The Doctor

bold of you to accuse anyone of not reading. So once again: It was between him and Iversen, and given the question was on Cooper, of course Cooper would have played ward v Wolves. clear enough or do you want me to fetch you an English teacher?

I struggle to believe it's that many (that would have us in 8th) but can fully believe it's at least 7 or 8 which would have us out the relegation zone and looking into midtable

he spent 25 million on Skipp, a 5th choice Centre Midfielder, while we had two available right backs, both of whom are made of biscuits and one of whom still looked average at best in the division below. in what world is it not a **** up to chase squad depth while ignoring priority positions?

it's getting as much as we were getting under Cooper, basically nothing, because that gremlin ****ed up the transfer window. It does however give a better base to work from than Cooper's "keep shoving four leaf clovers up my arse" approach

are we not talking about the one in December 2019? absolutely trounced them, looked like we were actually in a title race with Man City and Liverpool then bottled it v Norwich at home, got battered by Liverpool on boxing day and never recovered

Sustainability is always key, under Cooper we only just managed double figures in terms of shots on target across all of his home games, which included a game against an Everton side who'd conceded 4 in every game before that (we had 2 shots on target in that game).

and creating less. having a couple of players on a hot streak does not make a competent attack, you'd have thought we'd know this given we pretended Maddison and Tielemans having a goal of the month competition between themselves was a functional attack for the majority of 22/23

read again: Iversen has not played in six months and was the previous managers (and if we're honest Enzo too given the two keeper benches) 4th choice. He was not getting picked by any manager ahead of Ward. And again, since you seem to be unable to pay attention to the actual discussion: COOPER. WAS. PICKING. WARD. AS. HIS. SECOND. CHOICE. SO. WOULD. HAVE. PLAYED. HIM. IF. MADS. WAS. INJURED.

right? people seem to be memory holing just how bad we were under Cooper, where success would look like managing more than 1 shot on target

he should have gone 2 years ago but you're missing the point completely: there's basically not a manager on the planet who'd, 3 weeks into the job and having lost his first choice keeper, turn to the 4th choice who hadn't kicked a ball in 6 months, rather than his predecessors number 2, and given he was Cooper's number 2, Cooper would obviously have played him and likely would have made the entire post match of wolves about some free kick decision he didn't like before starting Ward again and again.

Against wolves where it was Ward or Iversen and Cooper had chosen Ward repeatedly already? obviously he would have.

fed up of him now. Dunno if Rodgers gross mismanagement of his injury (trying to play him 3 90s in a week the moment he was making a comeback) has ruined him or if 20/21 was just a flash in the pan for him, but he can't keep playing, he's costing us every week.

he won't because he doesn't give a shit, just a little nepo baby coasting off his dad's legacy while running it into the ground, but that's the position we're in. Cooper and Rudkin wasted the summer getting in a 5th choice centre midfielder for big money while our RB options were a bloke who has an injury in him at all times (much as I love Ricky, he makes Darren Anderton look robust) and a bloke who hasn't been it for 4 years now

no chance, under Cooper we lose the last 7 (West ham would have walked us, wouldn't have come back v Brighton) and are still persisting with Ward in goal

we've been in games more with a worse squad than Cooper had available to him, with Mads out for a sustained spell under Cooper and we'd have had this sort of run because we're a top class keeper away from being a championship team. There's signs of a tactical plan but it needs to happen faster. Windows open now, 11 days until the next league game, Top and co need to open the checkbook and let him fix the deficiencies Cooper ignored (the full backs)

I think you've somewhat missed the point. Which ever way you slice it, half the squad from that game have since left, and if you look at Cooper's last game in charge, 10 of the match day squad for that game have joined/broken into the first team since then. You would reasonably expect a new manager to watch recent games to get an idea of the squad they're inheriting. At this time of year they may even watch a few from the previous season. Going back 18 months to 2 years to watch games is not a reasonable expectation by any stretch of the imagination

don't know why I'm bothering to argue with you when you've already made your mind up and are trying to justify it but let's look at the starting line up of wards final game of 22/23: Ward Amartey Souttar Faes Ricardo KDH Mendy Castagne Iheanacho Daka Madison of those only Ward, Faes, Ricardo and Daka are still here, and they've all played this season in the cups at a minimum

if he's watched Ward play, I'd pretty much guarantee it's for the cup games this season. basically no manager goes back to watch games from several years earlier when the squad has near completely changed, you're being completely unreasonable and a bit ridiculous

yep. which then raises an interesting question of, if we weren't in breach under PL rules in 2022/23 due to the trade of the golden share, so that years accounts went into the championship, could we argue that having gotten the golden share before the end of 23/24 accounting period, we were a PL club for the purposes of allowances? it'd sound ridiculous but we've already shown the rules are not well written

I think he's probably watched recent games, those under Cooper, maybe some under Maresca as well. I doubt he's gone back to watch games from 2 years ago...

we have, that doesn't mean Ruud has. again Ward was number 2 under Cooper, when you've been in charge 2 weeks and get a goalkeeper injury, playing your predecessors second choice is perfectly normal and it's a really weird stick to choose to beat a new manager with

this is it. he didn't chew Ward out in public like I think many of us would want to but that's why we're not managers, publicly slagging off your players is not a great sign for incoming players, and given Ward didn't even come with the match day squad v Man City (replaced by Beausor), you can bet that happened in private.

not really unforgivable is it. he got it wrong but Mads was out, Stolarcyk was only just back in training and the previous manager had Ward as his number 2. You can see why he would have given ward a chance, and ward dramatically fumbled that chance.

how's this become about captain brylcream? this is the first period without the COVID allowances isn't it. The extra year without half the high earners like Tielemans, Maddison and Evans, plus all the sales should put us in a good position to have a small breach at most.

one or two decisions against doesn't outweigh the clear points gain in favour, and that "we've had more decisions against us in net" is not looking for a second if the decisions were actually right, it's just "decision made by the ref, overturned by VAR", so the stat is that a net 20 decisions made by the ref were incorrectly given in favour of wolves.