ForestAreMagic

That chanting was disgraceful and the club were right to call it out and apologise. As far as I remember those responsible were banned. There have been no incidents since, to my knowledge, thankfully. Happy to engage. We have 2-3 Leicester fans on our forum and it’s interesting to hear their take on things. (Happy also to come nowhere near your forum if you prefer it to be Leicester only).

Sheffield United have a good chance of getting promoted this year and they were the worst Prem team since Derby. Whoever goes down will have a very good chance of coming back up again.

Agree with your top 5. Also agree it’s impossible for us to come above the top 4 you mention. We’re just enjoying seeing a more competitive side than we’ve had for ages, and we’d be delighted if we could finish in the top half. Hopefully we can get another couple of wins quickly to make relegation very unlikely, then let’s see where we get to.

so are these stupid summer and winter games in Australia, US etc. The clubs complaining about fixture congestion are the clubs causing fixture congestion. They should be ignored.

I think most neutral fans like Southampton, Ipswich and Wolves, but we’d all be happy to see them stranded so the rest of us can relax.

Southampton probably need to think about next season's promotion push rather than staying up. I’m not sure there’s much point in them going to all the expense of replacing the manager. As for Wolves, it must be demoralising seeing all of your best teammates get sold. I’m not sure a new manager could solve that. Maybe someone like Moyes could sort their defence out.

yeah that happened to Forest too - we’d just beaten Man Utd and Newcastle, then the news came in we were being charged and we hardly won another match. I can’t believe City will get the same treatment as us hillbillies from the East Midlands though. They’ll get a bit of criticism of their admin from 10 years ago, with a recognition that things have improved since then. At a push, maybe a small fine and suspended points deduction. As they’re, by their standards, struggling, they’ll probably manage to get their minuscule punishment pushed through this season, when it’s less likely to damage a serious title push.

Man City away and Man United away for us this week 😬

love him, but I’d agree he’d have taken us down and it was looking like he’d have taken you down, with Wolves and Palace improving

We care because you’ll probably get a better manager now, and we want to keep as clear of all the teams below us as possible.

O Neil and Lopetegui look in big trouble. Ange could be soon as well.

From a distance, Cooper looks like he’s improved in a couple of areas since he managed us. You’re better away than we were, you’re not getting regular thrashings and you seem to have a knack of scoring some late goals.

They were abysmal today. No organisation, totally undisciplined.

Some good points in there. Cooper did a fantastic job to keep us up, and you’re right - as a support base we thought he’d earned the right to get relegated with us, if it came to that. On your point about us coming above you, it’s very clear what made the difference. Forest and Everton had excellent goalkeepers, Leeds and Leicester had terrible ones.

I saw us play at Filbert Street 3 times in the 90s and it was one of the most intimating grounds in the country - it was off the scale hostile next to the Kop. TBF I thought your fans were pretty good in the 4-0 2 years ago, but not hostile like Filbert Street. I couldn’t get tickets this time but mates who went did say the Forest end was one of our better ones recently - loads of blokes on the lash at a local rival made it feel like the old days

If the Plastic 6 want to go and play Valencia and PSG every week, let them. There are some great clubs in the Champo who would happily take their place, making the PL more entertaining and improving stadium atmosphere. Sunderland, Boro, Leeds, Sheff Weds, the 🐑 would all be far more interesting opponents than the theatre goers of London and Manchester.

I agree with you all that this ‘we’re not rivals’ is silly. We have several songs about hating both Leicester and Derby. We sing ‘Leicester reject’ at players like Maguire, Madison and Barnes etc. ‘Hates’ a bit strong for me as I’m middle aged and don’t live in the area anymore. Don’t agree with this idea our fans our generally arrogant. Most of us are negative, fatalistic and constantly waiting for the next disaster. I think the Leicester rivalry has lost its oomph a bit since the 90s as we haven’t played you as much as we have Derby. I hope we can both stay in the division for a few years, with us ahead of you 😀. That’ll liven things up again. There’s a couple of Leicester fans who post on LTLF - it’s good to hear the Leicester take on things.

If Gibbs White is out for a few weeks/months, Leicester will be favourites

Overall, second biggest/closest after Derby. But South of Trent Bridge and in North Leics (where we have quite good support) it’s more about Leicester. One of our songs is usefully chronological: “We hate Derby County, we hate Leicester too, we hated Sheffield United but Forest we love you” If we both stay in the Prem for a few years (assuming no Derby there) I can see Leicester becoming the bigger rival again.

yeah I don’t think any of us think we’re close to those 2 😂. We’re poor at home for a start

Cooper seems to have learned since his first 3 months in the Prem with us - the wuppings have stopped. It’ll be interesting to see how he does away from home with you - seems like you’ve been competitive so far

You won’t care what us Trees think, but I think I and many others will be right. I’ve always thought you’ll stay up with Cooper, beat some big teams at home in the process (and probably us too) but you’ll rarely be thrilled by the football TBF my numerous leicester mates are generally more positive about him than I read online. They just want to stay up.

Putting all of this detailed analysis aside, sometimes a manager just doesn’t fit culturally, and the fans aren’t having him. We had it with Steve McLaren. He was just seen, rightly or wrongly, as a ridiculous Derby fan. We weren’t having him. He was basically booed from the moment he arrived and he lasted about 100 days. I’m sure we rationalised it with guff about substitutions and playing style, but it was simpler than that - the fans didn’t want him because they just didn’t want him.

Largely agree with you on the youth point. He obviously played Gibbs-White and Johnson once we got promoted, but they were outstanding. Beyond that he went for a mixture of Champo and top division experience. When we got to midseason it was all about signing serious experience like Navas, Wood and Felipe. He did a good job for us in season 1 in the PL as he had to build a team 95% from scratch. How he did in season 2 will always be up for debate amongst our fanbase. I never understood where the idea came from that Cooper didn’t want all the signings we made. He constantly spoke to the press about how we needed to strengthen. Most of our fans would have stuck with Cooper in season 1 even if we’d been relegated. Obvs your expectations are very different as you’re an established PL team.

I’m surprised to hear his subs have been bad - he was generally good on this at Forest, at least in home games Biggest weaknesses were: - away games - we usually set up like a League 1 team looking to do little more than damage limitation, with no real attacking intent. We got some real wuppings. - set pieces - we were extremely poor both at taking them and at defending them For what it’s worth I think he’ll keep you up. You’ve seen decent Prem football more recently than we had though - so I’m not surprised you’re finding it a tough watch, and unambitious