ClaphamFox

The big difference between Cooper and the Rodgers situation is that it won't cost us £20m+ to get rid of Cooper. The cost of getting rid of Rodgers was a major reason why it took so long - the club were clinging onto the hope that he would turn it around so we wouldn't have to pay the insane severance terms we'd written into his contract. The absence of such terms in Cooper's contract will mean the club acts more swiftly this time, particularly as the EFL is already sharpening the knives in anticipation of our relegation. I agree on everything else you write, though. We're paying the price for going for a cheap managerial option in the summer rather than showing any ambition. The decision to not go for Corberan just because he'd cost £3-4m seemed stupid at the time and is looking even more stupid by the day.

Or triple. Apparently the BBC has already decided to extend MotD to 3.45am so it can fit in all Arsenal’s goals.

He isn’t.

Our opportunity to get Corberan came and went in the summer. He’ll be managing in the PL next year, but not with us.

Vestergaard not on the bench again. Something is definitely up there…

The reason Rodgers lasted so long was because of the pay-out written into his contract. The club were hoping he’d turn it around because they didn’t want to shell out £20m or whatever to sack him. It will cost a fraction of that to sack Cooper so that won’t be an issue this time if it comes to it.

He won’t be sacked after today whatever the result, but he will definitely be sacked before Christmas if it looks like we’re heading for relegation.

He was never going to get many minutes. He’s just a sacrificial PSR lamb.

I'm convinced Cooper will start with Winks, Ndidi and Skipp again, which means that his only concessions to make us more attacking are likely to be replacing Ayew with Buonanotte/Fatawu and/or replacing Justin with Ricardo. My best guess is that he'll make just one of these two changes, but I also think it's possible he'll make none at all.

I love the way he manages to troll them mercilessly while also remaining so polite and professional. A proper lawyer.

I'd love it if he left was because the club has decided that treating fans with contempt isn't a great idea after all, but I'm assuming he just left to take up another position...?

True, but if his seething sense of injustice helps to create a siege mentality in the dressing room, it will only help us. If we smash Everton tomorrow, Cooper's press conference on Thursday may be regarded as a masterclass in motivational management.

This is why I think Cooper's attack on the PL yesterday was probably planned. I suspect the club is worried that the general ill-feeling towards out there because of the PSR thing may seep into matches via the officials - not because of a sinister plot, but simply because everybody is affected by unconscious bias and match officials are no exception. We want to make the officials understand that if they make very poor decisions against us, we'll hold them to account. I don't think this will lead to them giving dubious decisions in our favour, but it might slightly reduce the chances of them giving terrible decisions against us. The difference will be marginal, but marginal differences can sometimes be decisive. As Ric says, you need to strike a balance - if you moan about everything, very soon nobody will listen. But occasionally reminding referees that we're no pushovers may make them think a little more carefully before making a terrible call against us.

Your first statement is almost certainly true - the Corberan ship has sailed. The second will depend on how we perform over the next 5-6 games. The best outcome for us that we start getting results soon under Cooper - because if we don't and the club is forced to make a change at the end of October, there really aren't many obvious options for us.

He was asked about it repeatedly it in the press conference and was just answering the questions. And do you really think it’s ‘pathetic’ for the club to stand up for itself after being on the wrong end of a scandalous decision? You can absolutely guarantee Guardiola and Arteta would be doing the same if it happened to them. Are they ‘small time’ too?

Well I simply disagree on this - I think Okoli is improving and is going to be a very important player for us. Vestergaard was dropped from the squad on Saturday - not a chance he’ll start against Everton. And Skipp has already established himself as one of our best players and will not be dropped. The line-up will probably be very similar to last weekend, possibly with Ayew replaced by either Fatawu or Buonanotte. I’d love to see Ricardo come in but it won’t happen.

So you’d drop Skipp and Okoli - by all accounts two of our best players last weekend?

It's interesting that Cooper chose such scathing terms to describe how the PL has handled it. It's five days after the game - this was not a heat-of-the-moment, unguarded comment straight after the final whistle. Presumably he wouldn't have used language like that unless the club is absolutely certain that we have proof that Mateta was offside. It's almost as if the club decided before the press conference to accuse the PL of a cover-up in an attempt to goad them into responding and bringing all the evidence out in the open. I can't wait to see how the PL responds.

Steve Cooper on the decision in the press conference today: “We’re over it. It was an awful human error. It’s been hidden in the media. That has been as disappointing as the error itself. We have seen images that show he clearly was offside. But they froze it at the wrong time. Everything that has been seen has been a false image. We showed the Premier League that they used the wrong image. We had a massive error go against us. We don’t want it to go under the radar because that’s not fair to the players or the supporters. Errors like that shouldn’t happen. It’s why we’re changing to semi-automated. We felt very let down by it. We needed to stand up for the club and tell the Premier League what we thought.”

If PGMOL are in on this shady conspiracy, why did the linesman flag for offside in the first place when he could just as easily kept his flag down and let VAR do the work? Was he a rogue agent? If he dies in a freak 'accident' soon, I guess we'll know why...

More proof - if any were required - that the club will need to act decisively if we’re in the bottom three at the end of October.

I was literally just reading that article. It sounds like we weren't happy with whatever they said on Monday. https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/other/leicester-step-up-pressure-on-referees-chiefs-over-controversial-crystal-palace-goal/ar-AA1qJKUi?ocid=BingNewsSerp

So his record is 0.9 points per game - just under 35 points over a 38-game season. Right on the borderline of survival and relegation.

Not necessarily - it doesn't include any games in which Forest were losing or drawing on 75mins but went onto win. I don't know how often that happened.

@Ric Flair Jordan Blackwell has done some analysis on Cooper's record when winning games going into the last 15mins. His record at retaining those leads is ok (his teams went onto win 11 out of 14 times prior to Saturday). But the fact that Cooper's teams have only been leading on 75mins on 15 times in 58 games (including Saturday) is perhaps more concerning. https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/big-questions-asked-steve-coopers-9561706