ClaphamFox

The rumour that this was going to be the team…

Oh my word. I refused to comment on the rumour as I didn’t want to believe it, but he’s only gone and bloody done it 😂

I agree the joke has probably run its course on here. However, if @OwynnPA is reading this, when you interview Cooper later, can you please say, “No Odsonne Edouard today - care to explain that one, Steve?”

To be fair to him, what he actually said was: “An away game comes with challenges and we want to be a team that thrives in those moments.” I don’t think there’s too much wrong with this comment in itself. The problem is, Cooper’s track record in the PL at getting his teams to ‘thrive’ away from home is appalling. Hopefully today will be the day that he proves that he’s learnt something from his time at Forest.

It's not clear that this was the case. Some reports suggested that Potter was ready to sign but Top had a last minute change of heart. If that happened, we may have already burnt our bridges with Potter.

It's an absolute scandal that Palace won't let us play Edouard, but the PL will do **** all about it because they want revenge for the PSR thing. Once again it's one rule for us and one for everybody else

Hopefully Man Utd snap him up first…

This is exactly what I feared when Maresca left. However divided the fans may have been about his style of play, there was no doubt that the players and staff at the club were in awe of him. He has a very clear objective about the way he wanted the team to play, showed incredible attention to detail and held everybody to a high standard. And of course, it worked - we won the division. Succeeding him was always going to be a tough gig for any new manager - replacing a successful and highly-respected boss is obviously much more difficult than succeeding an unsuccessful and unpopular one. I do feel a bit for Cooper - he seems like a good guy and he may even turn out be a good manager, but he's clearly operating under a bit of an Enzo hangover at the club. The solution is in his hands, though - if he gets us playing positive football and winning games, any talk of dressing room unrest will evaporate.

If it was just a few unhappy junior members of the squad, I agree it wouldn't matter. However it's much more likely to be an issue if it's the senior pros (as this story suggests) given the influence they're likely to have on the rest of the squad. It doesn't sound like there's an active mutiny taking place - more like a few rumblings. But if he doesn't start delivering results soon, it's only going to go one way.

Are they really though?!

CAN'T play or Cooper WON'T play him? That's the question...

And then he got sacked because he couldn't sort out their away form and their home form started to ebb a bit. Unless Cooper demonstrates that he can set up and motivate a team to play away from home, his shelf life in any job will be severely restricted. You can't build a long-term strategy around being crap in half the games you play.

I'm struggling to understand this level of derision for one of our academy players simply because he wasn't able to single-handedly turn around the fortunes of a struggling international side via a couple of substitute appearances.

At work yesterday I was speaking to one of our senior managers. He's from Manchester and is a Man Utd fan but lives in west London and is a season ticket holder at Craven Cottage as his 9-year-old son is a Fulham fan. He was saying they couldn't believe how poor we were when we played them other week. He reckoned that before the game most Fulham fans were expecting it to be tough as we'd come up as champions and they thought we'd have a proper go at them, and they were genuinely surprised by how nervous our players looked and how passive we were after they went 2-1 up. It seems ridiculous to say that Saturday is a massive game because it's so early in the season, but it does feel that way as it will tell us a lot about what to expect from Cooper this season. Another passive away performance and routine defeat and things will start to look very grim; however, a positive display that shows we intend to go for it away from home might set a few minds at ease.

Remember it? It makes me as emotional and teary-eyed as watching the video of my older child's first steps as a baby.

The only ones worth bothering with are those from opposition fans after we’ve won. Watching the camera pan around miserable faces just after we've scored as our fans celebrate in the background is a true balm for the soul.

Why do you think Cooper will choose El Khannous over Buonanotte? Alves is highly unlikely to make the bench, sadly. And Edouard definitely won't as he's ineligible for this game.

These are their accounting figures, not their PSR calculation.

Will he play ahead of Mateta? I hope he does, but I can't see it...

Hey Steve! How are you settling in?

He was playing in a different position in a lower division. The last time he was effective CDM in the PL was in 2020/21. if he can get back to that level and be genuine competition for Skipp, happy days - but he's not there yet. He's also definitely not a PL-level attacking midfielder.

If we continue to play Ndidi while he performs at his current level simply because of his height, then I predict Cooper will not last beyond the end of October.

Ndidi hasn't been able to deploy those Inspector Gadget legs effectively for several years now. However, for some reason a lot of people seem reluctant to acknowledge the evidence in front of their eyes. Skipp has to play ahead of him, with Buonanotte occupying the central ACM position. Nididi is a bench option these days, not a starter.

You'd have Ndidi instead of Skipp? And there would be no place for Mavididi despite his recent performances?