ClaphamFox

If we hadn’t conceded those two goals in the first half, we’d be one-nil up now. Makes you think…🤔

I knew that would be the only reason! 😂

Wrong forum, mate 😂

I found this the most interesting sentence in the Tanner article: "Sources close to the playing squad, kept anonymous to protect relationships, suggested some players are equally unclear about the identity of the team."

Brendan Rodgers was appointed five days after Claude Puel was sacked. Rodgers later revealed that he'd agreed to join us before they gave Puel the boot.

He’s not going to get sacked after a loss at Arsenal, no matter how brutal it is. And we might just need the goal difference at the end of the season. We’ll fight them hard on Saturday and lose narrowly. Cooper will get his run of winnable games to prove himself. The rest is up to him.

I really think this is at the heart of it. If Cooper had replaced a coach who'd been sacked because he was shit and the squad was completely demoralised, the players would be much more open to his ideas and managerial style. As it is, he took over a very successful manager who was by all accounts loved and respected by the players. I suspect the squad misses Enzo's clear vision and his obsessive attention to detail, and Cooper's approach is just too different for the them get on board with.

You're right. Our record at managerial appointments since the Thais took over has been mixed - some good, some bad. Probably not much different to most other clubs. I'd be really interested to know whether they chose Cooper because they thought he was the best man for the job or because he was the cheapest option on the shortlist. If it was the latter, that was a huge mistake. You can't compromise too much when choosing a manager - you need the best man for the job. And if it takes a few million to get him, that's what you have to do. I really like Steve Cooper as a person. He seems like a very decent human being and his honesty in interviews is impressive, as is the respect he has for the club. The best outcome would be for him to prove all of us sceptics wrong and make us look like idiots. I just have a feeling that won't happen, though, and his time with us will be very brief.

The article is just a rehash of yesterday's Football Insider story. Unfortunately, Football Insider is one of the worst sources out there.

Very true. I just don't think it's going to happen before then, though.

It doesn't end after a poor but ultimately winning display with a much-changed team away at a lower division club in the league cup. Neither does it end after a defeat away at the team that came second last season and are genuine title contenders this season. Does the end then come after one more draw or defeat against a team expected to finish in the bottom half? Possibly, but probably not. But add in a few more of those in the following weeks? Yes, then it might end.

Well one is a horrendous spectacle than can only serve to leave the viewer in a state of utter despair and self loathing….and well I can’t really comment on the other as I’ve never seen the Japanese girl video.

Whatever he did, he must have really pissed Cooper off.

I had a '360 health review' via my firm's health insurance policy back in May and was told I needed to lose weight. I'd been wanting to do this for years anyway, but being told it by a doctor seems to have been the kick up the arse I needed. I've lost 12kg since then, with another 6-7kg to go before I hit my target weight. The one observation I'll make is that it's surprising what a big difference a few small changes can make. All I've really done is: *Cut down heavily on carbs, particularly bread. Instead of a sandwich I have a rice cake (30 calories each vs 130 calories for a slice of bread) topped with cheese, avocado, peanut butter, whatever. *Stopped having 1-2 glasses of wine every night, which I'd habitually done for years. I now avoid boozing from Sunday to Monday but buy myself a decent bottle on a Friday to enjoy over the weekend. Allowing myself to spend a bit more on a higher quality wine once a week has made this a bit easier to stick to. *Using 400-calorie meal replacement shakes for lunch 4-5 days a week, with a 'light' lunch (eg, scrambled egg on toast) on the other days. That's pretty much it. I've been meaning to start exercising properly again (I gave up twice-weekly five-a-side football when my second son was born two years ago, which definitely contributed to my weight gain), but am struggling to find the time. The diet regime above was tough for the first few weeks but once it became a habit I got used to it and I no longer crave bread and am perfectly happy with my lower wine intake. As with any attempt at change, it's finding the initial thrust that's the challenge - once you're in the groove, it becomes much easier.

His brother Chinny was so good it defied belief.

Fair enough, but I was referring to the fact that the atmosphere generated by their promotion charge carried over into the PL campaign and was a large part of the reason they managed to win enough home games to stay up. The results may not have been there at the beginning, but the crowd remained on board and that helped them enormously.

His reputation with Forest derives from his season in the Championship with them, when he took them from virtually bottom to play-off winners. The momentum created by that run spilled over into the following season, when he managed to just about win enough home games to keep them up despite an appalling away record. However, even in those home wins Forest seemed to rely more on a hostile atmosphere created by a partisan crowd than on an clear style of play or tactical approach. If Cooper succeeds with us, it will be because he suddenly develops a tactical understanding of the game that he has not displayed so far in his career. I'm not saying that's impossible - people can learn, after all - but it doesn't give us a lot to pin our hopes on.

Taken literally, your comment suggests that he won't be sacked even if we lose all of our games between now and then. Do you really believe that? My prediction is that if we don't win any of our next four league games, even if we pick up a couple of points with draws, he'll be sacked before the home game against Man Utd. As for the picture, I think I already have one of those from my student days...

Get what? The bit about there not being an obvious candidate to replace Cooper (which is true) or the bit about the board sticking with Cooper no matter what (which is bollocks)?

If we haven't started to get results by the end of October, Cooper will be gone. It's a delusion to believe otherwise.

Southampton are now apparently targeting Corberan to replace Martin when he inevitably gets sacked within the next few weeks...

So you don't think he's right for us but you also don't want him to go yet? If you think we should stick with a manager who is the wrong fit, how do you see this playing out?

Exactly. We're in the interim period in which a sacking seems inevitable but the criteria for actually doing it haven't been met yet. So we're all just waiting for the the end game to arrive, which I expect to be in late October/early November.

I remember when Ayew joined, a journalist who covers Palace was saying on the radio that Ayew loved it there and was offered a new contract, but he had decided to move because Palace couldn't offer him a 'guaranteed' starting place in the team, which is what he wanted - the implication being, of course, that Cooper must have promised him he'd be a starter for us. I remember being disturbed when I heard this as I regarded Ayew as a useful squad player at best, but so far it seems like that journalist was right and that Cooper does indeed regard Ayew as a guaranteed starter.

It does. I just get the sense that we're already in one of those weird interim periods when you just know that it isn't going to work out with a particular manager, and that he will be sacked in the not-too-distant-future, but it hasn't reached that point yet and we're all just waiting for it to happen. I do feel a bit for Cooper. It seems like the squad isn’t responding too well to either his tactical approach or his management style, which is always a risk when a new manager replaces one that was successful and very popular with the squad. But his treatment of Ricardo and apparent belief that Ayew should the first name on the team sheet no matter what have all the hallmarks of those weird stubborn tics that managers display ahead of a dismissal (see also: Rodgers’ rigid persistence with Ward and Amartey). I actually think we’ll make it difficult for Arsenal next week and probably limit them to a hard-fought narrow win because Cooper’s tactics are made for that game. We’ll get praised for our resilience on MotD and Murphy will say we have what it takes to stay up. Then we’ll enter a run of games that demand a more attacking approach and the problems will start all over again…