 

The only manager who's started abysmally here was Sousa and he was bounced out very quickly. Cooper's not quite reached that poor a start but it could unravel quite quickly. Shakespeare did extremely well in his caretaker role but I liken his time in 2017/18 when appointed permanently a bit to what we're seeing under Cooper and Vichai acted quickly there and he was gone by mid October when he was someone who had plenty of goodwill in the bank and who saved us from what looked like relegation the year before.

 

Puel started immensely until about January, think he holds the best points total for a new manager over the first 8-10 games than any other Leicester manager in the PL including Ranieri, although I need to verify that.

 

Dean Smith probably registers as not doing much, but he averaged enough points in his games that over the season would have kept us up, if only we'd have had him in before the Bournemouth and Villa home games let alone earlier eh?