Sunbury Fox

Surely even Cooper won't play Ward in a competitive game?

We need to sack Cooper ASAP before he ruins our squad value completely. This would be an utterly hideous signing, even in this summer of hideous signings.

When will this end? How are they able to keep throwing money around like this? It is just mental.

Fatawu's stats last season are a good example of that. He created 10 more big chances than any other player in the league but was only 4th on the list of players with the most assists.

Yep. Cooper is just limited. We won't progress at all under him in the PL. We'll play garbage football and continue to sign journeymen. He's a good Championship manager

He was definitely being sarcastic but Welbeck and Antonio are levels above the likes of Maupay and Ings! Really worried that Cooper will panic on deadline day and bring in someone like that.

Antonio and Welbeck are way too ambitious. Ings more likely

Rehan's bowling looks like it's gone backwards over the last couple of seasons, sadly. Arguably he's a better batsman now.

No don't we'll prat around chasing this guy for the next 4 days and then run out of time to get a deal over the line, missing out on other priorities in the process. It's the Rudkin way.

Bristol City is not a great move for him. Shame one of the promotion favourites haven't come calling.

It's not the results that worry me, it's the performances. The quality of performances has been very poor in pre-season and, apart from about 20 minutes in the second half v Spurs, in the 2 PL games so far. There are no clear patterns of play from an attacking perspective that I can see and, although we are trying to sit deep, we don't even look at all solid in defence. It's also bonkers that he's chosen a set up that doesn't fit 2 of our best players last season.

Cooper has needlessly changed a system that the players knew well and was largely successful last season. As a result, Ricardo and Mavididi, 2 of the best players last season, have been ostracised, and now Faes is unhappy too. Feels like the players might not be any happier with Cooper than the majority on here.

RIP Sven. Always came across as very likeable and he certainly lived his life to the full.

Wow, these are absolutely damning statistics. Cooperball really is horrific.

Would be helpful if Everton lost DCL and Branthwaite to further weaken them. We're going to be relying on other teams being utter garbage to stay up this season.

I wish they would!

Lewis Hill having a nightmare run with the bat. Hopefully we can bat out the day nonetheless.

I think we have to start Skipp with Winks to give us 2 players who are able to control and manoeuvre the ball through PL-level presses in midfield. Without that we'll never be able to get the ball to the likes of Facundo and Abdul, which is our best/only chance of creating chances.

Agree with much of that but his/her comments about Faes and Vesty are well off. They are both very decent on the ball, certainly much better than the Fulham CBs yesterday for a start. They played some good balls into CM but the midfielders, especially Wilf, struggled to progress it further.

Before the game I was thinking that this was probably one of our best opportunities to get some away points this season, on the basis that I expect these will be lower mid-table at best and Craven Cottage is hardly intimidating for visiting teams. But let's face it, it was obvious from the off that Fulham are vastly superior all over the pitch. We're going to have to look elsewhere for an established club that might drop off and join us in the relegation scrap, to give us a chance of somehow staying up. But to be honest, Cooper's team selections and tactics are not giving us a fighting chance. For example: 1. If you're going to park the bus, at least select fast players up front, who are able to dribble and get you up the pitch, to give you a chance of hitting the opposition on the transition. To that end, Mavididi must start over Reid from now on. 2. Why is Ayew first off the bench less than 24 hours after signing - and then given priority to take a dangerous free kick? It's like Cooper regards him as some sort of superstar, FFS. God knows what Stephy must be thinking. 3. I realise that they scored just as he was about to make his second set of subs, but surely when you've just gone 2-1 down you reconsider whether it makes sense to have 3 CDMs on the field when you're now chasing a goal to save the game? 4. Why the f--- is Ricardo not only not starting but getting zero minutes? Utter madness! In terms of individuals who did okay - I thought that Mads was good again (though will be a bit disappointed by the second goal, given he got a strong hand on the shot), the CBs were solid (apart from 1 Faes brainfart when he tried a flick in his own penalty area), plus I'm surprised to read some negativity about VK. I thought he did a good job negating Traoré, who was subbed off early. And although he didn't get forward much, that was more because we kept losing the ball in midfield and so struggled to get out of our own half. Abdul was dangerous at times but the forward players were feeding off scraps. Reid was again the weakest link but I'm very worried that against Villa, Cooper will select him and Ayew on the flanks, ahead of 3 CDMs, in an attempt to be solid and have lots of PL experience on the pitch.

That would be in keeping with the rest of our window. Ipswich will then loan us George Hirst and Marcus Harness on deadline day.

That was agreed last summer. We had an obligation to buy.

My point was that this summer, apart from the loan signing of Buonanotte (and even in that case we don't even have an option to buy), we have failed with every bid for an exciting young attacking player. Golding doesn't really count as he was a PSR makeweight who is not ready for the first team squad.

Here we go again. We know the drill from this point. There will be days of excited posting on here with little obvious progress to report on the transfer, before, out of nowhere, we will get gazumped by some 3rd rate European team like Getafe, and then we'll panic and buy someone like Andros Townsend on deadline day.

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