Cooper - OUT

[Clever Fox]

I think many are blinded by our points and league position.

When our modest success has more to do with a very favourable fixtures draw. ( Arsenal aside )

And the brilliance of Mads in goal and the huge effort put in by the players, To constantly try and recover lost causes.

To Cooper's credit he has improved some players VK, Okoli, Faes, Facundo.

Its his team selections and tactics that are letting the Fans and Players down. He can't seem to see the shortcomings in his tactics either. Though on Saturday , aside from his approach in the first half he got most decisions right.

Even if Southampton capitchilated and made it easy second half.

If he keeps picking up points he'll keep most fans quiet for now.

Though the quality of opposition is about to improve greatly for Nov Dec.

Another win on Friday night will do his future here no harm and win him even more Fans.

He's got to adjust the Tactics and play the best players to have a real chance of getting results. While he brings others up to speed.

 

[LinekersLugs]

3 hours ago, Clever Fox said:

I think many are blinded by our points and league position.

When our modest success has more to do with a very favourable fixtures draw. ( Arsenal aside )

And the brilliance of Mads in goal and the huge effort put in by the players, To constantly try and recover lost causes.

To Cooper's credit he has improved some players VK, Okoli, Faes, Facundo.

Its his team selections and tactics that are letting the Fans and Players down. He can't seem to see the shortcomings in his tactics either. Though on Saturday , aside from his approach in the first half he got most decisions right.

Even if Southampton capitchilated and made it easy second half.

If he keeps picking up points he'll keep most fans quiet for now.

Though the quality of opposition is about to improve greatly for Nov Dec.

Another win on Friday night will do his future here no harm and win him even more Fans.

He's got to adjust the Tactics and play the best players to have a real chance of getting results. While he brings others up to speed.

 

 One of the best posts on the subject 

[Foxmeister]

7 hours ago, sylofox said:

It's no different than before 2016. Search the Middlesbrough away thread 13/14. Pearson getting slated for picking Vardy n Drinky. 

Probably not the best example of fans knowing best.

[hebangsthedrums]

4 hours ago, LinekersLugs said:

 One of the best posts on the subject 

One of the best ever spellings of capitulated too

Edited 22 October 2024 by hebangsthedrums
To please foxmeister

[Foxmeister]

10 minutes ago, hebangsthedrums said:

One of the best ever spellings over capitulated too

One of the best uses of the word over.

[Lionator]

7 hours ago, Clever Fox said:

I think many are blinded by our points and league position.

When our modest success has more to do with a very favourable fixtures draw. ( Arsenal aside )

And the brilliance of Mads in goal and the huge effort put in by the players, To constantly try and recover lost causes.

To Cooper's credit he has improved some players VK, Okoli, Faes, Facundo.

Its his team selections and tactics that are letting the Fans and Players down. He can't seem to see the shortcomings in his tactics either. Though on Saturday , aside from his approach in the first half he got most decisions right.

Even if Southampton capitchilated and made it easy second half.

If he keeps picking up points he'll keep most fans quiet for now.

Though the quality of opposition is about to improve greatly for Nov Dec.

Another win on Friday night will do his future here no harm and win him even more Fans.

He's got to adjust the Tactics and play the best players to have a real chance of getting results. While he brings others up to speed.

 

I don’t think people are blinded by the points and league position. The criticisms are still scathing in spite of two wins. Parts have been very poor and parts have been half decent and we’re still on 9 points from 8 games. But we’re scoring goals, we aren’t the absolute defensive mess that some are saying we are (compare to 2022/23), although we need tweaks which other more technically minded posters have pointed out. 
 

The only objective truth are the points and league position. 
 

2022/23 was “we’re too good, our league position is false”

 

Now it’s “we’re crap, our league position is false”. 

[hebangsthedrums]

Just now, Foxmeister said:

One of the best uses of the word over.

Paha fair cop, writing on my mobile whilst feeding a baby

[sylofox]

59 minutes ago, Foxmeister said:

Probably not the best example of fans knowing best.

Well as my posts not about fans knowing best it's not a problem.

[The Doctor]

1 hour ago, Lionator said:

we aren’t the absolute defensive mess that some are saying we are (compare to 2022/23), 

eh, is that true?

on a per 90 basis: 

 

PSxG our keeper has faced: 2.25 this season, 1.46 in 22/23

shots against: 18.38 this season, 14.92 in 22/23

averaging it out for PSxG per shot: 0.12 this season vs 0.09 in 22/23

 

we're giving up more chances and better chances than in 22/23. if anything, we're more of a defensive mess this time but have a top class keeper rather than a below average one.

 

[CheeseHead]

1 minute ago, The Doctor said:

we're giving up more chances and better chances than in 22/23. if anything, we're more of a defensive mess this time but have a top class keeper rather than a below average one.

 

If Ward was just a below average keeper, we would have stayed up that year!

[The Doctor]

2 minutes ago, CheeseHead said:

If Ward was just a below average keeper, we would have stayed up that year!

if he was a below average premier league keeper. he's below average once you factor in all the Sunday league lads who are the ones most hungover and incapable of running 

[Stevosevic]

8 hours ago, Clever Fox said:

I think many are blinded by our points and league position.

When our modest success has more to do with a very favourable fixtures draw. ( Arsenal aside )

And the brilliance of Mads in goal and the huge effort put in by the players, To constantly try and recover lost causes.

To Cooper's credit he has improved some players VK, Okoli, Faes, Facundo.

Its his team selections and tactics that are letting the Fans and Players down. He can't seem to see the shortcomings in his tactics either. Though on Saturday , aside from his approach in the first half he got most decisions right.

Even if Southampton capitchilated and made it easy second half.

If he keeps picking up points he'll keep most fans quiet for now.

Though the quality of opposition is about to improve greatly for Nov Dec.

Another win on Friday night will do his future here no harm and win him even more Fans.

He's got to adjust the Tactics and play the best players to have a real chance of getting results. While he brings others up to speed.

 

Have our fixtures been that favourable?

In the first 8 games we’ve played 3 of last seasons top 6. So in the next 11 before the midway point we’ll play the other 3.

 

Difficulty of our games seems pretty evenly spread? 

[JimJams]

Yeah I think our fixtures are spread quite nicely over the season.  Only Exception being Christmas to New year.

[Wymsey]

Have a feeling that he's starting to figure things out, for the benefit of the team.

[Chrysalis]

9 hours ago, Clever Fox said:

I think many are blinded by our points and league position.

..

 

Isnt that the aim in a league, to get points?

[ChrisFilter]

Bloody points. Nothing but trouble. 

[StriderHiryu]

You can see the pre match thread for more on this, but I want to try and explain visually the issue Cooper has with his system compared to Enzo's. A situation like this almost happened against Southampton on the weekend, and I am worried it will happen again on Friday.

 

 

 

I am going to use two examples. In both examples, we are going to imagine that Leicester from a goal kick start building and one of the CDM's goes for a ball to one of the wingers, which gets cut out by Milenkovic. The opposition then go direct and try to counter as fast as possible, which is exactly how Forest play.

 

 

^ In this example, because the right back moves so far upfield and Buonanotte drifts in centrally, on the counter, Fatawu gets 2 on 1's, meaning Faes has to step over. That makes a gap behind him, which can be exploited. Fulham's Iwobi scored a goal very similar to this earlier in the season.

 

 

^ In this example, Ricardo is in the team. This time round, because he covers the RB position when in the defensive phase, he can get back to help out on the wings, wheres Buonanotte can stay central. In this case, because we aren't overrun, I suggest that Ricardo wins the ball back and sets Fatawu on his way, who goes for a trademark long shot by cutting in. You can even see that in this example, Buonanotte makes the trademark "half space run" to drag players out of position to help Fatawu have more room to cut in.

 

 

Now both these examples are totally imaginary and do involve some "Disneyland" scenarios. but hopefully they go some way to help explain the problem with Cooper's system, and why so many goals have come down our right hand side (the opposition's left) this season. It's the system not the player!

[inckley fox]

1 hour ago, Stevosevic said:

Have our fixtures been that favourable?

In the first 8 games we’ve played 3 of last seasons top 6. So in the next 11 before the midway point we’ll play the other 3.

 

Difficulty of our games seems pretty evenly spread? 

It is, but some people have been using it for several weeks as a stick to beat the manager with. After six games someone was arguing that we'd had an easier run than any other side near the bottom - and plenty of others jumped on board, failing to notice that only one side in the bottom six could seriously claim a tougher opening set of fixtures. We've played a fairly representative spread of games.

[inckley fox]

1 minute ago, StriderHiryu said:

You can see the pre match thread for more on this, but I want to try and explain visually the issue Cooper has with his system compared to Enzo's. A situation like this almost happened against Southampton on the weekend, and I am worried it will happen again on Friday.

 

 

 

I am going to use two examples. In both examples, we are going to imagine that Leicester from a goal kick start building and one of the CDM's goes for a ball to one of the wingers, which gets cut out by Milenkovic. The opposition then go direct and try to counter as fast as possible, which is exactly how Forest play.

 

 

^ In this example, because the right back moves so far upfield and Buonanotte drifts in centrally, on the counter, Fatawu gets 2 on 1's, meaning Faes has to step over. That makes a gap behind him, which can be exploited. Fulham's Iwobi scored a goal very similar to this earlier in the season.

 

 

^ In this example, Ricardo is in the team. This time round, because he covers the RB position when in the defensive phase, he can get back to help out on the wings, wheres Buonanotte can stay central. In this case, because we aren't overrun, I suggest that Ricardo wins the ball back and sets Fatawu on his way, who goes for a trademark long shot by cutting in. You can even see that in this example, Buonanotte makes the trademark "half space run" to drag players out of position to help Fatawu have more room to cut in.

 

 

Now both these examples are totally imaginary and do involve some "Disneyland" scenarios. but hopefully they go some way to help explain the problem with Cooper's system, and why so many goals have come down our right hand side (the opposition's left) this season. It's the system not the player!

As regards the comparison; was Enzo particularly effective at protecting the RB slot? I thought we were wide open in that position for all of the season, and were being frequently punished for it by the second half of the campaign. Surely that's part of the reason why we don't play Ricardo as an inverted full back anymore, regardless of whether this area of the field remains a weakness.

 

Now I do agree that it remains a part of the pitch where we're vulnerable, but not that we were fine beforehand. In addition, I'd grant you that we need to tweak something in this area before Friday.

 

Even so, some of our problems down there are down to poor defending by Justin (and others), as opposed purely to a flawed system. And you also have to look at the parts of the pitch where this change has enabled us to be stronger. Not every vulnerability is down to tactical ineptitude.

[StriderHiryu]

16 minutes ago, inckley fox said:

As regards the comparison; was Enzo particularly effective at protecting the RB slot? I thought we were wide open in that position for all of the season, and were being frequently punished for it by the second half of the campaign. Surely that's part of the reason why we don't play Ricardo as an inverted full back anymore, regardless of whether this area of the field remains a weakness.

 

Now I do agree that it remains a part of the pitch where we're vulnerable, but not that we were fine beforehand. In addition, I'd grant you that we need to tweak something in this area before Friday.

 

Even so, some of our problems down there are down to poor defending by Justin (and others), as opposed purely to a flawed system. And you also have to look at the parts of the pitch where this change has enabled us to be stronger. Not every vulnerability is down to tactical ineptitude.

Very fair points.

 

I think we are more vulnerable this season compared to last, but yes it was also an issue last season. To try to compenstate Enzo would:

• Change which full back position Ricardo would invert from based on the wingers we were up against
• Change Faes or Justin around so Justin was on the side with the faster winger
• Instigated a more aggressive 5 man press when losing the ball high up the field
• Instructed players to make more tactical fouls on the turnover

Despite all that, playing with a 325 shape inherently is less stable than a 4231. Look at Forest on Friday. They don't create much because they don't try to generate a player superiority high up the pitch, but equally, they don't give away so many because there are men back in key positions even on transition.

 

Football is always evolving, so what works today might not work later in the season.

[Chrysalis]

On 21/10/2024 at 12:49, pmcla26 said:

If he was pragmatic then he would have adapted his style of play and coaching methods to resemble what we were doing last season, rather than signing below average players like Reid and Ayew to try force his way to work. 

Pragmatic is adjusting to do what you need to do to get results, not adjusting to a single style of play used in every game to suit the owner and some fans.

 

We dont have the squad for it and there is far too much evidence to show it wouldnt work in the EPL, maybe you prefer to watch a style of football you want and getting relegated in the progress.

What is more important to you, a style you like to watch or results?

[Chrysalis]

On 21/10/2024 at 13:09, Finnegan said:

 

No they don't. This is nonsense on several different levels. There are clubs doing well in almost every country that haven't spent billions building their squad but have an identity.

 

You can also look at it another way and look at how Enzo got a tune out of Ndidi, Hamza, KDH and co' playing his brand of football just with good coaching when plenty of people said they weren't technically gifted enough to pull it off. 

 

 

Southampton and Burnley had and have poor squads. Our squad was better last year in the Championship than Burnley's was in the Premier League. On top of that, Russell Martin is a distinctly average manager that I wouldn't want here over Cooper. 

 

Brighton, Fulham, Bournemouth and Brentford have all gotten promoted and all found Premier League security by recruitment intelligently and playing progressive, confident football that is enjoyable to watch.

 

 

We have never played like Brighton, or Fulham or Brentford under Enzo.  They do pass the ball around, but Enzo didnt do it in the same way.  All of those teams play hybrid football, a mixture of direct to get it up the pitch, and then when needed pass it around if the team is tough to break down, when they do this its in the opposition's half.  Enzo we would have some quite slow buildups that started in front of our goal and left us vulnerable quite often, now granted it wasnt as bad as it had got under Rodgers, but it definitely wasnt the same football as those 3 clubs.

 

Also we didnt have the squad for it, and Enzo even himself told Top that when he was employed, he had to explain we couldnt play the way he wanted as we dont have the players for it, although he would try his best to make it as fancy as possible.

 

The only player we have that I think was ever truly comfortable under Enzo was Vestergaard.  Then a cog below Vesty we had Mads, Ricardo and Winks (two of those brought in for him, like how you point out we got Ayew for Cooper, yes buying players for your manager is not unusual).  When other players had the ball they were very visibly not as comfortable under the system.  Faes was ok but made the occasional howler from it.  KDH, and both wingers were much more suited to fast direct attacks.  Ndidi was moved forward to make him fit into a bit better.  One thing you have conveniently forgotten is we was playing a league below, most of our games early on the teams gave us too much respect, its much easier to pass the ball around with freedom when the opposition is too frit to challenge you.   The teams with more grit he struggled against, and some games we just appeared to change it up enough to get a win but only for him to disown the football afterwards.  Players needed their own meeting without the coaches to get us over the promotion line as well.

 

I do honestly think it would have been a disaster if we still had him as manager now, and its interesting he couldnt leave quick enough.  I think we would have conceded at least 5 more goals alone from over playing it at the back.

 

I am not saying we should never ever employ a manager like Enzo in the EPL, but I dont think your first season back up whilst under heavy spending constraints and a limited squad is the time to push for an ideological way of playing football.

I do respect there is people with the opinion they think our squad is very good and suited to it, and with this ideology we would be upper EPL or something, I just dont see it.  Remember we would not have anywhere near the space and would be pressed to death into making mistakes.

Your post saying the issue with those two teams are the squads reminds of the most common thing I read when the ideology doesnt work, in that its the tools that are the problem and not the system, which brings to my finishing point, exactly why we need a pragmatic manager, someone who doesnt moan about his tools and just gets on with using them in the best way.

Support the manager and team, be patient for another era to come that has the style you want, if we can stay in the EPL which is number one priority, when the day comes it has a higher chance of been sustainable when we have an EPL budget to build the squad.

Edited 22 October 2024 by Chrysalis

[Danizen]

The only way we'll fully take to him is if he gets us back in Europe or sells Ward to Celtic for £15m. 

 

Neither of those things is likely so the best case scenario for us and him is to keep us up and the old 'mutual' consent at the end of the season. 

 

We'd be in a position to build and Cooper would have a lot of sympathy in the media. This should get him 2-3 PL jobs over the next 5 years as someone who can avoid relegation and a safe pair of hands.

[Finnegan]

On 22/10/2024 at 21:44, StriderHiryu said:

You can see the pre match thread for more on this, but I want to try and explain visually the issue Cooper has with his system compared to Enzo's. A situation like this almost happened against Southampton on the weekend, and I am worried it will happen again on Friday.

 

 

 

I am going to use two examples. In both examples, we are going to imagine that Leicester from a goal kick start building and one of the CDM's goes for a ball to one of the wingers, which gets cut out by Milenkovic. The opposition then go direct and try to counter as fast as possible, which is exactly how Forest play.

 

 

^ In this example, because the right back moves so far upfield and Buonanotte drifts in centrally, on the counter, Fatawu gets 2 on 1's, meaning Faes has to step over. That makes a gap behind him, which can be exploited. Fulham's Iwobi scored a goal very similar to this earlier in the season.

 

 

^ In this example, Ricardo is in the team. This time round, because he covers the RB position when in the defensive phase, he can get back to help out on the wings, wheres Buonanotte can stay central. In this case, because we aren't overrun, I suggest that Ricardo wins the ball back and sets Fatawu on his way, who goes for a trademark long shot by cutting in. You can even see that in this example, Buonanotte makes the trademark "half space run" to drag players out of position to help Fatawu have more room to cut in.

 

 

Now both these examples are totally imaginary and do involve some "Disneyland" scenarios. but hopefully they go some way to help explain the problem with Cooper's system, and why so many goals have come down our right hand side (the opposition's left) this season. It's the system not the player!

 

Feeling nostalgic for Football Manager 2006 all of a sudden.

 

 

[bmt]

If we win on Friday I'm going to give Cooper the benefit of the doubt for a while. I think we've looked shocking for large periods of most games but 12 points in 9 would be a good return, and realistically that is what's most important this season.