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[Albion] Steve Cooper.









Ike and Tina Burner

Well-known member
Mar 22, 2019
573
He took Forest from bottom of the Championship to promotion. He then kept them up whilst working for an interfering owner. The Forest fans loved him and still think he should have been retained.
My main concern is that he isn’t a possession based coach.
He has been lauded as a very good man manager. Gets players motivated and working well as a team.
He is unfashionable at present but when you compare him to Kieran McKenna I see similar achievements.
Change Forest to Brighton, ignore the owner bit and you are literally describing Chris Hughton.
 








West Upper Seagull

Well-known member
Oct 31, 2003
1,538
Woodingdean
I don’t recall Forest having any identity in their style of football. I fear we are going to go backwards if he is appointed. Problem is - who else is there (on the basis Potter is not an option) ? At this point David Moyes sounds more appealing !

Call me cynical but if he is appointed I bet it is only a 2 year deal to make it cheaper to get rid if we’re struggling and better managers become available
 
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Hugo Rune

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Feb 23, 2012
23,300
Brighton
Decent manager, did a remarkable job quickly turning round the car crash Hughton left at Forest.

Would personally rather Potter but certainly not against this.
I’d prefer Potter too.

Which is a low bar.

I don’t want to see counter attacking football thanks. I had my fill under Hughton. You generally need world class talent to make it work in the Premier League. This would be profoundly uninspiring and put us back years.

Which is why of course, it’s never going to happen.

Surely, we all realise that the top secret plans of Barber and Bloom create a vacuum that lazy journos fill with this sort of BS?

The only names that have inspired me so far at McKenna and Gallardo. But there are probably another 1/2 dozen inspiring managers I’ve not heard of that are ahead of your Coopers or Potters.
 














peterward

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Nov 11, 2009
11,937
I don’t recall Forest having any identity in their style of football. I fear we are going to go backwards if he is appointed. Problem is - who else is there (on the basis Potter is not an option) ? At this point David Moyes sounds more appealing !

Call me cynical but if he is appointed I bet it is only a 2 year deal to make it cheaper to get rid if we’re struggling and better managers become available
They didnt.

Great guy, great man manager. Tactically wanting.
 


B-right-on

Living the dream
Apr 23, 2015
6,635
Shoreham Beaaaach

And before you laugh the sun is pretty good with footy stories

You do realise the irony of saying The Sun is pretty good with footie stories and then link to a 2 year old article about 4 man shortlist for Potters replacement and RDZ wasn't on the list yet he was the only one the club interviewed and was the top of the list.

Only goes to prove that the media know F all about what's going on.
 






Han Solo

Well-known member
May 25, 2024
1,706
Indeed.

No one sane replaces De Zerbi with Cooper.

Lol.
A lot of people, probably including Steve Cooper, would have had us play better football than we've done in 2024 and better results than we had in 23/24 while keeping a better relation with the club than the Grumpy Italian Bloke did.

Finding a better manager is no problem. Cooper is fine. His CV is impressive and he tix a lot of boxes. He gets results, players like him (the way you like a grown-up mature person, not the way you like a crazy clown), players develop under him and he has no fears playing younger players and won't beg Tony för a bunch of 25-30-year-olds that we're not signing under any circumstances.

The huge question mark is only his style of football, but its difficult to know if it has been a case of playing according to resources or if its just the way he wants it.

When he took over Swansea after Potter, he used his connections as a former England U17 manager and brought in a bunch of the best talent on loan: Guehi, Gallagher and Brewster were three of those who came in. While results were good, it was quite perplexing watching them play their deep defense-hoofball tactics. Future PL players put in a Championship system. But hey it worked rather well and Swansea ended up 6th which was probably slightly above what they should have with the squad.

The achivements in Nottingham Forest were fantastic of course. The squad he took over from Chris H was far from as bad Chris had it playing (which was the topic of a hot NSC debate), but it was still a massive thing to get them promoted after that start (1 point from first 7 games).
When they got up they did certainly back him up with some new signings. Too many actually. And finding the right mix of them to stay up in the end was a job well done.

Overall most things point at him being a very good coach. It could be interesting to see what he could do in a well-run club.
 


John Byrnes Mullet

Global Circumnavigator
Oct 4, 2004
1,258
Brighton
I think he would be a great Manager for us. He loves developing young players and will be happy to play good passing football and he speaks with passion about his team and players. Maybe not a step up from Di Zerbi but are we really a bigger team than Forest and Ipswich? We were lucky to have a Manager of Di Zerbi's calibre. We might never have a Manager like that again. Also not as good looking as RDZ.😀
 


Flounce

Well-known member
Nov 15, 2006
3,312
Poyet to Hyypia
RDZ to Cooper

Is this to be another marking time season as we recover from a thrilling and charismatic Latino messy ending? RDZ’s departure may have been handled much better but the end of last season was pretty messy.

I guess we all knew the trajectory would slow down and then go into reverse again for a while at some time.

I think “ uninspiring” covers it but it seems the succession planning may have come up against a lack of realistic and available top class managers

Really hoping it’s not true though and Gallardo is the under the radar target
 
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