by
Steve Cooper has never lost the fans and Nottingham Forest’s season is one that needs less flux and disruption, not more. For once, common sense prevails.
We’re not about to give them vast amouts of credit, because we suspect they stumbled upon it despite themselves and the fact they were (and likely will again) considering the pointless alternative at all.
But well done Nottingham Forest, because we can’t really see any positive to sacking Steve Cooper at this point. It’s true that not sacking their manager makes them something of an outlier in the current relegation bundle. There are nine teams scrapping around in an undignified bid to avoid the drop and the only other one who haven’t changed manager at least once is West Ham, where David Moyes continues to haunt the London Stadium like a very weary ghost.
We’re pretty sure West Ham would probably be better off if they had taken the plunge some months ago and wouldn’t even be entirely against them binning him now even though the moment has passed, but Forest feels like a very different situation.
Forest’s problems this season – and it’s worth remembering that despite a woeful current run their current position is one they would absolutely have taken in August – have been too much flux. West Ham’s have been borne of stasis and perhaps admirable but surely excessive loyalty to past endeavours.
The paraphrased Withnail & I line about Nottingham Forest getting promoted by mistake is undoubtedly an exaggeration, but there’s a kernel of something there. Certainly promotion wasn’t Steve Cooper’s top immediate task or target when he took over a side very much at the arse end of the Championship and looking downwards. Promotion was achieved both against the odds and with a squad begged, borrowed and scrimped. Upon finding themselves in the Premier League quite to their own enormous surprise as much as anyone else’s, Forest had little choice but to buy pretty much a whole new squad. They did so, and actually did a pretty good job of it all things considered. The less said about Jesse Lingard the better, but other than that…
Cooper was charged with bringing together this disparate band of strangers and newbies and turning them into a team while desperately trying not to get cut adrift in the most difficult football league on earth. That he did so was almost as extraordinary as that promotion campaign. Forest’s mistake was in repeating the summer trolley dash in January, when it all felt rather less necessary than it did in June and July.
The results speak for themselves. Between August and the end of January, a steady improvement as players and manager worked each other out and came up with something that was really starting to work. Forest had just one win to their name by mid October; by the first week of February, they had five more wins from just 10 more games. And none since as more new faces are incorporated.
In these circumstances, then, the last thing needed is yet more flux and change. There is no point sacking Cooper unless someone with a better than even chance of doing a superior job comes in. No caretaker is going to do that, so it will have to be a proper manager. We’re not convinced that manager is out there. So Cooper is the best bet.
It’s also true that Cooper remains very probably Forest’s best bet whichever division they happen to find themselves in next season. He’s already shown he can get them promoted from a far worse position than the one they would be in should it be a return to Championship football next season. If they do go down, Forest will most likely spend the summer fending off interest in Cooper rather than thinking about sacking him. Which should be a clue as to what the best course of action is right now.
And the other factor here is what actually causes the fabled and longed for ‘new manager bounce’? Sometimes it actually is a case of a new manager coming along and just being manifestly superior or better qualified or better suited to the role in question. Unai Emery replacing Steven Gerrard or Sean Dyche replacing Frank Lampard have elements of that.
But a lot of the time it’s really just the relief of having the struggling manager removed. An albatross no longer around the neck. The departing manager need not be despised, but just bringing the vibe down. It’s what’s happened to Moyes at West Ham and why his own survival this far into an unexpected relegation fight is so puzzling.
Forest would, if anything, get the opposite from sacking Cooper. He’s quite probably the most beloved Forest manager since Cloughie. He certainly hasn’t lost the fans, and there seems little prospect that his departure would do anything other than dampen the mood at the City Ground.
Forest may still go down but not many could have really expected them to be comfortably safe by this point anyway. But even on the most cold and blunt analysis it’s hard to make a convincing case that removing Cooper would make survival more likely. It’s almost impossible to make a case that removing Cooper would make promotion back into the Premier League more likely.
It’s hard when the recent form is as bad as it is and other clubs are making their last-throw-of-the-dice managerial changes. However they ended up coming to the decision they’ve reached today, Forest have surely come to the right one. Now they must hold the line and hold their nerve a few weeks longer.
