The Steve Cooper thread

[westside]

Didn't realise that Bmuff and Forest still got to play each other :shock:

 

[Fireboy]

I think there's a fair bit of revisionism about last year's playoff final. It seems pretty clear to me what his tactics were, which was to keep it tight against a better and more talented team and hope to shithouse our way to the win. I don't think we froze, it's just that they tore up the script by scoring (thanks to one of Woodman's less than clever decisions). I remember driving down to the game and discussing how they're either going to score first and win at a canter, or we'll get lucky. Sadly for us, it wasn't the latter. That wasn't a bottle job, it was pretty much his modus operandi at the business end of the season.

As for last summer, I pin that pretty much on the yanks. They could have let him leave after the final whistle, and everyone would have been happy enough. Pretty clear it was a gamble on receiving some compo. He was under contract, so the terms of departure could never be entirely his. How much it's hamstrung us this season is open for debate ... my earlier thoughts that its hampered us loads are tempered somewhat by Martin's inability to learn from mistakes. He's had long enough to shore up our defence after all, and he can't pin that on a lack of a pre-season. It probably did cost us a few points though, which is the difference between us being in the playoff mix or not.

He did a good job for us, and he's doing exactly the sort of job I thought he'd do at Forest, which has a better and deeper squad than we had last year (Ayew and Guehi aside). He's lucky Houghton made such a pig's ear of it.

But am I happy he left? Aye, absolutely. We'd lost our identity, and it wasn't much fun to watch. Given his Forest team are quite fun to watch, the fault there may not entirely be with him, but he certainly didn't help with it. For all Martin's faults, and there are quite a few, it's been much more fun this year and football should be fun.

A very good post, agree with you.

You did read that uxy said watching coopers team wasn't fun to watch whereas you said you enjoyed watching coopers teams

 

[Roger]

A very good post, agree with you.

Glad to see you agres with that Roger.
Assume you read the last part ". For all Martin's faults, and there are quite a few, it's been much more fun this year and football should be fun."
As on your post about Martin you stated you hope he wouldn't stay as you couldn't stand much more of this dross.
Must be very entertaining dross then, eh ?

No, I meant that you took your time to write a reasoned, thought provoking post.

This season to me has been boring. I hate our football. We’re shit in defence and don’t score enough goals apart from recent games.

Cooper had me excited for every game because I knew we’d challenge.

Russell is a chancer. He won’t be here this time next year mark my words.

 

[JackSomething]

This season to me has been boring. I hate our football. We’re s**t in defence and don’t score enough goals apart from recent games.

This season: 57 goals from 44 games so far
Last season: 56 goals
19/20: 62 goals

So more goals than last season already and not far off Cooper's first season.

The defence needs to improve no doubt and Martin's system gives the other team too many chances, but not scoring enough goals doesn't really make sense as a criticism, despite your little caveat at the end.

 

[Fireboy]

This season to me has been boring. I hate our football. We’re s**t in defence and don’t score enough goals apart from recent games.

This season: 57 goals from 44 games so far
Last season: 56 goals
19/20: 62 goals

So more goals than last season already and not far off Cooper's first season.

The defence needs to improve no doubt and Martin's system gives the other team too many chances, but not scoring enough goals doesn't really make sense as a criticism, despite your little caveat at the end.

Yet another reason that blows rodges argument out of the water.