Forest v Luton, October 21st 3pm

Yeah me and Thomas Tuchel, old Dead Legs got his 9th on the season on Saturday. If you can keep them coming at the rate he keeps the goals coming you'll be impressive.

Maybe and it's not an uninteresting thing to have put together so fair play to you, but it's plain to me looking at the whole picture and how we are performing on the pitch that we are much a better team than this time last year.

Sure it's not perfect but it's just an interesting (to me and @Jake apparently) and objective way of comparing how we are doing to last season. Seems more meaningful to me than just looking at the first 9 from each season (the home games have been easier this season, the away games harder - does that even out? maybe) but clearly not everyone will agree.

No science or stats behind this but for me the Burnley and Luton home games are analogous to the Fulham and Bournemouth home games. Similar time in the cycle, new players still learning to play together, we start well and the blow it. Only this season we draw rather than lose and overall looked the superior side. So that's for me an uplift in results and performance.

Not for the last 15 mins on Sat we weren't.

They aren’t for me as Bournemouth and Fulham comfortably stayed up. Burnley and Luton won’t.

That remains to be seen.Bournemouth didn't look like they were going to comfortably stay up at that stage, and Burnley I think are actually not a bad side at all. But point taken.

I don't know about "shouldn't", but we could very easily have lost that. But for some profligate finishing from them we could very easily have been 2-0 down and not 2-0 up. On every level tactically we were out thought and out played by an inferior team, long before the substitutions happened. That was easily our (and Cooper's) worst performance of the season, and possibly since promotion - I can live with getting smacked around away from home by teams that are supposed to smack us around, but we have to do the same when we're the superior team and we failed miserably to do so. We were one dimensional, tactically naive, inflexible, and allowed, or worse chose, our best players to be spectators.

If it was a one off then I'd be grumpy for a bit and move on, but we did the same against Burnley and Brentford and it is concerning that we don't seem to know how to exert our superiority when we have it. I hear the argument about us having to transition from being a counterattacking team but this isn't a bunch of 12 year olds, this is a group of hugely expensive, hugely well paid professionals who have been successful at every level they've ever played at. It isn't really an excuse.

I will happily give up the odd plucky away win in exchange for winning the games we're supposed to be winning. We are a quarter of the way through the season and we have already dropped more points we should have taken than gained points we shouldn't have. There is reasonable cause for concern.

I find this perspective comforting as, unless I'm mistaken, this is the same brain that wrote off Awoniyi after 4 games, Wood after a couple and thought after we signed Lewis O'brien we wouldn't have need for any more central midfielders. The only thing he has been right about ever is Emmanuel Dennis.

I would be worried about the owners thinking it though, had they not done what they did last season and backed Cooper when the chips were down. The chips are not even down at the moment though, they are still potatoes and only half peeled.

We're almost starting again though this season so it's similar to last year, only we have betterer players but seemingly less goodwill and no plucky underdog story to get behind. Talent is surely a net gain but depends how long you are willing to trust the process for. I thought when it was going to shit last year he had enough stock to be given until this Christmas, if we went down we had to be up there, if we stayed up we needed to show some progress. 15th and above is what I'd consider progress for his position to be defendable to your average mong. That said I'm smarter than your average mong so I'd give him a 10 year contract because he a winner and so am I.

Hold your horses there, I didn't say anything about replacing the manager and I have zero interest in doing so. It is entirely possible to be concerned about the way things are going currently while also believing that the current manager can and will correct it, just as he has previously.

Horses held, as I'm sure you are aware you must hold a polemic position in the premiership (either sack or wank off) based on no more than the last 3 results. Just looking to make the point that there is a disconnect between this season and last season, similar to the last off season, that deserves a bit of slack. We're still picking up points, even if we should be picking up more.

This.

One should be able criticise Cooper without it being seen as (a) heresy or (b) wanting him sacked. I wouldn’t mid him saying now and again “I fucked that up” but he uses the royal “we” and talks a lot about the “process” which I find irritating. Similarly, our injury situation appears to be on a similar trajectory to last year which is really frustrating.

However, there is absolutely no way I want him gone. I hope our fan base does not get Charlton-Curbishley syndrome. 12-15th is absolutely fine by me. No drama.

To be fair, a lot of football managers use the royal "we" and talk a lot about the "process". I suspect they use the same media coach.

But I take your point entirely. We should be able to criticise Cooper when he makes mistakes, as I think he did on Saturday, without that equating to calling for his head. It was a poor result, but we are nowhere near 'sack the manager' territory.

It doesn't take long though for this to creep into that. He makes mistakes like everyone does but that doesn't mean he's not still an outstanding coach who has given us the most we have had to be cheery about in 20 years.

I don't quite buy the seemingly accepted FACT that Taiwo would have scored at least a hat-trick against Luton.

We were the better side. We had two defensive howlers. These things happen. I don't think Cooper did anything wrong at all. I personally blame Russ for his bland Match Thread title. It was always going to end in disappointment. We all need to up our game. Such is life.

Chicago: Listening to Harvey Danger.

You're not sick but you're not well.

Oh, well done indeed. [chapeau]