Sunbury Fox

Fair enough but even at the start of the game our fans just didn’t seem up for it on the whole. Where we sit in SK4, the only thing that seems to elicit any kind of passion or reaction from fans is a bad refereeing performance. Agree with others that our song book is really thin at the moment. We don’t even have a chant for most of the first XI, for example. All that said, we can be decent away, like at Southampton last week, but at home matches the lack of atmosphere is a major issue, even when we’re winning and playing well.

For a derby, on a Friday night after 2 consecutive wins, the atmosphere was nothing short of appalling from our fans last night. Just never got going at all. Fair play to that lot, their end was very good, reflecting that they are enjoying their best top flight form for over 30 years.

AEK, Grasshoppers, Köln and Malmo would be seen as an easy run in even the Conference League!

Aside from leaving us vulnerable defensively, I don’t see how Cooper’s lopsided formation helps in attack. Would you rather have Fatawu providing the width on the right or James Justin? And does having two No 10s standing on each other’s toes really benefit us in stretching the play? The lack of width on the right also allows opponents to double up on Mav on the LW, making it harder for him to have an impact. The whole system doesn’t work or get the most out of our best players.

Not watching the game but according to the stats Atalanta have missed 7 (seven!!) big chances!!

Don’t think many despise him as such. Rather, they’re just confused, rightly in my view, by his team selections and preferred tactical set up. I think many of us would be more behind him if he dropped this daft lopsided formation, which leaves us vulnerable defensively and stunted in attack, and switched to a basic 4231, with Ricky at RB, Fats and Mav on the wings, and Facundo in the 10. It’s not rocket science.

Yeah, he had to be sacrificed to save us from further punishment by the EPL. Sad really as that move to Chelsea was definitely not the right one for his career. He needs to escape from there ASAP.

This 1000%. It’s so obvious it’s painful.

I’m not sure most of Cooper’s critics are saying we should be going gung ho, but they are concerned, quite reasonably in my view, about the following issues: The ridiculous lop-sided formation that often leaves us with no RB when defending, no RW when attacking and two players falling over each other in the 10. Team selections that leave out 2 of our most effective players from last season in favour of inferior players. His generally appalling in-game management eg at Palace, Bournemouth (H) second half and Everton at home when he was the only person in the stadium who couldn’t see that we needed Fatawu to come on to attack the geriatric Ashley Young. I suspect we’d have seen similar results to yesterday if he had.

What a performance from the lad today. Was brilliant throughout. We need to get a chant for him.

Think that’s a bit harsh. He was good against Spurs in the second half (got an assist) and did alright at Fulham. His one bad game was against Villa, after which he was dropped and until today given hardly any minutes to show what he could do.

Stop playing this sh1t lopsided formation with no RW and a RB left out of position constantly, FFS. Just play 4231 with Mav and Fats on the wings and Facundo in the 10. It's not rocket science.

We have enough weapons on the transition, the issue is our esteemed manager won't play them and we will have to suffer another 90 minutes of Ayew hobbling around and occasionally falling over.

Sadly, it would be a huge surprise if Cooper doesn’t start him, assuming he’s fit.

Of those options, 'determination' would be the one for me. The players have stuck at it even when being totally outplayed, with the comeback to get a point against Spurs and somehow almost getting a point at Arsenal from 2 down being the prime examples.

Jord made some good points that made me think (briefly) that maybe I should back Cooper more than I do. But then Ric sledgehammered home the multiple reasons why the bloke is an absolute liability, so I'm now firmly back in the 'Cooper Out' camp!

Aside from any stats demonstrating it or not, we can see with our own eyes that we're being outplayed for large periods of pretty much every game and conceding far more good chances than we're creating; I assume you're not disputing that? This being the case, if the same happens over a full season it is reasonable to expect us to lose a lot more games than we win and therefore the question is, will we be able to pinch results against the odds in enough games to secure the points we need to stay up? Doing that is probably going to rely on having a great keeper who saves a lot more big chances than the average keeper (tick) and a top striker who finishes a very high proportion of the few chances created (far less of a tick now that Vardy is well past his best).

Could be Mads. Speaks very good English, seems like a nice chap and his comments after the Arsenal game were very interesting. Unlike JJ, who ludicrously talked of how we had gone "toe to toe" with Arsenal, Mads focused on the fact that he should not be facing over 35 shots in any game............

If that happened we'd have Reid starting which is even worse!

All of Enzo's most trusted outfield lieutentants have now been ostracised - Ricky P, Vesty and Winks. You have to think these are players who have expressed concerns about Cooper's approach and paid the price by losing their place.

I like him. Think he's going to be a really good player for us. Can look awkward on the ball at times (he's certainly no Vesty), but he also fizzes in some decent passes through the lines.

You can agree that the results have been about par but the performances have been honking in the main. Eventually our luck will run out, playing this way; it's simply not sustainable. As for Maresca, he would have adapted our tactics in the PL, like he did in smashing Southampton twice last season. So, I don't agree we'd have fewer points under him.

Odd that our Director of Football thought it would be a good idea to appoint a manager whose preferred system would mean leaving out one of our best attacking players. Assuming he even realised that, of course.

Deleted as I replied to the wrong message.

Same. Going to be chaos at the turnstiles tomorrow if this isn't sorted.