Thoughts On The Next Nottingham Forest Manager

[wassy04]

I didn't say the list of players I mentioned would be regular starters for other sides. I said they would feature. I also said they had proved they were capable at a higher level. 

Henderson, Man Utd starter on occasion
Aurier, played for Villareal, PSG and Spurs
Freuler, international player who came from Serie A Atalanta.
Brennan & Williams, look good in the Wales side who are going to WC
MGW was taken out of the Wolves side when we signed him
Dennis scored 10 goals in the prem last season.

There's probably more, I cant be arsed to think about it. If your excuse for not wishing to consider the problem lies at Cooper's door is lack of talent then you need to reconsider.

I don't want you or the forum to think I'm an anti Cooper hater. I think he's an excellent coach. But, if the same things keep happening on the pitch over and over and we go back to leaking 3, 4 & 5 goals a game then I'm prepared to consider that, as much as we all love the guy, he might not actually be as good as what we think he is. I'm trying to keep an open mind. I thought he was bang on after the Leicester game when he decided to shut up shop and stop the rot.  And I'm praying that the Arsenal 'performance' was just a bad day and on Saturday we'll be back to being tight and looking dangerous as was the performance that beat Liverpool.

I feel like you really didn't read my post which is a shame. I wasn't saying we have a lack of talent, it was that the other teams around us are more talented. The point is all of the players you have listed are decent but the other teams have similar or in most cases better players. Two of the above are not even getting in our team! These are the better players too, the other half of the team wouldn't threaten our rivals teams. 

If you don't think think they would be regular starters for other teams how can you possibly conclude we have as good a team as those around us or better? And if our team is not as good as those around us then why would we be expected to finish above them?

There's more to it than our squad having less talent. We've been completely and utterly over-run in games, even by teams like Bournemouth and Fulham with whom we demonstrated last season we could challenge. I think you could also look at it in reverse. Would those players in the other prem sides you mention make us better? I suspect if you dropped them into our side then they'd also struggle, just as I think if you dropped a Freuler or Lodi into their sides they'd prosper. Why has pretty much every single player we signed in the summer failed? It can't be coincidence. You'd expect more than one or two to show signs by now of being half decent.

They've failed because they are average players at this level and the other players alongside them are below that so it is made more difficult. Perhaps with greater support in midfield MGW/Brennan/Lingard would look better for example.

Yes Semedo, Castagne, Cash would all improve us (as would Spence). Neves, JWP, Tielemans, Douglas Luiz, Lerma, Podence, Maddison, Barnes, Buendia, Watson would all definitely improve our team. Same as if we added Vardy, Solanke, Moore, Ings, (Leicester's backup strikers even). Our rivals have better teams than us. They all have a few players that would really improve our team and that's the problem. We don't have any standout players right now, we have some solid ones but that's it. 

Surely you can agree on paper we have the worst team in the league? That doesn't mean we will finish 20th or that we can't finish higher it just means the odds are a bit more stacked against us. 

We lost 3-2 to both Fulham and Bournemouth I'd hardly call that overrun. However both have better teams than us. Did we compete with them last year? We got battered 4-0 at home to Fulham and also lost both times to Bournemouth?

I'm enjoying debating with you Wassy and yes, I agree on paper we have have the worse team but isn't that normal for the team that wins the play offs? The club obviously realised that and that's why the big man got his cheque book out. But even so, I'd argue that with the additions we've made we should expect that the side ought to maybe be a bit closer to the level required. Just be a bit more competitive in games perhaps?. We've had one decent performance all season and even in that game we gave the opposition ample opportunities to beat us. Whatever way you look at it, be it poor recruitment, throwing away an established side, remaining players not be up to the required level, new player unfamiliarity, naïve formations, a lot (maybe not all) of these problems lead right back to Cooper. I'd love him to put us on a brilliant display on Saturday and if he does, and he proves that Arsenal was merely a set-back on the longer road to improvement, then I'll be his biggest fan. But if we get another bad game then I think he's done.

And re Fulham and Bournemouth, have you forgotten how these teams beat us this season? We were 2-0 up against Bournemouth at HT but were lucky to be so at the time. The performance wasn't good at all despite the scroreline. Then second half we capitulated. And against Fulham we crumbled again and handed them the win. And re last season, for two thirds of the year we were better than Bournemouth and arguably the same with Fulham. We beat Fulham by the odd goal and lost to Bournemouth by a single goal. And interestingly in that Bournemouth game we came away thinking we'd conceded the game in the second half rather than them getting better. We were the better side 1st half. Familiar to this season maybe?

Likewise! You kind of making my point there, yes the odds were massively stacked against us due to being the playoff team, therefore to expect us to stay up would be optimistic. We have been competitive in all games since Leicester apart from Arsenal. I'd say we deserved to beat Liverpool (lets not forget we missed what 3 one on ones), we were the better team against Villa IMO, not so much in the other games but they were only narrow defeats or draws. I do agree that we could be more competitive, that's probably what separates us from Bournemouth/Southampton right now.

Against Bournemouth I wouldn't say we were lucky to be 2-0, not saying we played great but on the other hand, we were comfortably better than them, they had no chances until that wonder goal went in. Fulham yes I agree, we played really well last year in that second game but did also get battered in the first game so it would be unfair to ignore the first one and just count the 2nd one! You're right both Bournemouth games were pretty similar, certainly Fulham were way more consistent than us last year, you don't win the league by that far without being easily the best team. Bournemouth are 100% our target, I'm hoping they will gradually fade while we continue to improve as the benefits from consistency of selection and players understanding improves.

For me the biggest disappointment and perhaps what's set us back is none of our players have really stepped up to say they should be playing at a team in midtable or higher than that. We've not really got a star whereas last year we obviously had a number of players that were leading the team ie Brennan, Spence, Worrall, McKenna, Garner. For us to stay up (and this is regardless of manager) we are going to need at least one of MGW, Brennan, Lingard, Taiwo, Freuler or maybe a Neco/Aurier to really raise their level to that of our rivals top players. That's the challenge, perhaps all it would take is a few bigs games for one of them to break out. So far only Yates has really put in a performance that would put him above other players in his position. Unless someone remembers otherwise?