I don't think Spurs are remotely good enough to challenge.
I don't know if Forest are good enough to stay up.
I don't know if Cooper is capable of turning this squad into a team that can.
1 win in 13 games though. Not many managers survive that.
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I don't think we got torn apart. There was lots of huffing and puffing in midfield from both teams, but they had the quality to create and score a couple of goals and we didn't. The thing is, scoring against Spurs isn't (relatively speaking) all that difficult - they've conceded the most goals of any team in the European places - but we never really looked like doing it, bar a couple of scrambles at the end.
We know one way of playing effectively which is to use our pace to score on the counter, but absent Taiwo and Brennan we can't even do that any more. We are a demonstrably worse team than we were last season because the manager has failed to turn some very expensive new signings into the bedrock of a team that can win in a different way. It remains to be seen whether that's their fault or his, but I suspect we're about to find out.
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I'm fed up of our shit football. Unfortunately I don't think a different manager / head coach will stop us playing shit football.
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Would be my take. It's going to get very interesting if the next coach through the door - which seems close now - doesn't hit the ground running. Binning Cooper is obviously a big call for a number of reasons, but getting the recruitment wrong at this point could be catastrophic.
And I'd have little confidence in the strategic nature of the decision-making. I'm not sure it's any more nuanced than stepping up the roulette table again and spinning the wheel.
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Why? Fletcher made a very good argument this week on that new podcast that in fact Marinakis has been an excellent owner - committed, strategic and loyal - and that maybe we should be placing rather more faith in him than we have, rather than just perpetuating this Cult Of Steve (I'm paraphrasing, he didn't put it quite like that).
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There are two parts to that argument though. It’s certainly fair that his penchant for sacking managers quickly has been held in check where Cooper is concerned. And he’s definitely generous. But would you have any confidence in him choosing the right man next time? I wouldn’t. Look at how we go through administrative staff. And players.
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I don't really understand that argument. "We shouldn't fire the manager the owner hired that I really like and who did a really a good job of getting us into the Premier League, because I don't trust the owner to hire a manager I'll like and who will do a good job."
After 17 games last season our record was W3 D5 L9 GD -22.
After 17 games this season our record is W3 D5 L9 -13.
We are not progressing. At all.
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Karanka, O'Neill, Lamouchi, Hughton, Cooper - I'm struggling to see the strategy there as we lurched from one to the next (each completely different in style and philosophy to the last).
Well-run clubs tend to recruit players well and then have a clear identity in terms of the fella brought in to coach them - you can usually see some clarity and similarities when they recruit. I might be blind to it, but don't see the same thing here.
I think it's as simple as we got incredibly lucky with Cooper, rather than it being a clever appointment driven by smart research.
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Did anyone else see a committed performance against a genuine top 4 contender this evening? No? Only me then. Carry on.
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All five of those managers fundamentally based their play on a solid defence and counterattacking football.
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Yes, I saw a committed performance, but that isn't enough.
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It was committed but hugely limited, as in a Championship club having having a go in a cup game against top-end Premier League opposition.
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Lamouchi was a really good left field appointment that had the team doing well until the wheels fell off as a result of the lockdowns. Hughton made a ton of sense at the time, and there were still people defending him when the owner replaced him with Cooper. I don't think the owner has done a bad job at all of identifying and hiring managers, other than the lazy sop to the fans which was Martin O'Dinosaur.
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100% agree. When a contender for MOTM was Ryan Yates for spending 90 minutes kicking people, you know we aren't playing Premier League football.
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I'm not excusing recruitment, BTW. We've managed to spend a ton of money to have significantly worse keepers than we had in the Championship, never mind last year, and it's inexcusable that we're so dependent on one injury prone striker worthy of the job title in the top flight.
