DJ Barry Hammond

Are you serious? Even the king of evasive interviews Roberto Martinez would not have been able to defend that performance. Plus - the reason we were poor was because we were setup to be poor. One thing that was abundantly obvious in the first half was how easy we were making it for them to play through our thirds, that we were at least a yard or two off then at every point. Yet there was no change - we neither dropped deeper and became more compact, or did the reverse and pressed higher, with the back line playing higher to bring about that compactness. We were also poor in possession and failed to get any territory dominance - at which point you may decide to go a little more route one. Get yourself up the pitch, win throw-in’s / freekicks in their half, just to establish some forward positivity - but that requires touchline instruction to do that. And that has to be the most concerning thing about not just yesterday, but all of pre-season - these have been basic tactical deficiencies in our games that are not difficult to identify or purpose solutions too (regardless of quality of player) - and yet nothing has been done about it to date.

No, the lack of confidence is due to the difference in coaching / coaching styles. Enzo clearly drills players, intensely, to the point the patterns are rotations are second nature. He’s also a very charismatic character with a dominating personality. Cooper is clearly so very much different - players were looking to the sideline for a voice, some sort of instruction, from very early on yesterday. That nothing of any note came across judging by the sheer lack of tactical change throughout could be to Cooper’s quick detriment because that’s how you lose a squad. It’s not being overly dramatic to suggest Cooper has around 6 games to prove he should continue in the job.

Part of me wonders if some of the issue here is Cooper being between two stools in terms of footballing identity. That he’s been hired to continue playing in an identity that was forged under Maresca last season… but that identity is too far from his own that you end up in a nothingness middle ground. My hope for Spurs right now is that perhaps, we see something completely different - possibly 3 at the back - and maybe with Fawatu playing on the left (Ricardo on the right). We can all see that personality wise / coaching wise, Cooper is very different to Enzo, so it is completely foolish to think we can play the same way - especially when we’ve lost a crucial piece to why the way we played was so effective last season. Anyway - first international break is vs 1st September, second one 6th October, third 10th November. Cooper has his work cut out to survive all 3 as it stands.

What is even more mental about it is asking him to do it in isolation off to the right… and then move forward to the striker position (first line of ‘press’) when we defend. There’s no wonder he looks lost because no-one has ever employed such a strange tactical variant in the history of football. What’s also equally worrying - it was so obvious this particular aspect has not been working, yet Cooper’s persisted with it?

He lacks any sort of presence. The very best strikers have that air of confidence, a swagger, just something about them that catches your attention / eye even when they’re not doing much.

The stupid thing is - Cooper has put himself under massive pressure going into a season opener that in reality should have been a free hit. If it was just the one pre-season game that we looked poor in that would be one thing… but he haven’t looked convincing throughout. The players looked devoid of confidence and any practical understanding of what they are being asked to do - they’ve been playing as individuals, not as a collective. If they show that again against Spurs in a little over a week that could be a pretty ugly game. Starting well and with confidence was always going to be important given a number of our early fixtures represent potential six pointers - we face Fulham, Palace, Everton across our first six fixtures. That’s followed by October’s three fixtures of Bournemouth, Southampton and Forest - all games that will have a huge impact on shaping our season. Yet - it’s a fair question to ask at the moment whether Cooper will even get that far with us from what we’ve seen to date.

It is pointless speculating on this, but I would say had Enzo stayed, the players we got in through the door this summer would no doubt have been a lot different than the one’s we’ve actually seen. Enzo knew the sort of players he wanted to effect his system - and probably has a better contact book and pull factor.

Signing 11 world class players would have no impact on this tactical structure - it’s devoid of any footballing logic… which makes me question why Cooper’s continued with it?

Any chance of any changes? Any at all?

Yep and this is 7 days out from the start of the season. What was equally as concerning was I didn’t see Cooper do anything coaching wise during that drinks break. And let’s face it - it’s not exactly hard to spot that whatever he’s attempting to do with Ndidi is not working, he’s not getting much of the ball when we’ve got it and he’s being easily bypassed as a defensive striker when we don’t. This is not a new thing either - Cooper persisted with this for over an hour against Shrewsbury, so why has he not spotted that at least this part of his tactical plan is not working?

We have no pattern of play - whilst defensively we’re allowing them to play through our thirds far too easily. You can also see the concern on the way we’re playing through the players body language.

He’ll do well to get 10 if he continues with this current tactical idea - you can already see players looking over to the touchline wanting instruction on changing something.

You can’t be relaxed about this - it’s woeful - there is absolutely no discernible structure about any passage of our play. What’s more - it feels like our players know it too.

You don’t want one - do something else instead

Could we perhaps try and do a little more against their desire to take short corners? Our shape and pressing intent is questionable so far too.

Aye, I made a sarcastic reply in there too 😉

Third times a charm 😘

So good we signed him twice?

Zero effort made on the reveal video I see.

Sometimes it costs more to administer something to give to a few, rather than give something to all. Or originally it could also have been a decision based on making sure the benefit was effective; i.e. if you include everyone it by default gets to 100% of the people who need it. So there’s always little nuances in decision making that might not be that obvious on the face of things. Of course another reason for giving it to all pensioners and maintaining that for so long could be because they vote - and giving / maintaining a £100-£300 bribe was always seen as politically beneficial!

Clearly it’s a bloody difficult balancing act. I believe Junior Doctors are paid anywhere between £30,000 to £60,000 - around the level of train drivers (with some drivers on more). The award is also based across 3 pay periods (think it’s something like 4%, 8% and 9%) and aim’s to rectify not only the higher inflation years but the public sector pay freeze years ago too - so the headline figure makes it look a lot different than it actually is. That said - people (generally) don’t do detail so it is a deal that is likely to cause Labour some headaches, especially as it moves along to different public sectors pay deals (good luck with getting the teachers to agree to 5% now!). But coming back to this pay dispute - if you don’t have enough (Junior) Doctors which cross section of the public is going to lose out most… probably pensioners. Now let’s consider, out of public expenditure, which cross section of the public has the biggest public expenditure demands… that’s likely to be pensioners again (£138 billion is earmarked for the state pension alone in 2024/25). So is this a fair trade off? Naturally every individual can make there own minds up based on lived experience over the coming years - but Labour’s basic assumptions must be that it will be deemed fair enough by enough people in 5 years time.

It will - can you imagine the numbers that would have gone to London had that rally been this Saturday instead?

If that means we can attract, train and retain more (Junior) Doctors over the course of 5-10 years; would that not be a good trade off? Mean as I understand it you stand to lose an ad-hoc £100-300 a year. If that in turn helped to reduce the maximum hip replacement waiting time from 18 weeks to 12, would you take that?

Terrorism The current UK definition is set out in the Terrorism Act 2000 (TACT 2000). In summary this defines terrorism as ‘The use or threat of serious violence against a person or serious damage to property where that action is: designed to influence the government or an international governmental organisation or to intimidate the public or a section of the public; and for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause.’ https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/prevent-duty-guidance/glossary-of-terms#:~:text=In summary this defines terrorism,section of the public%3B and

I guess it’s more color blind (deliberate American spelling used) when it comes to cyclists - you see they have a terrible difficulty spotting the colour red!* *I’ve taken the opportunity to make the easiest of jokes. I mean no ill will to the cycling community by them - I just figured if I didn’t make the joke someone else would have done. I actually like your Lycra shorts 😘