• 19 Dec 2023, 8:16 a.m.

    Seems like it's going to be Nuno guy ex Wolves and Spurs fairly soon so Europe here we come!

  • 19 Dec 2023, 8:21 a.m.

    Gary Neville, interestingly, being a player who was consistently undervalued. Not as talented as his brother, they said, but he’s got a great attitude and made the most of his modest talent.

    Maybe he was actually very talented, smart, able to follow instructions and work with his teammates, able to read games and opponents better than most and that is why he never had to play for Everton.

  • 19 Dec 2023, 8:25 a.m.

    It was Elanga, not Yates.

  • 19 Dec 2023, 9:08 a.m.

    One of the reasons I won't be sad to see Cooper go is his game play. How many times have we lost after leading? We stop trying after scoring two goals. How many shots have we had after scoring two. Not many and I refuse to believe its down to the players on the pitch. Coopers mentality is to not concede rather than build on a lead. His style is ultra defensive. Of course his Cooper FC support will say he is playing to the players strengths. Frankly that's bollacks, the fact we went two up shows we can play if the players are given the freedom. Cooper has an obsession with low block and has said its his preferred style. Its awful to watch and every lead is on a knife edge. I cant recall one game we have won and dominated this or last season, the majority have been small wins and 80 minutes of back to the wall or beaten after leading.
    Cooper is a good championship manager with no idea how to compete against premier sides, ultra cautious with his teams set out not to concede rather than score. He doesnt play to players strengths and it really does seem he quickly alienates players.

  • 19 Dec 2023, 9:19 a.m.

    In that case we might as well just sim the games on Champ Manager and have done with it. Their best? Have a day off, it's not school sports day.

    Players application is influenced by a huge spectrum of factors, some of the important ones are based on immediate stimuli. If all this doesn't matter why were magnificent at home last season and utter gash away?

  • 19 Dec 2023, 9:49 a.m.

    Hearing rumblings that it's all done now. Whatever the ins and outs it's a sad day if so.

  • 19 Dec 2023, 9:55 a.m.

    www.theguardian.com/football/2023/dec/19/nuno-nottingham-forest-steve-cooper-sack

    Wonder why we've gone with the Mendes client?

  • 19 Dec 2023, 9:56 a.m.

    Obviously. I must be expressing myself badly if you think I’m suggesting otherwise.

    Nobody said it doesn’t matter. But, in line with what you said above, it isn’t everything.

    Were we shit away because we didn’t try hard enough? No. Were we successful at home due, in part, to the magnificence of the support? Yes. Is the modest deterioration in that support the reason we’re currently shit everywhere? No.

  • 19 Dec 2023, 10:15 a.m.

    Madri Power (TM) obviously isn't everything, but deriding it as insignificant because it's not refined or intellectual or sufficiently middle class or articulated well enough by basketball pundits for you is to ignore one of the most interesting aspects of team sport and leadership.

  • 19 Dec 2023, 10:23 a.m.

    Which is fine by me. Nottingham forest have signaled that they have every intention of being nothing resembling the club that I developed an interest in during the seventies. The fans, the real heartbeat of the club, are largely a lying bunch of hypocrites, with the attention span of a gnat, and the football intelligence of an old foot cranked singer sowing machine ( see Donny's contribution above ).

    If they want to appoint a manager, whose full name I find hard to remember, guided by the hand of an international syndicate for money transfer, and ultimately subject to the whims of a man who appears have no understanding of the club, or the league in which it plays it's football, and couldn't get through one of it's turnstiles, then so be it.

    For me football is about watching players. Watching what they can do. Seeing how they develop, what is asked of them, how their attributes are combined into effective units, by a good coach. There's been relatively fuck all of that for a long time. Unless you are into frothing at the mouth over results, and wanting better, this modern football doesn't have much to attach you to a club. Not even geography any more. I'm not Greek.

    It seems to me, unless one were to have a form of Stockholm syndrome, that they are signaling very clearly what they think of me, my expectations, and my values. And I'm going to listen to them.

  • 19 Dec 2023, 10:33 a.m.

    Who derided it as insignificant?

    Personally, somewhere in the mess of posts preceding this one, I clearly stated that it’s one of the things about the game that I actually feel I understand and appreciate.

  • 19 Dec 2023, 10:33 a.m.

    You seem surprised that something in 2023 is different to the 1970s.

  • 19 Dec 2023, 10:36 a.m.

    If it’s the end of SSC, then it’s a shit day indeed. Let the infighting begin. I will look back on this period of having a talented, decent manager where fans were supportive of the club and recognised as such as being the halcyon days for NFFC.

    Normal service can now be resumed

  • 19 Dec 2023, 10:37 a.m.

    I'm totally unsurprised. I just reluctantly accept that at this point there's nothing left that actually interests me.

  • 19 Dec 2023, 10:42 a.m.

    It's a cracking day to run a Forest message board for you then.