3 games in, 1 point, overall assessment …

[Dr The Singh]

8 minutes ago, Walshy5 said:

2 attacking midfielders on the bench, no Ricardo or Mavididi. Copper hasn't got a clue!

Feck the police

[adejo92]

I am liking Cooper, although failure to iron out some of his poor decisions may change that over the course of the next few games.

 

I like that every player is putting in 110%, challenging every 50/50 and play as though they genuinely care. It's something that i was very admirable of with his Forest team the season they survived and we went down without absolutely any fight.

 

I think if he continues doing what he's doing, but with some tactical tweaks, he'll do alright. He's clearly very passionate and players feed off of that.

 

Personally, i'd bring Ricardo & Mav in and then Buonanotte for Ndidi. The negative team selection cost us a point yesterday. I think if the changes were made even at half time, by which point it was obvious Villa were beatable, we'd have come away with something.

 

I actually think Ayew had a very good game, and he certainly has a part to play, but I think Mav has earned himself a start.   

Edited 1 September by adejo92

[Dahnsouff]

20 minutes ago, Walshy5 said:

2 attacking midfielders on the bench, no Ricardo or Mavididi. Copper hasn't got a clue!

Defund the Cooper.

[Happy Fox]

Work rate is the bare minimum any new manager should instill, and players putting in effort.

 

With Cooper he’s tactically out of his depth at this level, the fact he managed to keep up Forest at our expense was more to do with us failing majorly, we had far better players than Forest.

 

The board are too blame , if they had any ounce of ambition they would have hired Potter.

Edited 1 September by Happy Fox

[Danno]

I’m giving him until November. It’s clear he still doesn’t know his best team. 
 

I think eventually it may be this. 
 

Hermansen 

Ricardo Vestergaard Okoli Kristiansen 

Winks Skipp

Buonanote Al-Khanouss Mavididi 

Edouard 

 

 

Fatawu just seems to give it away constantly and with Ndidi we just can’t build up properly. With Vardy’s lack of explosiveness these days we don’t seem to be able to stretch the opposition and can’t seem to get up the pitch. 

[StriderHiryu]

1 hour ago, Paninistickers said:

Agree. Thought we were front foot and pressing high. We started well. It's a myth that Skipp, winks, Wilf means defense. It means solidity. That's different 

Like minds! I'm working on my analysis video / post from yesterday's game. I have a section called "Soliditity versus creativity"

 

 

^Here's an example of why Cooper started the 3 you mentioned, as well as Ayew. In the previous two games we had less possession and sturggled to get going against the opposition. Yesterday was the first time we had more possesion and were able to start building. One big reason is because snapped into tackles and wanted to win the second contacts and 50/50s.

 

The downside is that though we achieved this, the stats show that we didn't do enough with the ball in terms of generating quality chances. This was rectified when Cooper brought on the 3 subs, with El Khanouss already scheming and starting to pull the strings. I imagine that his thinking was that with BEK only having joined on Thursday, he needed to give the side a platform to win territory and possession and then start asking questions.

 

 

^ After this sequence, Emery subbed his right back because he could see it was a huge issue for Villa.  
 

What happened yesterday is that when we made mistakes, we were punished heavily, something we know happens in the Premier League. And in fact if it were not for Mads, Villa could have punished us even worse, despite IMO not being great themselves.

 

I think we now have a squad with the pieces to be competitive and give us a chance, but with Palace and Everton next, we must start taking big points. Everton already feels like a must-win.

 

 

Edited 1 September by StriderHiryu

[Ric Flair]

I'm struggling with Steve Cooper massively.

 

On one hand I'm enjoying certain elements of our football, but it seems to only come when games turn in to chaos and we revel in it. I don't mind that to a degree but we can't be only playing when we've gone 1 or more goals behind as it leaves us too much to do.

 

The team selections are appalling. His usage of Mavididi surely has to change after his recent contributions. His stance with Ricardo is just madness and seldom does a manager come out well when he marginalises his best player. This single decision makes me question everything but there's plenty else to critique him on too and ponder if he's the right fit for us.

 

I think we've put together a half decent squad for PL survival. El Khannouss and Edouard are two key players we were missing but will he put the right starting XI together regularly enough to take 40-45 points from 35 games? 

 

We've not yet been slapped silly by a team, which I think we feared vs Spurs and possibly yesterday. It could have gone that way in the 1st half of all 3 of the league games but it didn't and we actually played very well 2nd half vs Spurs and Villa. Fulham was probably the worst we've played and that was a theme of Cooper's Forest side that away from home he was completely unable to tease out enough performances or results. Let's hope that's not the case here.

 

We cannot be deploying a midfield trio of Winks, Skipp and Ndidi. It doesn't even make us defensively sound either, just ill suited to creating much going forward and then leaving ourselves too much to do when we build momentum later on in games.

 

Cooper needs to regroup during this international break. Be braver and see if he can build something here. If he doesn't then I hope the club acts quickly in the next month or two before it's too late and we go the way many seem to be ready to accept this season.

[Stormfox]

1 hour ago, Happy Fox said:

Work rate is the bare minimum any new manager should instill, and players putting in effort.

 

With Cooper he’s tactically out of his depth at this level, the fact he managed to keep up Forest at our expense was more to do with us failing majorly, we had far better players than Forest.

 

The board are too blame , if they had any ounce of ambition they would have hired Potter.

Potter showed some doubt whereas Cooper showed commitment (desperation). Not saying Cooper is the right choice or defending the board. 

[Les-TA-Jon]

Spurs and Villa finished 5th and 4th last season. Haven’t Villa been one of the best teams other than Man City since Unai Emery came in? 
 

Did anyone really expect more at this stage? With the window only just closed we haven’t even played a fixture with a full squad yet. 

[steveb]

4 hours ago, jonthefox said:

We played a decent villa side yesterday and i thought we were good for a draw. Hopefully we'll improve , so overall i'm quite optimistic. 

joking yes ?

we started ok, never threatened a goal and only really played for around 15 minures of the last 30, they outclassed and outplayed us all over the pitch, best we could have ever hoped for was a dream draw.

get real.

But i do see a glimmer of hope for the future and it will really depend on how well we do against the weaker sides, every game will be a six pointer and we have to 100% go for it, any more of this defend and hope bullshit and we go down.

Edited 1 September by steveb

[Kp1984]

3 games and because of copper we don’t look a threat at all until we go behind. To negative worrying more about the opposition then what his players can do 

[whoareyaaa]

3 hours ago, Danno said:

I’m giving him until November. It’s clear he still doesn’t know his best team. 
 

I think eventually it may be this. 
 

Hermansen 

Ricardo Vestergaard Okoli Kristiansen 

Winks Skipp

Buonanote Al-Khanouss Mavididi 

Edouard 

 

 

Fatawu just seems to give it away constantly and with Ndidi we just can’t build up properly. With Vardy’s lack of explosiveness these days we don’t seem to be able to stretch the opposition and can’t seem to get up the pitch. 

Best team we can play

[ClaphamFox]

3 minutes ago, whoareyaaa said:

Best team we can play

That’s a hell of a lot of confidence in Edouard given that he hasn’t played a single minute for us and was cack at Palace.

[whoareyaaa]

Just now, ClaphamFox said:

That’s a hell of a lot of confidence in Edouard given that he hasn’t played a single minute for us and was cack at Palace.

Obviously one of Vardy / Edouard

[volpeazzurro]

3 hours ago, Happy Fox said:

Work rate is the bare minimum any new manager should instill, and players putting in effort.

 

With Cooper he’s tactically out of his depth at this level, the fact he managed to keep up Forest at our expense was more to do with us failing majorly, we had far better players than Forest.

 

The board are too blame , if they had any ounce of ambition they would have hired Potter.

There's more than a fair chance Potter didn't actually want the job!

[zealot]

Jesus three games people and we are not on zero points with only a couple of goals goal-diff against those three opponents. So much better than I was expecting before start of the season. We are making progress. I mean would you switch places with Everton or Southampton or Ipswich. Happy days!!! 🎉 Somewhere between 14th to 17th place here we come...

[Guest]

Aside from the last half hour against Spurs and some brief spells in the other two I don't think we've been very good at all. It feels a bit like England at the Euros in that we play in a way that is obviously counterproductive until we're forced out of it, at which point we start to resemble an actual football team. I accept that all three opponents are objectively better than us but we start games like we're fortunate to be playing against them rather than having earned it by winning the Championship at the first attempt. I have big concerns about some of Cooper's selections - Ricardo not getting a single league minute, Mavididi benched, the Winks/Skipp/Ndidi triangle of sadness, VK being deployed as one of our primary attacking threats - and also the reactive nature of his substitutions. It is very early in the context of the season but he's been here for a couple of months now and I would have hoped at this point to have some idea of how he wants us to play, which aside from broad strokes stuff like working hard and getting it forward quickly I don't think we really do.

 

AND YET despite all that I feel a little more positive now than I did before the season because even though I think we've been largely pretty crap, we've played two teams who you would expect to be challenging for Europe again and one who are the sort of established Premier League outfit we'd like to become, and we've not been that far away from getting points out of three games despite essentially giving our opponents a head start. I don't believe we are solid enough individually or collectively to defend our way to survival, but I do believe that in Fatawu, Mavididi, Buonanotte, El Khannouss, Ayew and Vardy (I don't really rate Edouard and have been unimpressed by Reid but if they can make contributions too then great) we have players who can hurt teams if we give them more than 20-odd minutes to do so. I think we have seen enough flashes of quality to be optimistic, and I hope Cooper has likewise seen how we played against Spurs when we got over our stage fright and Villa when we brought some creativity on to conclude that he doesn't need to be so ****ing negative.

 

I don't think he's a particularly good manager at this level but I do like Cooper and hope he gets it right - fingers crossed he uses the break well.

[gurru991]

Cooper needs to strap on a set & pick a more attacking line up.  There is no way Skipp. Winks & Ndidi can start a game for us. Hopefully the International break will help him assimilate our new attacking options into the system.

[David Hankey]

22 hours ago, Nolucklcfc said:

On the whole, I think we’ve been ok. Before the season started, plenty were worried whether we’d be able to even compete. I think we’ve shown enough in the 3 games to get behind, in terms of effort, commitment etc. On cooper, it’s clear he’s never going to win some over. I don’t get not playing Mavididi, Ricardo and starting 3 defensive midfielders today. But I don’t think he’s been too horrendous either. It’ll be interesting to see how we are, once the new signings have fully bedded in and who he goes with from there. 

"On the whole I think we've been ok". What?!! 

 

Carry this on and we'll be back in the Championship before Christmas.

 

Anyone who thinks this is satisfactory hasn't a clue.

[Dan LCFC]

We're staying in games but we just don't ever feel like we're going to win any. You can see more of the same coming up too with another narrow loss at Palace before the first 'six pointer' against Everton, which we'll obviously go and draw.

 

I think he's setting us up to make us hard to play through the middle of which is completely opposite of what happened in 2022/23 where it was just laughably easy, but it's coming at the expense of nearly any attacking threat. I think the fact we've scored in every game is a bit of an anomaly because we've definitely not racked up 3 goals worth of attacking play.

 

I can't forgive starting with that midfield yesterday in anything other than games at maybe Man City and Arsenal. How many managers are going to move Ndidi that bit further forward? Cooper's successor will end up with him as a striker. It's stupid and it's definitely not "pragmatism". Pragmatism is keeping Ndidi as a destroyer where he belongs.

[jonthefox]

2 hours ago, steveb said:

joking yes ?

we started ok, never threatened a goal and only really played for around 15 minures of the last 30, they outclassed and outplayed us all over the pitch, best we could have ever hoped for was a dream draw.

get real.

But i do see a glimmer of hope for the future and it will really depend on how well we do against the weaker sides, every game will be a six pointer and we have to 100% go for it, any more of this defend and hope bullshit and we go down.

Sorry. Was it 5-0 or something yesterday?.

[katieakita]

6 hours ago, StriderHiryu said:

Like minds! I'm working on my analysis video / post from yesterday's game. I have a section called "Soliditity versus creativity"

 

 

^Here's an example of why Cooper started the 3 you mentioned, as well as Ayew. In the previous two games we had less possession and sturggled to get going against the opposition. Yesterday was the first time we had more possesion and were able to start building. One big reason is because snapped into tackles and wanted to win the second contacts and 50/50s.

 

The downside is that though we achieved this, the stats show that we didn't do enough with the ball in terms of generating quality chances. This was rectified when Cooper brought on the 3 subs, with El Khanouss already scheming and starting to pull the strings. I imagine that his thinking was that with BEK only having joined on Thursday, he needed to give the side a platform to win territory and possession and then start asking questions.

 

 

^ After this sequence, Emery subbed his right back because he could see it was a huge issue for Villa.  
 

What happened yesterday is that when we made mistakes, we were punished heavily, something we know happens in the Premier League. And in fact if it were not for Mads, Villa could have punished us even worse, despite IMO not being great themselves.

 

I think we now have a squad with the pieces to be competitive and give us a chance, but with Palace and Everton next, we must start taking big points. Everton already feels like a must-win.

 

 

The guy already had a yellow, smart move to sub as any similar challenge in the game got a yellow

[the draper]

Strangely we look better than Man United 

 

Fact 

[Nolucklcfc]

3 hours ago, David Hankey said:

"On the whole I think we've been ok". What?!! 

 

Carry this on and we'll be back in the Championship before Christmas.

 

Anyone who thinks this is satisfactory hasn't a clue.

What differences would you like to see? 

[Lesta Legend]

8 hours ago, StriderHiryu said:

Like minds! I'm working on my analysis video / post from yesterday's game. I have a section called "Soliditity versus creativity"

 

 

^Here's an example of why Cooper started the 3 you mentioned, as well as Ayew. In the previous two games we had less possession and sturggled to get going against the opposition. Yesterday was the first time we had more possesion and were able to start building. One big reason is because snapped into tackles and wanted to win the second contacts and 50/50s.

 

The downside is that though we achieved this, the stats show that we didn't do enough with the ball in terms of generating quality chances. This was rectified when Cooper brought on the 3 subs, with El Khanouss already scheming and starting to pull the strings. I imagine that his thinking was that with BEK only having joined on Thursday, he needed to give the side a platform to win territory and possession and then start asking questions.

 

 

^ After this sequence, Emery subbed his right back because he could see it was a huge issue for Villa.  
 

What happened yesterday is that when we made mistakes, we were punished heavily, something we know happens in the Premier League. And in fact if it were not for Mads, Villa could have punished us even worse, despite IMO not being great themselves.

 

I think we now have a squad with the pieces to be competitive and give us a chance, but with Palace and Everton next, we must start taking big points. Everton already feels like a must-win.

 

 

I think you can be solid with Bacundo or El Khannous instead of a 3rd DCM while providing that much needed creativity. We know Bacundo has a good work rate and tenacity and El Khannous is known for his pressing. While I actually like Ayew I think he’ll be handy later in game if winning and Mavididi should maintain a high work rate but better creative output.