Ruud van Nistelrooy - New Manager - Official

[Dan]

1 hour ago, trooky said:

You can't build a case for either of Cifuentes or Rowett either, so why waste compensation on RVN and Cifuentes when we don't have the money.

 

That's my case for keeping RvN and we would also of had a proper pre-season schedule instead of wasting it. 

 

Just one of the many ridiculous decisions by Topkin. 

Their consistency in getting it wrong and seemingly downgrading every time they change manager, or sign / sell a player is barely believable. It really is a once in a generation level of incompetence.

[HarryTheGenie]

5 hours ago, Guesty said:

I never said Cooper was great, but he was better than RvN. Mad's performances did bail him out somewhat. But look at his results compared to RvN's. It's not revisionism, it's reality.

 

The only thing people really hammer him for now is transfers. It seems out of our last few managers - he was the only one who controlled our transfers. None of our other managers get blamed for transfers - we blame Rudkin. But for Cooper we make an exception.

 

He probably just said we need experience. Which was correct. Then all Rudkin could find/offer him was that bunch of s**t. 

Nail meet head.

[Foxin_Mad]

2 hours ago, SafewayFox said:

Ignore this post as a duplicate.

 

But my point still remains, Cooper set us back more than any other recent managers.

I think Cifuentes has set us back more than any manager in the past 20 years, to league 1

 

2 hours ago, TommyK said:

One thing you can say about Cifuentes is that he was at least looking towards the future. Numerous young players had there chance under him and he was weeding out the shit like Faes and Winks.  Under Rowett all those "experienced professionals" are back in the team. 

I don’t think he was particularly. He was playing older players where he could, some of his random selections probably damaged the development of the young players

[The Doctor]

he was shit. I have a small degree of sympathy given the stuff that came out late last year about the players refusing to do anything as basic as strength and conditioning training, and I respect that he tried to drive some of them out of the club, but while I will at this point tolerate a below average manager who bullies this squad of pricks out of the club, below average is a pipe dream he can only aspire to 

[funkyrobot]

6 hours ago, Foxin_Mad said:

There’s quite a lot of evidence he was better than Cifuentes, I mean a clown from a local clown show would be. RVN won a trophy in Holland what the **** has Cifuentes done? Even QPR fans thought he was wank. 

I’m talking about this club mate. RVN’s time in charge at the club was abject and hopeless. At LCFC there’s no evidence that RVN is, as you state ‘150 times better than Cifuentes.’ Neither are great but RVN was at least as bad if not worse.

Edited 12 April by funkyrobot

[dmayne7]

3 hours ago, Foxin_Mad said:

I think Cifuentes has set us back more than any manager in the past 20 years, to league 1

 

I don’t think he was particularly. He was playing older players where he could, some of his random selections probably damaged the development of the young players

Brendan Rodgers. Not even a question 

[Foxin_Mad]

7 hours ago, funkyrobot said:

I’m talking about this club mate. RVN’s time in charge at the club was abject and hopeless. At LCFC there’s no evidence that RVN is, as you state ‘150 times better than Cifuentes.’ Neither are great but RVN was at least as bad if not worse.

There is evidence really Cifuentes is and was a shit ****. Basically he has failed in this division, RVN failed in the Premier League, 2 totally different kettles of fish. Any manager with half a bean of managerial skill should have been able to secure a mid table finish not set a track for relegation. I know some clown will come out with some stat about him getting 1.3 pts a game and that means we’d be plus 5/6 points or whatever. I don’t really care about the stats, watching the games he was beyond lucky to win the game he did. Cifuentes was a first rate fraud and clown, if we want stats we were in the bottom 3 for running, pressing, tackling stats all season, which shows direction of travel under him. 

Edited 13 April by Foxin_Mad

[GraceRoader]

On 12/04/2026 at 18:34, SafewayFox said:

Ignore this post as a duplicate.

 

But my point still remains, Cooper set us back more than any other recent managers.

You need to show your working out here. He was here for 5 minutes, the football wasn't great, I get that but he had a very limited squad out of the relegation spots in the prem. We have been in absolute free fall since the moment he left. With hindsight I'm not sure hounding him out on account of his previous employers was our collective finest hour.

[SafewayFox]

6 hours ago, GraceRoader said:

You need to show your working out here. He was here for 5 minutes, the football wasn't great, I get that but he had a very limited squad out of the relegation spots in the prem. We have been in absolute free fall since the moment he left. With hindsight I'm not sure hounding him out on account of his previous employers was our collective finest hour.

I love how you ignored my other posts about Cooper but here we go.

 

We have proven to be lazy in almost every aspect of the game/business.

 

This can be reflected in us signing players based on agent or manager recommendations.

 

Examples of this - Jannik has said that Rodgers personally reached out to him, there are probably countless more (Bertrand had links to his son from memory).

We were only looking at Sensi due to Enzo.

So on that basis, it’s fair to say that Ayew and Skipp (nearly half our budget) with zero resale value were down to the clueless Cooper.

 

Hence why I say that he has hurt us longer term to Ruud, Marti and Rowett.

[winteriscoming]

17 defeats out of 19. 
9 consecutive home games without scoring. 
A dreadful clueless manager. 
Yes definitely criticise those above him but was another awful appointment. 

[Dmitry]

2 minutes ago, winteriscoming said:

17 defeats out of 19. 
9 consecutive home games without scoring. 
A dreadful clueless manager. 
Yes definitely criticise those above him but was another awful appointment. 

In all fairness to him, we were in the PL, a much stronger league than this one; but he was a shitty manager, to be sure. No doubt about that, he was awful. Should’ve stuck with Cooper; were above relegation when he was let go, finishes in disaster with RVN. Another shrewd move by the Chairman and his Board.

Edited 15 April by Dmitry

[winteriscoming]

5 minutes ago, Dmitry said:

In all fairness to him, we were in the PL, a much stronger league than this one; but he was a shitty manager, to be sure. No doubt about that, he was awful. Should’ve stuck with Cooper; were above relegation when he was let go, finishes in disaster with RVN. Another shrewd move by the Chairman and his Board.

Getting rid of Cooper was 100% the right decision. 
They got the replacement completely wrong. 
There were a lot better options available at the time who we should have got. 

[Dmitry]

1 minute ago, winteriscoming said:

Getting rid of Cooper was 100% the right decision. 
They got the replacement completely wrong. 
There were a lot better options available at the time who we should have got. 

It’s all water under the bridge, but Cooper had better stats than RVN. As we now know for sure, this group of players is not only weak, but also rotten. It’s is certainly very upsetting to see what has happened to us…

[GraceRoader]

33 minutes ago, SafewayFox said:

I love how you ignored my other posts about Cooper but here we go.

 

We have proven to be lazy in almost every aspect of the game/business.

 

This can be reflected in us signing players based on agent or manager recommendations.

 

Examples of this - Jannik has said that Rodgers personally reached out to him, there are probably countless more (Bertrand had links to his son from memory).

We were only looking at Sensi due to Enzo.

So on that basis, it’s fair to say that Ayew and Skipp (nearly half our budget) with zero resale value were down to the clueless Cooper.

 

Hence why I say that he has hurt us longer term to Ruud, Marti and Rowett.

Skipp is 25. They cost about 25m between them. Pretty poor signings I agree. We are reportedly 200m in debt and facing extinction if we are relegated. No matter how much you hate Cooper our current disastrous situation is not on him.

[SafewayFox]

4 minutes ago, GraceRoader said:

Skipp is 25. They cost about 25m between them. Pretty poor signings I agree. We are reportedly 200m in debt and facing extinction if we are relegated. No matter how much you hate Cooper our current disastrous situation is not on him.

I hate that there from a select few seem to have a very odd revisionist view of Cooper.

 

We had a nucleus of a squad that could have performed much better, a like for like replacement for KDH was the obvious option but Cooper lumbered us with some of the worst transfers possible.

 

We haven’t been able to spend money since, so the last manager to have a sizeable budget was him…hence my dislike of his short time here.

[Langston]

36 minutes ago, Dmitry said:

It’s all water under the bridge, but Cooper had better stats than RVN. As we now know for sure, this group of players is not only weak, but also rotten. It’s is certainly very upsetting to see what has happened to us…

 

Both terrible but RvN actually got more points from corresponding games against sides Cooper managed us against.. Cooper was terrible and it was blind luck and Mads Hermansen keeping us out of the bottom 3..

[honeybradger]

As bad as this season has been, for me I have never felt lower about the club than the days we signed Ayew and Skipp. 

 

For Cooper's involvement in that alone I will always consider him to be worse than RVN, Cifuentes etc.

Edited 15 April by honeybradger

[winteriscoming]

Cooper’s whole game plan if you can call it that was to get to 60 mins level and then have a go. 
Absolutely dreadful manager who luckily had 2 games against Southampton and Ipswich where he managed to get 4 points. 
His obsession with experience has cost us massively no more so in wasting 30m+ on Ayew and Skipp. 
And yet we wouldn’t pay 8m compensation for Corberan. 

Beyond baffling. 
 

[Tommy G]

Things are so desperate we are going back to sniping about how shit RVN was 

[Clogger_]

1 hour ago, GraceRoader said:

Skipp is 25. They cost about 25m between them. Pretty poor signings I agree. We are reportedly 200m in debt and facing extinction if we are relegated. No matter how much you hate Cooper our current disastrous situation is not on him.

This is completely wrong. Cooper's splurge on garbage wrecked our one chance of kicking on. Long contracts and exorbitant fees set us back years: we will suffer the consequences into the future. Tactically *clueless* to the extent it was absolutely obvious from pre-season! A disastrous appointment - one of our very worst.

 

Any results we cobbled together under Cooper were pure fluke. We can look to stats for evidence if we're determined to ignore what nearly everyone could see!

 

Crikey, even Top and Rudders knew he was sh1t!

 

You repeatedly bring up Forest as the reason fans turned against him. Demonstrable rubbish. Do you rate Wes Morgan? We all do!

 

What's he up to nowadays?

Edited 15 April by Clogger_

[Raj]

Why we wasting time on this pr1ck still?

[Wymsey]

7 minutes ago, Raj said:

Why we wasting time on this pr1ck still?

Need a striker of his ilk.

[Guesty]

2 hours ago, SafewayFox said:

I hate that there from a select few seem to have a very odd revisionist view of Cooper.

 

We had a nucleus of a squad that could have performed much better, a like for like replacement for KDH was the obvious option but Cooper lumbered us with some of the worst transfers possible.

 

We haven’t been able to spend money since, so the last manager to have a sizeable budget was him…hence my dislike of his short time here.

I don't think anyone is revising Cooper's time here. No one is saying he was a good manager. They're just saying RvN was worse.

 

We set an English league top flight record for consecutive home games lost without scoring under RvN. That record had stood for over a 130 years. That's how bad RvN was. Even under Cooper's turgid football we were more competitive. That isn't revisionism, it's reality. 

 

If you blame Cooper solely for the transfers, then he's a much worse manager. But everything I've read/heard said that under Rodgers the board realised they could't allow a manager that much power anymore. Which is why Rodgers never got the rebuild he publicly cried out for. We sold Kasper and didn't replace him - just thought Danny Ward would do.

 

We signed Coulibaly in January of last season on a 4 and half year deal - and clearly RvN didn't want him cause he didn't play him. We spent a big loan fee and wages on Odsonne Edourd and no one played him. Enzo rarely played Conor Coady despite us spending £7.5 million on him. In January of this season we got Joe Aribo on loan on big wages and we haven't played him. I could go on and on. Our recruitment team clearly get players our managers don't ask for. 

 

The fact managers are blamed for our inept recruitment is probably one of the reasons why we now appoint the likes of Cooper, RvN, Marti and Rowett. No one with any common sense or a good track-record is coming here and taking the blame for Rudkin's disastrous recruitment mistakes anymore. 

[coolhandfox]

Like choosing between drinking dog piss or cat piss.

 

RvN, Cooper, Marti, Rowett have all been dog shit.

[SafewayFox]

1 hour ago, Guesty said:

I don't think anyone is revising Cooper's time here. No one is saying he was a good manager. They're just saying RvN was worse.

 

We set an English league top flight record for consecutive home games lost without scoring under RvN. That record had stood for over a 130 years. That's how bad RvN was. Even under Cooper's turgid football we were more competitive. That isn't revisionism, it's reality. 

 

If you blame Cooper solely for the transfers, then he's a much worse manager. But everything I've read/heard said that under Rodgers the board realised they could't allow a manager that much power anymore. Which is why Rodgers never got the rebuild he publicly cried out for. We sold Kasper and didn't replace him - just thought Danny Ward would do.

 

We signed Coulibaly in January of last season on a 4 and half year deal - and clearly RvN didn't want him cause he didn't play him. We spent a big loan fee and wages on Odsonne Edourd and no one played him. Enzo rarely played Conor Coady despite us spending £7.5 million on him. In January of this season we got Joe Aribo on loan on big wages and we haven't played him. I could go on and on. Our recruitment team clearly get players our managers don't ask for. 

 

The fact managers are blamed for our inept recruitment is probably one of the reasons why we now appoint the likes of Cooper, RvN, Marti and Rowett. No one with any common sense or a good track-record is coming here and taking the blame for Rudkin's disastrous recruitment mistakes anymore. 

We’re on the same page about agreeing that they’ve all been awful since Enzo.

 

Yet you’re wildly missing my point, Enzo wanted Sensi, that was NOT an agent or club signing.

 

Cooper was heavily involved in Ayew and Skipp (potentially Reid too), that’s £30m and HUGE wages on 3 players with zero re-sale value/honking attitudes (especially in Ayew).

 

Sunderland on the other hand signed Sadiki and Brobbey for a similar amount.

 

I know which two players that I’d prefer to have in my squad.