Stevie Cooper

[SeaSeaSeaSider]

Bournemouth had a 200 million pound squad before going up. Changed manager early because Parker was to defensive, new owner came in and spent 105 million on players in January. Still those things don't guarantee success and it has been the effort they have attacked every game with and kept the ball well which has improved their chances.

Errr £200 million??  No way, nowhere near that.  The rest is spot on.

[ozzyten10]

Their recruitment in jan was better than ours - interestingly a couple were on the radar of our previous recruitment team…

[ozzyten10]

I’m very surprised Cooper is still here. I’m not going to be reactionary to Saturday but coopers way of working for whatever reason is to come up with a plan and stick to it each game. It was clear to me that on 55 minutes we needed a formation change and personnel change to 4231 or 451 / 4231 to try and match up Man U better.
If you listen to pundits and watch other teams in the bottom half - very few leave as many players up the field like we do. It stretches the field and gives teams room to play. MGW was awful and Brennan well marshalled by Man Utd - a compliment to him that they put Dalot on him as he is their fastest defender.
Cooper has had a bad hand this year - not all the clubs own making. EM couldn’t have given more finance to throw at it but to gel the team and learn and develop on the job was always going to be a tall order.
We are still clinging on by our finger nails and there may be a few twists and turns to come but fear that we are done. Some players are really showing they care - Filipe for instance has been immense. It’s just too much to bed in the amount of players new to the league.
Aurier has been a miss - but Williams did show he was bought as a Right wing back. Richards may have been a better fit to the system too but we will never know.

[Reds73]

I think Coops will be replaced this summer even if we stay up.
It seems strained the relationship between Coops and the hierarchy, Ross Wilson being bought in, the Jan signings were largely influenced by Coops.

No point what so ever making a change before the summer, but I don’t think EM trusts Coops to do things much better should we defy the odds and stay up.

[wassy04]

I think Coops will be replaced this summer even if we stay up.
It seems strained the relationship between Coops and the hierarchy, Ross Wilson being bought in, the Jan signings were largely influenced by Coops.

No point what so ever making a change before the summer, but I don’t think EM trusts Coops to do things much better should we defy the odds and stay up.

If we stayed up and Cooper was then sacked it's not going to look good on the ownership and will certainly not be well received by the fanbase. Although having 3 months to forget would help that! I think it would be really tough for whoever comes in as they will be under way more pressure than Cooper and earlier as they won't have the fans backing.

That said, if you're going to make a change, end of season is correct. Plus if we stayed up and Copper left on a high, that would be a nice parting of ways. Although another downside is we don't get a payout when he definitely gets another job, probably in the Premier League or perhaps a Leicester/Southampton type.

[Salvatore Matrecano]

My instinct is that Steve will leave in the summer “by mutual consent”.

He gets to walk with his head high, did a magnificent job last season and gave his best this.
Marinakis keeps the fans onside as he won’t officially have sacked a legend.

[wassy04]

My instinct is that Steve will leave in the summer “by mutual consent”.

He gets to walk with his head high, did a magnificent job last season and gave his best this.
Marinakis keeps the fans onside as he won’t officially have sacked a legend.

Imagine you're probably right although PR management has not been a huge success for the owners.

I do think missing out on a fee and having to pay out Cooper's contract is an unnecessary financial cost. If he's desperate to change he should wait until someone else comes in. Maybe go for the old gardening leave option so we can still get a fee, like when we got Cooper from Swansea!

[Paplane]

I just don't see EM sacking Cooper either now or in the summer. He's had two really opportune moments to sack him now this season and chosen not to. Instead he's pulled the trigger on others who support him. At points the football's been dire, as have the results. More than enough ammo to justify a sacking. Unless there's a really outstanding candidate out there, which I doubt there would be, I'd say EM is willing to give Cooper the benefit of the doubt. I'm sure we'd all agree that we wouldn't be in this position now if we'd had a 'normal' level of injuries this season. If we can see it, I'm sure EM can too.

[Mcforest]

Got to wonder how coops never played Bade as looks a class act. Which then makes we wonder if coops can get the best out of these players, especially if you look at how well they play when away on international duty.

[Salvatore Matrecano]

Just put the same on the other thread.

The Internationals bit I don’t quite agree with though. Its easy to look good for your country when you are counting the goals against Latvia and Cyprus.

Man U being torn apart, their defence shocking, just annoyed we didn’t put more pressure on it at the weekend.

[Sniffer Dog (Admin)]

I think Coops will be replaced this summer even if we stay up.
It seems strained the relationship between Coops and the hierarchy, Ross Wilson being bought in, the Jan signings were largely influenced by Coops.

No point what so ever making a change before the summer, but I don’t think EM trusts Coops to do things much better should we defy the odds and stay up.

I think even more so if we stay up.

[Paplane]

People say he's a brilliant coach etc yet seem to want to ignore his away record thos season which is frankly up there (down there) with your Houghtons and the worst managers in our history.