shiv

People need to understand that being more positive doesn’t mean going gung ho. Every time Cooper has tried to firm up defensively with substitutions or tactical changes it’s invited pressure and led to us not being able to see out games. Allowing teams to attack us is not prioritising defensive organisation. Not many defenders in the league could handle 36 shots without conceding. Playing Ayew instead of Fatawu is not prioritising defensive organisation either. It hinders us defensively and offensively.

Fairly sure he’s been to every home game this season

Tactically, I don’t think I have ever seen such a poor manager. We could not even string one pass together in the first half and got boxed in by the Arsenal press. We dropped far too deep and left a big gap between midfield and attack once again. We needed to be much more fluid in our movement, but Cooper has the team regimented in their positioning in a low block. You also need more technical ability in the double pivot midfield. Winks & Ricardo were brilliant together last season but he’s opting for Skipp who clearly does not have the technical ability to play this role, and is not playing to Winks’ strengths. Winks is by far our best midfielder and it’s criminal to see him being utilised ineffectively. Our first goal was a stroke of luck through Vardy’s clever play to win the free kick. If you look at our play before he goes down, once again there is nobody within 20 yards of Vardy. He is isolated again but thankfully wins a free kick where we get a lucky deflection. I would say our second goal was a much better show of intent, as we had N’Didi overlapping Mavididi, JJ pushing forward on the overlap and Buonanotte coming inside. We seemed to push higher up the pitch and led Arsenal to drop deep. Unfortunately that lasted no more than 10 minutes, as we very quickly reverted to Cooper’s defensive tactics and dropped far too deep. We let Arsenal come at us and had no counter attacking threat up top. This was a game that was crying out for some pace, and the obvious substitutions were to bring on Edouard & Fatawu at 65-70 minutes. Unfortunately it’s clear that Cooper is not learning anything. He is making the same mistakes every week, allowing his poor decisions during the match impact the result and not playing our best attacking players. I don’t believe for a second he’s watched all of our games from last season like he’s claimed, because if he has and then concluded that Ricardo, Fatawu and Mavididi shouldn’t play together then he’s absolutely lost the plot.

Agree with everything except your Winks point. He’s made the most breaking line passes in the league. Always looking to be positive which is refreshing.

Just not good enough I’m afraid. I was more than willing I give him a chance but my patience has worn after just 5 games. Tactically, he is inept. In the first half he had our front 4 pressing but our back line super deep which meant Everton were able to glide through our midfield with just a few passes. He claims to have watched all our games last season, so surely on that basis it’s logical to start Ricardo, Fatawu and Mavididi - our 3 best players. His in game management is one of the worst I’ve ever seen. I could list so many examples but just focusing on Everton, he should’ve subbed Bilal at HT, 30k fans knew Ayew should’ve come off for Fatawu at 75 mins and you have to give Ricardo some minutes. Unfortunately he is not learning from his long list of mistakes. His post match interview was alarming. His justification for subbing Mavididi was bizarre - you’re telling me he couldn’t last another 6 minutes he also said he’s aware that 4-5 of our goals have come from our right hand side yet continues with Justin at RB. I was willing to give him a chance after Palace but that’s done it for me. Sadly we all know our inept board won’t do anything until it’s too late.

Great book, would encourage anyone here to read it.

Brendan Rodgers played a part in KDH’s development, doesn’t mean he’s not a terrorist.

All of which played for some of the best academies in the country? He did well with England youth but let’s not pretend he’s the one that gave Sterling & Trent their Liverpool debut

If we are going for someone out of work I would much rather we took a gamble on someone like RvN.

I couldn’t care less that Cooper managed Forest. In the Championship he played pretty direct football, but let’s not forget with Forest he had a very good squad with some great loan players. I understand why he just focused on getting results in the PL, but he played absolute turgid football and barely scraped them over the line. In the last 5 years or so, the gap between the bottom 2-3 teams and the rest of the league has been staggering. It’s only taking ~36 points to stay up these days and you’re consistently having at least one team finish on sub 30 points. In 2022/23 Forest finished on 38, which to be honest with the squad they had I would say was definitely the bare minimum. Yes they had a lot of signings but they had the likes of Felipe, Lodi, Aurier, Mangala, Navas who were all playing Champions League football not long ago. So for me, that’s why I am absolutely not keen on Cooper. The England youth set up success is not a reason to appoint someone (as we saw with Peter Taylor).

I can see why people think he’d be solid. But, aside from 2 out of his 4.5 years at West Ham which he got them to 6th & 7th, they were largely an average team. Yes he won them the Conference League but they had a much easier run in than our year and had Paqueta, Rice & Bowen who are arguably top 4 players. In the PL they were very bang average, they finished 14th in 22/23 and although they finished 9th last year the points totals for the league were turgid (Fulham finished 13th in 48 points). I’d say on the whole he’s been pretty crap since leaving Everton. 2 good years in 11 doesn’t fill me with confidence tbh.

I know there were reports of a player revolt but the main reason he left is because the PSV board sold Gakpo & Madueke when they were challenging for the title. His work with the academy was brilliant and he got Xavi Simons banging goals in for fun at just 19. He also played a good style of football and was more similar to Bielsa’s Leeds in terms of intensity. Players complained because they thought he trained them too hard, but frankly I don’t see that as a real issue and we’ve seen what happens when players have too much control.

As I said - was always going to get a club competing in Europe.

I agree about not wanting him here, but his last 4 clubs have been Chelsea, Man Utd, Spurs and Roma. To think he will suddenly not get a single offer from a club competing in Europe is a little naive. There’s absolutely no way he considers a club like us at this stage of his career. Why would he come to a club with FFP issues, a potentially huge points deduction and a clown of a DoF? His stock hasn’t fallen that much just yet. Maybe in 5 years we’ll see him managing mid-table teams but can’t see that happening any time soon tbh.

He absolutely will command peak Jose wages and is probably next in line for the Portugal or England job. No chance whatsoever. He’s more likely to go to Saudi than to join us.

People that think we could attract Mourinho We have a seriously deluded fan base. We’d be lucky to get RvN or Potter.

RvN would be a gamble but has pedigree and started his managerial career relatively successfully. Plays good football, promotes academy players and is a big name so could attract some good players. Cooper is garbage. Had near unlimited funds at Forest and still almost got them relegated. They were turgid away from home too under him. No thank you. Would genuinely rather have Moyes than Cooper (and I think Moyes would be the complete wrong appointment).

He left PSV because the board sanctioned the sale of Gakpo & Madueke in January when they were in with a shout of the title. He’s also been out of work for a year and PSV just won the title so his stock has probably gone down a little. Wouldn’t be impossible and we should go all out for him IMO.

Against teams that play a low block there’s not really a lot else you can do aside from “tika taka bollocks”. But against teams that don’t play a low block, we’re by far the best in the league as we’ve shown most of this season. So whilst I agree we do play better when we’re more purposeful, unfortunately it’s not as simple as that.

I also agree Daka has been given far too many chances, but maybe Daka is our best finisher in training hence why he’s ahead of the rest. We only see 90 mins of the players every week, Enzo sees way more. Although the 90 mins are what matters the most so he should be taking that into consideration IMO.

Even if they win every game, they are reliant on 2 teams essentially losing every game between now and the end of the season. It’s very unlikely IMO.

Yep. We also effectively have an extra point on Ipswich due to our goal difference. It’s in our hands.

Southampton are dead and buried. They aren’t getting close to autos.

Personally think our slow, laboured performance was due to fatigue, players being too static off the ball and Millwall going man to man. Regarding fatigue, this should have been addressed by making more changes to the starting line up. Players offered no movement when Vestergaard / Faes / Mads were passing it around. Was frustrating to watch and I actually felt sorry for those three as they had no options. Faes definitely isn’t good enough but his bursting runs actually offer momentum. Just a shame he’s such a liability. Millwall going man to man - they defended narrowly but we still tried to play through the middle. It’s no coincidence that our best chances came when our wingers attacked their fullbacks. Mav cut inside far too much too.