Cooper - OUT

[Dahnsouff]

Just now, murphy said:

But don't you see that  Mr Hyde's appearance was as a direct result of Cooper's tactical instruction to retreat and defend?  Cooper summoned him...  On purpose.

 

We got away with it, but as tactics go, deliberately inviting pressure without offering any offensive threat, is just not particularly bright in my opinion.

Was it on purpose? Wasn't Cooper and Vardy asking them to move up the pitch? To stop reverting to type?

Although even if this were the case, even if the team rather than the tactics saw them sit deeper, this is something Cooper has to fix, and just hope a win (or 3) could help provide confidence in the team to do so.

Even if it were all on Cooper, the same win (or 3) for him to be more inclined to be more attacking as per Dr Jekyll, and to even recognise the value in a wasteful, yet still incredibly valuable Fatawu in getting away from our own penalty area.

[Muzzy_no7]

Really hope the board use this opportunity during the international break.

 

The performances have been hideous. The underlying stats don’t lie. We will get caught out eventually.

 

How some on here can still actively defend him is unreal. 

[Finnegan]

8 minutes ago, Dahnsouff said:

Would those  managers have gone to those clubs if they had just been promoted and had a likely points deduction?

 

I'm sorry, are you implying that you think I think Arne Slot would have come here? 

 

I'm not suggesting those specific managers should have been our shortlist. 

 

I'm just saying Premier League experience wasn't a necessity. Our last manager had practically no senior management experience at all and was a great success. 

 

There are countless football managers in the world. Limiting yourself to ones who have managed in this one specific league is a stupid thing to do. 

 

[Bourbon Fox]

32 minutes ago, Foxmeister said:

Love the bit about "anti-negative sentiment" 😂 am I right in thinking your opposed to it? If so I'd like to counteract your opposition to anti-negativity.

I'm not opposed to un-counter-anti-negativity when it's warranted...

[Dahnsouff]

1 minute ago, Finnegan said:

 

I'm sorry, are you implying that you think I think Arne Slot would have come here? 

 

I'm not suggesting those specific managers should have been our shortlist. 

 

I'm just saying Premier League experience wasn't a necessity. Our last manager had practically no senior management experience at all and was a great success. 

 

There are countless football managers in the world. Limiting yourself to ones who have managed in this one specific league is a stupid thing to do. 

 

No, not at all  Sorry if that is what it sounded like.

 

I merely meant the situations you quoted did not have the (self inflicted) challenges we faced, and that may have had a negative effect on recruiting a more desirable choice.

Maybe the lure of an EPL job would have been enough for some, but maybe we get a Euro Cooper in that case!

[The Doctor]

1 hour ago, ClaphamFox said:

While accepting that xG and xGA have their place, I’m not convinced they provide as full a picture as is sometimes claimed. Surely if they were a very reliable indicator of a team’s quality, mean reversion would dictate that all teams would fall back close to their expected results over a season? Yet a glance at last year’s final table suggests otherwise. Only three teams (Chelsea, Palace and Fulham) achieved final points totals that were close to their expected xPts. Every other team ended up a differential of more than five between their xPts and their actual points, and six teams ended up with a differential of more than 10. Interestingly, the bottom five teams at the end of the season all gained significantly less points than their xPts. 

 

It it possible that these xG/xGA stats aren’t really an accurate indicator of final points totals, but rather a measure of how efficient teams are at both ends of the pitch? If some teams consistently score more and/or concede less than they are expected to, could it be that they are simply quite good at the two most important aspects of the game? 
 

It just makes me wonder whether this habit we’ve developed under Cooper of remaining competitive in games while only performing well in patches and allowing the opposition lots of shots is not necessarily an early-season aberration, but rather just how things are going to be under this manager. Maybe shithousing results is our identity, for the time being at least? It might be a grim watch at times (well, a lot of the time), but if we continue to outperform our expected stats (and last year’s table would suggest this is possible), we’ll survive this season. The question will then be whether this approach is the right one to take us to the next level.

 

https://understat.com/league/EPL/2023

it's a fair question, and given this is the Cooper out thread and we were allegedly close to Potter it is worth the comparison that Potters teams, both Brighton and Chelsea, consistently underperformed their xG, creating but not finishing. It does point potentially towards a deficiency or strength in coaching where teams consistently over/underperform. whether it does with Cooper, well his full season with forest was about par the course for the xG/xGA data.

[murphy]

13 minutes ago, Wolfox said:

…. I’m just pointing out that it’s not reasonable to declare that he’s a disaster after 7 bloody games…

 

Ordinarily, I'd agree with that, but there are two reasons that I have declared early on Cooper:

 

One, in our predicament, we don't have time to fail.  Cooper is our self-appointed points deduction which we can ill afford and the more we persevere, the more points we will likely drop.

 

Two, Cooper has shown exactly how he intends to set us up this season with his actions and his signings - defensive line ups and defensive tactics allowing the opposition to lay siege to our goal and not allowing us to play.  Personally, I am against this way of playing in principle and I also think it will be disastrous for us.  It does not play to our strengths and conveys a lack of belief to the players. 

[FosseSpark]

Definitely would be looking to replace Cooper in international break:

Fix the roof while the sun is still shining. 

Make the move first and get a coach whos available before Saints, wolves, everton etc are also in market. 

would also help us to bring ricardo, winks, vestergaard, mavididi, fatawu back on board as they are clearly not buying CooperAntiFootball. 

[LCFCJohn]

The Cooper out thread has now exceeded the number of pages in the ‘Steve Cooper - New Manager’ thread.

 

Impressive 

[Tommy G]

36 minutes ago, Muzzy_no7 said:

Really hope the board use this opportunity during the international break.

 

The performances have been hideous. The underlying stats don’t lie. We will get caught out eventually.

 

How some on here can still actively defend him is unreal. 

You'll have to forgive him. He's from Barcelona

[Tommy G]

15 minutes ago, FosseSpark said:

Definitely would be looking to replace Cooper in international break:

Fix the roof while the sun is still shining. 

Make the move first and get a coach whos available before Saints, wolves, everton etc are also in market. 

would also help us to bring ricardo, winks, vestergaard, mavididi, fatawu back on board as they are clearly not buying CooperAntiFootball. 

Winks has played this season but has been poor and rightly dropped for Skipp. Mavididi has been ''ok'' but he had periods last years where he was off it.Fatawu has tried and played well when he comes on, so his head isn't down. Vestergaard is injured. Ricardo is the question mark and none of us are the wiser why he isn't playing. 

[Old Fox]

Genuinely players and fans seem confused and not sure what the plan is and whilst even the biggest Enzo fan would have said it would have been a challenge to carry on how we were its is baffling as to what he is trying to achieve !

 

whether he is tactically adept or not it is not working and we have not improved since the friendly at Shrewsbury and whilst all good managers start by building from clean sheets you need a way to play when you have the ball especially at home.

 

his system may suit away games as it is defensive and break but like on Saturday where somehow we have got ahead he cannot change a game or even manage a game through this approach.

 

we will not stay up imo with him in charge and every game the board meanders may stop us having a chance - if there is discontentment inside the squad it is only a matter of time and the next 3 games are massive as all of them are 6 pointers.

 

it would take a really strong board and plan to remove him with someone lined up like a Moyesy but I just cannot see as 2 years ago we faced the same type of dilemma and the board waited too long whilst someone like Villa took a strong decision and brought in an Emery!

 

this squad is way weaker than the one that went down but we would have a chance with a strong, decisive and tactical manager - we do not have that and I would be absolutely flabbergasted if he keeps us up and is still in a job in February !

[FosseSpark]

1 hour ago, Tommy G said:

Winks has played this season but has been poor and rightly dropped for Skipp. Mavididi has been ''ok'' but he had periods last years where he was off it.Fatawu has tried and played well when he comes on, so his head isn't down. Vestergaard is injured. Ricardo is the question mark and none of us are the wiser why he isn't playing. 

its clear from reports, performances and comments  that these 5 players particularly, who played over 80% of maresca games, do not buy into Cooper ball. We only have about 16/17 outfield players who are good enough for the first team and so we cant have a manager whose style alienates 25-30% of the squad.

[Ric Flair]

1 hour ago, ClaphamFox said:

While accepting that xG and xGA have their place, I’m not convinced they provide as full a picture as is sometimes claimed. Surely if they were a very reliable indicator of a team’s quality, mean reversion would dictate that all teams would fall back close to their expected results over a season? Yet a glance at last year’s final table suggests otherwise. Only three teams (Chelsea, Palace and Fulham) achieved final points totals that were close to their expected xPts. Every other team ended up a differential of more than five between their xPts and their actual points, and six teams ended up with a differential of more than 10. Interestingly, the bottom five teams at the end of the season all gained significantly less points than their xPts. 

 

It it possible that these xG/xGA stats aren’t really an accurate indicator of final points totals, but rather a measure of how efficient teams are at both ends of the pitch? If some teams consistently score more and/or concede less than they are expected to, could it be that they are simply quite good at the two most important aspects of the game? 
 

It just makes me wonder whether this habit we’ve developed under Cooper of remaining competitive in games while only performing well in patches and allowing the opposition lots of shots is not necessarily an early-season aberration, but rather just how things are going to be under this manager. Maybe shithousing results is our identity, for the time being at least? It might be a grim watch at times (well, a lot of the time), but if we continue to outperform our expected stats (and last year’s table would suggest this is possible), we’ll survive this season. The question will then be whether this approach is the right one to take us to the next level.

 

https://understat.com/league/EPL/2023

You're absolutely right. It should only be used as an indicator. We are fortunate we have an excellent shot stopper so I'm not hugely concerned with us having to snuff out chances for the sake of it, that's why I think we should be braver in attack.

 

 

[tickler28]

2 hours ago, Muzzy_no7 said:

Really hope the board use this opportunity during the international break.

 

The performances have been hideous. The underlying stats don’t lie. We will get caught out eventually.

 

How some on here can still actively defend him is unreal. 

Give your head a wobble....no manager is getting sacked after winning a match

[Lambert09]

I think the situation with cooper and the fans is similar to how england were with southgate. We all know we have quality attacking options and want to see us ply to our strengths rather than taking the safe option. 

 

I think he’s mostly been lucky, it’s not our defensive shape that’s kept arsenal or spurs at bay, more good keeping and bad attempts on goal.  If he continues to grind out results no matter what we think, he’ll keep his job and I don’t think we will mind that much. But the bottom line is that xg is a great indicator and our underlying stats don’t point to us deserving what’s presently on the board. 

 

At the end of the day we will always have a chance because this team is good enough individually to score against most teams and that might be enough to scrape results together. 

 

I was expecting ipswich in particular  to do far better  than they have. 

[Tommy G]

4 minutes ago, Lambert09 said:

I think the situation with cooper and the fans is similar to how england were with southgate. We all know we have quality attacking options and want to see us ply to our strengths rather than taking the safe option. 

 

I think he’s mostly been lucky, it’s not our defensive shape that’s kept arsenal or spurs at bay, more good keeping and bad attempts on goal.  If he continues to grind out results no matter what we think, he’ll keep his job and I don’t think we will mind that much. But the bottom line is that xg is a great indicator and our underlying stats don’t point to us deserving what’s presently on the board. 

 

At the end of the day we will always have a chance because this team is good enough individually to score against most teams and that might be enough to scrape results together. 

 

I was expecting ipswich in particular  to do far better  than they have. 

Especially as their manager was touted as the second coming 

[The Doctor]

1 hour ago, Ric Flair said:

You're absolutely right. It should only be used as an indicator. We are fortunate we have an excellent shot stopper so I'm not hugely concerned with us having to snuff out chances for the sake of it, that's why I think we should be braver in attack.

 

 

what I'd say there is you have to be a truly generational talent to continue at this rate. Mads post shot xG difference is +4.3 (i.e. of the shots he's faced on target, he's saved 4.3 additional goals). that's over 7 games. over a season that'd become saving 23 additional goals. fbref currently seems to be down but I don't think I've ever seen a keeper top +10 over a full season. 

 

that said, an effective way of defending is in attacking. if you park 10 in your own box, you'll face waves and waves of chances. if you pose a threat on the counter, even just bringing it away, you lower that - the opposition can't score if you've got the ball in their defensive third after all. the lack of bravery in attacking is why we concede so many chances.

[Hinckleyfox]

21 hours ago, Bourbon Fox said:

Like when they hit the post, and the bar, and had a goal disallowed for offside, and missed 2 sitters...

Im just saying in the broader sense, we are defensively better this year than we have been for a few. 

 

The football being atrocious is the bigger problem here, and its my belief that the efforts should be focussed on making us a more attacking threat, get that sorted and we could be comfortably mid table, very quickly. 

 

Whereas if we were to throw a load more time, money and resource at our defence, we'd probably still be languishing neaer the bottom 3.

 

For the avoidance of doubt, thats not saying that we should ignore the defensive work, but its just not where we're going to get the most bang for our buck at the minute. 

 

 

[Pliskin]

3 hours ago, Muzzy_no7 said:

Really hope the board use this opportunity during the international break.

 

The performances have been hideous. The underlying stats don’t lie. We will get caught out eventually.

 

How some on here can still actively defend him is unreal. 

Apparently he’s doing a great job, we have a rubbish team! 

[Muzzy_no7]

1 hour ago, tickler28 said:

Give your head a wobble....no manager is getting sacked after winning a match

Why not? 

[J. James]

Lol.. This is the obligatory "new manager out thread".

"Corberan appointed" and 10 minutes into the first pre season friendly we get a race by a new bunch of hyper intolerant posters to be the first to post a "Corberan OUT" thread!

I begin to understand why managers are paid so much!

l can understand this thread being called "Cooper OUT" because the "l never wanted him and I'm annoyed that l didn't get my choice so I'm going to pick out every negative l can and make up lots more and ignore any positives besides which he's ex Forest and ugly so - Cooper OUT" thread is not as snappy.

 

It's so much easier to dislike than like and to find or manufacture reasons to do so.

easier for a group to pick out perceived faults and agree that the target is not up to the job.

And oh so much easier when that person is hated right from the get go.

 

It works this way, poster A hates  SC for not playing "Jones" as a DM, poster B agrees because although he thinks "Smith" is better as DM, but he "knows" SC is useless because we got worse in the second half of one game, poster C can remember others where we got better but anyway if he'd put " Williams" on that wouldn't have happened... And so it goes on, fairness and objectivity is derided and not wanted.

 

But if any individual posters ideas were adopted in total by a manager, then there would be hundreds of other posters calling for their head too!

 

This is why the bar for sacking a manager is high and should be, the new man will also need to have all the answers (impossible) or a new group of haters will quickly set up a "(insert name here) OUT" thread.

 

But of course the new man WILL be better than the last won't he?

 

Optimists/desperate people will say yes, but evidence in our case suggests otherwise.

 

IF Cooper goes soon ( very unlikely) then the chances are we will not get that brilliant tactician, picks the team everyone wants (impossible) fantasy manager but a Lampard or Gerrard instead.

Will all the people calling for Cooper to go now post as many comments supporting them as they take us down?

I think not.

[Dahnsouff]

8 minutes ago, The Doctor said:

what I'd say there is you have to be a truly generational talent to continue at this rate. Mads post shot xG difference is +4.3 (i.e. of the shots he's faced on target, he's saved 4.3 additional goals). that's over 7 games. over a season that'd become saving 23 additional goals. fbref currently seems to be down but I don't think I've ever seen a keeper top +10 over a full season. 

 

that said, an effective way of defending is in attacking. if you park 10 in your own box, you'll face waves and waves of chances. if you pose a threat on the counter, even just bringing it away, you lower that - the opposition can't score if you've got the ball in their defensive third after all. the lack of bravery in attacking is why we concede so many chances.

Doesn’t this assume the rest of the defensive unit is static in terms of performance levels, rather that the team will improve through familiarity (if nothing else!) over the season?

You would surely expect the levels of cohesion to improve and defensive performances to hopefully go with it.

[ThumbsUp]

6 minutes ago, J. James said:

Lol.. This is the obligatory "new manager out thread".

"Corberan appointed" and 10 minutes into the first pre season friendly we get a race by a new bunch of hyper intolerant posters to be the first to post a "Corberan OUT" thread!

I begin to understand why managers are paid so much!

l can understand this thread being called "Cooper OUT" because the "l never wanted him and I'm annoyed that l didn't get my choice so I'm going to pick out every negative l can and make up lots more and ignore any positives besides which he's ex Forest and ugly so - Cooper OUT" thread is not as snappy.

Clearly you haven't read any of this thread, or if you did then it went completely over your head. Didn't bother reading the rest of what you wrote but I'm happy for you, or sorry that happened.

[Tommy G]

Just now, ThumbsUp said:

Clearly you haven't read any of this thread, or if you did then it went completely over your head. Didn't bother reading the rest of what you wrote but I'm happy for you, or sorry that happened.

Que?