Nuno Espirito Santo

[Tricky]

That article from the Mail was interesting, one how is he going to use/treat MGW. One of Cooper's two biggest failures this year (the other being the strange decision to build a team to play wing backs then abandon it), was the the decline of MGW and Cooper's tactical change definitely didn't help. I mean some of it is obviously on MGW for managing to get worse at shooting but he should've been playing centrally, I think most would agree. Was one of Cooper defining successes the previous year too along with Taiwo. So, will Nuno use him how he should be, hopefully he realises pretty quickly he has no choice due to lack of alternatives.

The fitness stuff is positive as has been a continued frustration for all, hopefully the extra staff will help with that although how much can you do mid season.

The small squad bit is interesting because you'd presume this article was signed off by the club so would suggest a change in strategy perhaps. I bet Cooper wishes he'd had less players getting angry on the sides.

Overall, underwhelmed based on his tactics which are basically exactly the same as Cooper's, I worry that will quickly be a stick for him to be beaten with. At both Spurs and Wolves he tried and failed to implement a more attacking approach in the same exact way Cooper also failed. I doubt I'd of been too excited whoever we appointed but if it was someone playing a high pressing type approach or a Mourinho style character maybe I could've been won round quicker. Feels like a stop gap type appointment who probably doesn't have a long leash with both ownership or fans.

Challenging role in all facets, I wish him luck and hope to be proved spectacularly wrong and that it was Cooper holding the club back all along. At least we already have the players to play wingbacks already, I'm interested to see if that's the way he goes.

Wassy, as someone who was I think equally frustrated as you at some of the treatment Cooper was getting leading up to his sacking, I am actually fully on board with Nuno and hopefully you will come to be too.

Have we got a Portuguese version of Cooper? In some ways yes and thats a good thing. From the article above his style of play may have evolved and even if it hasn’t he was pretty effective, playing in a similar way would make the transition easier. He has a good reputation for developing players and seems a decent honest character to boot.

The penny finally dropped for me reading DT’s article. The Cooper Marinakis marriage has been broken for a long time and to be honest Im not sure it ever clicked. For Marinakis, Cooper was basically a vehicle to get us in the PL and once there he was expendable. A but gutting for the fans for whom it was special but thats where we are at. Besides a marriage takes 2 to work and it wasn’t working for either side and bad results or good we were going to part ways soon.

Sniffer said something revealing too when discussing Glasner. Its an attitude thing I think that we would be best with a Spanish or Portuguese manager, they are simply going to get along and understand Marinakis better. Thats before you get to our links with Mendes and the recruitment model we have seem to have adopted.

Recruitment is a different argument and to be honest I would far prefer a scouting and analytics way over agent recommendation but again it EMs club and so be it. One challenge for Nuno is preferring a smaller squad which is music to my ears if for once we could go for quality over quantity in transfers it would save an awful lot of wasted money and FFP hits.

Anyway I have made my peace with the change and the next chapter starts.

Very good post once again Sal.

[Marco Polo]

Weird behaviour this week Marco Polo. Are you alright?

I'll have a pint of whatever Polo is drinking or a puff of whatever he is smoking.

It’s Christmas! The season of hope.

[wassy04]

That article from the Mail was interesting, one how is he going to use/treat MGW. One of Cooper's two biggest failures this year (the other being the strange decision to build a team to play wing backs then abandon it), was the the decline of MGW and Cooper's tactical change definitely didn't help. I mean some of it is obviously on MGW for managing to get worse at shooting but he should've been playing centrally, I think most would agree. Was one of Cooper defining successes the previous year too along with Taiwo. So, will Nuno use him how he should be, hopefully he realises pretty quickly he has no choice due to lack of alternatives.

The fitness stuff is positive as has been a continued frustration for all, hopefully the extra staff will help with that although how much can you do mid season.

The small squad bit is interesting because you'd presume this article was signed off by the club so would suggest a change in strategy perhaps. I bet Cooper wishes he'd had less players getting angry on the sides.

Overall, underwhelmed based on his tactics which are basically exactly the same as Cooper's, I worry that will quickly be a stick for him to be beaten with. At both Spurs and Wolves he tried and failed to implement a more attacking approach in the same exact way Cooper also failed. I doubt I'd of been too excited whoever we appointed but if it was someone playing a high pressing type approach or a Mourinho style character maybe I could've been won round quicker. Feels like a stop gap type appointment who probably doesn't have a long leash with both ownership or fans.

Challenging role in all facets, I wish him luck and hope to be proved spectacularly wrong and that it was Cooper holding the club back all along. At least we already have the players to play wingbacks already, I'm interested to see if that's the way he goes.

Wassy, as someone who was I think equally frustrated as you at some of the treatment Cooper was getting leading up to his sacking, I am actually fully on board with Nuno and hopefully you will come to be too.

Have we got a Portuguese version of Cooper? In some ways yes and thats a good thing. From the article above his style of play may have evolved and even if it hasn’t he was pretty effective, playing in a similar way would make the transition easier. He has a good reputation for developing players and seems a decent honest character to boot.

The penny finally dropped for me reading DT’s article. The Cooper Marinakis marriage has been broken for a long time and to be honest Im not sure it ever clicked. For Marinakis, Cooper was basically a vehicle to get us in the PL and once there he was expendable. A but gutting for the fans for whom it was special but thats where we are at. Besides a marriage takes 2 to work and it wasn’t working for either side and bad results or good we were going to part ways soon.

Sniffer said something revealing too when discussing Glasner. Its an attitude thing I think that we would be best with a Spanish or Portuguese manager, they are simply going to get along and understand Marinakis better. Thats before you get to our links with Mendes and the recruitment model we have seem to have adopted.

Recruitment is a different argument and to be honest I would far prefer a scouting and analytics way over agent recommendation but again it EMs club and so be it. One challenge for Nuno is preferring a smaller squad which is music to my ears if for once we could go for quality over quantity in transfers it would save an awful lot of wasted money and FFP hits.

Anyway I have made my peace with the change and the next chapter starts.

I can't disagree with anything you say. I fear it'll take me longer to make peace but we're all fickle fans, a few wins and my principles will probably go out of the window! The Spanish/Portuguese manager part is an interesting take and I think you're probably right there.

Anyway, I love Steve Cooper, so if we've got the Portuguese version that's nearly as good right? Right?

[ozzyten10]

It might work. Medes actually needs us as wolves have severed ties with him and his stable is ageing. To develop the next lot he needs a middling team in the prem that he can use to develop his next lot of clients.

[RyanR]

It might work. Medes actually needs us as wolves have severed ties with him and his stable is ageing. To develop the next lot he needs a middling team in the prem that he can use to develop his next lot of clients.

I had a look at his current clients and there aren't too many obvious candidates for transfers. Jota is desperate to leave Saudi, so he could be one, Gedson Fernandes (though we don't need any more CM's), Andre Silva would be good but he's already on loan and then the rest are either out of our reach like Ruben Dias or Darwin Nunez, or some younger low profile Portuguese players.

[ozzyten10]

Don’t believe transfer market- he basically owns many other subsidiary agencies

[ozzyten10]

Look at his clients agency history!

[Sniffer Dog (Admin)]

That article from the Mail was interesting, one how is he going to use/treat MGW. One of Cooper's two biggest failures this year (the other being the strange decision to build a team to play wing backs then abandon it), was the the decline of MGW and Cooper's tactical change definitely didn't help. I mean some of it is obviously on MGW for managing to get worse at shooting but he should've been playing centrally, I think most would agree. Was one of Cooper defining successes the previous year too along with Taiwo. So, will Nuno use him how he should be, hopefully he realises pretty quickly he has no choice due to lack of alternatives.

The fitness stuff is positive as has been a continued frustration for all, hopefully the extra staff will help with that although how much can you do mid season.

The small squad bit is interesting because you'd presume this article was signed off by the club so would suggest a change in strategy perhaps. I bet Cooper wishes he'd had less players getting angry on the sides.

Overall, underwhelmed based on his tactics which are basically exactly the same as Cooper's, I worry that will quickly be a stick for him to be beaten with. At both Spurs and Wolves he tried and failed to implement a more attacking approach in the same exact way Cooper also failed. I doubt I'd of been too excited whoever we appointed but if it was someone playing a high pressing type approach or a Mourinho style character maybe I could've been won round quicker. Feels like a stop gap type appointment who probably doesn't have a long leash with both ownership or fans.

Challenging role in all facets, I wish him luck and hope to be proved spectacularly wrong and that it was Cooper holding the club back all along. At least we already have the players to play wingbacks already, I'm interested to see if that's the way he goes.

Wassy, as someone who was I think equally frustrated as you at some of the treatment Cooper was getting leading up to his sacking, I am actually fully on board with Nuno and hopefully you will come to be too.

Have we got a Portuguese version of Cooper? In some ways yes and thats a good thing. From the article above his style of play may have evolved and even if it hasn’t he was pretty effective, playing in a similar way would make the transition easier. He has a good reputation for developing players and seems a decent honest character to boot.

The penny finally dropped for me reading DT’s article. The Cooper Marinakis marriage has been broken for a long time and to be honest Im not sure it ever clicked. For Marinakis, Cooper was basically a vehicle to get us in the PL and once there he was expendable. A but gutting for the fans for whom it was special but thats where we are at. Besides a marriage takes 2 to work and it wasn’t working for either side and bad results or good we were going to part ways soon.

Sniffer said something revealing too when discussing Glasner. Its an attitude thing I think that we would be best with a Spanish or Portuguese manager, they are simply going to get along and understand Marinakis better. Thats before you get to our links with Mendes and the recruitment model we have seem to have adopted.

Recruitment is a different argument and to be honest I would far prefer a scouting and analytics way over agent recommendation but again it EMs club and so be it. One challenge for Nuno is preferring a smaller squad which is music to my ears if for once we could go for quality over quantity in transfers it would save an awful lot of wasted money and FFP hits.

Anyway I have made my peace with the change and the next chapter starts.

Good post SM thank you.

I would just like to pick up on the sentence I have outlined above.

Antonio Cordon has his own scouting network led by Jose Ignacio Navarro and it also includes Cordon's son. We are scouting players particularly in South America and Iberia. Cordon is ahead of Mendes in EM's entourage but of course Mendes is involved too just that I believe Mendes answers to Cordon.

[Salvatore Matrecano]

Yes fair enough Sniffer, obviously the Mendes stable does its own scouting, they must all have something about them to join. My point was that I prefer us to to our own homework too about the type of player we need and whether they fit the club. Not suggesting we don’t do that as well but you have to admit we have had some pretty random choices rock up here in the last 6 years. I also don’t want us to set our scope so narrow that we only recruit from one pool, I hope Syrianos is still involved with his knowledge of Germany for example.
Final point, we have a Category 1 academy but I remain worried that the constant influx of players reduces opportunities for us to develop the next Johnson. Cooper was heavily involved with the academy, my concern with Nuno is that certainly at Wolves he reportedly never even watched their academy teams. I hope there is still a way for our homegrown talent to get to the first team. Classic example of this, MGW leaving Wolves because of lack of first team opportunities there, admittedly he was a lot younger and more raw when Nuno was there but you get the point.

[Username]

Yes fair enough Sniffer, obviously the Mendes stable does its own scouting, they must all have something about them to join. My point was that I prefer us to to our own homework too about the type of player we need and whether they fit the club. Not suggesting we don’t do that as well but you have to admit we have had some pretty random choices rock up here in the last 6 years. I also don’t want us to set our scope so narrow that we only recruit from one pool, I hope Syrianos is still involved with his knowledge of Germany for example.
Final point, we have a Category 1 academy but I remain worried that the constant influx of players reduces opportunities for us to develop the next Johnson. Cooper was heavily involved with the academy, my concern with Nuno is that certainly at Wolves he reportedly never even watched their academy teams. I hope there is still a way for our homegrown talent to get to the first team. Classic example of this, MGW leaving Wolves because of lack of first team opportunities there, admittedly he was a lot younger and more raw when Nuno was there but you get the point.

I don't know the actual answers to these questions but:

1. How many academy players did Cooper give a debut to in his time here? Bearing in mind that his tenure was certainly a lot higher than the average manager, and
2. I had read that Nuno likes a smaller squad and, as a result, and particularly at Wolves this led to him giving homegrown talent. Is that not true?

In view of the above then it suggests to me that Nuno is more likely, based on facts, to give homegrown talent an opportunity?

[Salvatore Matrecano]

1. Not sure we have sufficient talent in the academy to make a leap to first team football yet. I think he gave starts to Taylor, Osong, Konate and Donnelly? All were definitely involved with the forst team but I think most would accept they aren’t yet PL standard.

2. No idea. Who are the homegrown player Nuno developed at Wolves? By the way I wasn’t implying Nuno can’t improve players and younger players in the first team squad, just that he doesn’t bring them up from the academy.

[Tricky]

Very good and interesting debate Sal, Sniff and UN. A good read with no bias.

Well done guys.