Reid has a footballing brain. Hughton has no such talent.
I donât give a shit if his mum was from Limerick, heâs utter dog shit.
Iâd rather stick my knob in a blender than have Clough Jnr back at the City Ground.
An anti Irish club
More of an anti-winning club lately.
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Chris Hughton has been ârelieved of his dutiesâ at Nottingham Forest following a poor start to the season.
Forest have drawn one and lost six of their opening seven Championship games, with last nightâs 2-0 defeat at Middlesbrough the final straw.
Fellow Irishman Steven Reid will take temporary charge.
âNottingham Forest can confirm that Chris Hughton has been relieved of his duties as first team manager,â read a club statement.
Theyâre heading for the 3rd tier ⌠very sad.
Steve Cooper one of the names on the shortlist.
We need a miracle at this stage, what a depressing start to the season
How come everyone seems to fail ???
Any chance they might take Spock off our hands?
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Fingers crossed things work out ok
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Clough ruined the club
Forest are some shambles when you think about it.
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Victory today for the great Nottingham Forest. Up yer bollix
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Itâs amazing what you can achieve when you put out an attacking formation of 3-4-3, reverting to 5-3â1-1 when defending. Lolley back in the team too.
Et voila.
From The Athletic:
Football is regularly peppered with ânearlyâ moments.
As Sabri Lamouchiâs tenure at Nottingham Forest stuttered to an ill-fitting end this time last year, several managers were linked with the job.
Among those names, one was slightly surprising, as Forest were made aware that then-Swansea City manager Steve Cooper would be interested in the role, if and when it became available.
In the end, the impressive CV of Chris Hughton, who had won promotion with Newcastle and Brighton, persuaded the Championship club to appoint him. But fast forward just shy of 12 months and, as Forest drew up a list of potential replacements for Hughton, one name stood out.
Cooper, now clubless after leaving Swansea in July, ticked almost all of their required boxes.
Dane Murphy was in America for his wedding last Friday but Forestâs recently appointed chief executive has still been front and centre in the process over the last few weeks, as the club hierarchy decided who they wanted in the dugout.
The tide actually turned for Hughton after the 2-1 defeat to Blackburn in the third league game of the new season, making it three defeats out of three, almost exactly a month ago. It was at that point the Forest top brass began to seriously consider their options.
A shortlist started to be drawn up, featuring at least two names from overseas, as results continued to deteriorate in the following weeks. Some of the candidates were employed, which presented an immediate problem for a club looking to make a quick appointment.
Chris Wilder and John Terry were never on the list, contrary to reports elsewhere. Cooperâs name always featured prominently.
For Murphy and Forest, three things made the 41-year-old stand out as they looked to make an appointment that would fit into their philosophy of wanting to build a team around young players with ambition and potential.
The first quality that pointed them towards the Welshman was his track record of what they see as overachievement.
Forestâs analytical approach led them to regard Cooper as someone who led a Swansea squad not too different in quality to the one that struggled last term under Lamouchi and Hughton to the Championship play-offs in both his seasons in charge.
While Forest never climbed out of the bottom half of the table, a Swansea side who had painfully pipped them to sixth place on the final day of the 2019-20 regular season, were in the play-offs race again for much of the campaign, came fourth, then got past Barnsley over two legs before losing the final to Brentford.
The second box was ticked by Cooperâs experience working with young players.
A former head of the academies at both Wrexham and Liverpool, he went on to coach Englandâs under-16 and then under-17 sides. In the space of five months in 2017, his England team lost to Spain on penalties in the Under-17 European Championship final then got revenge by beating the same opposition 5-2 to win that age groupâs World Cup final. Players he coached at that time included Phil Foden, Jadon Sancho and Callum Hudson-Odoi.
Lastly, after succeeding now-Brighton manager Graham Potter at Swansea in 2019, Cooper found a way to get the best out of a group of players who had previously been on a downward trajectory, following relegation from the Premier League a year before. Utilising contacts he had built in his previous role with the FA, Swansea secured the loan signings of players including Rhiannon Brewster, Marc Guehi and Conor Gallagher, who all played under him in those England age-group sides.
Some Swansea fans complained about the style of play, but it was effective, successful football; Cooper proved to be good at utilising the players at his disposal.
As Forest look to pull themselves clear of relegation trouble with a youthful squad, they believe these qualities could be vital.
What is he like as a person and manager?
It is a complicated challenge trying to sum up the legacy Cooper left at Swansea.
The headline is that he finished sixth and fourth in the Championship in his two seasons in charge, reaching one play-off final. But there is far more nuance to it.
Cooper took over Swansea at a difficult time. Forward Oli McBurnie was sold to Sheffield United just after his appointment and winger Daniel James had left for Manchester United in the weeks before, depriving him of the teamâs best two attacking players.
Cooper also inherited an awkward situation with Andre Ayew, who had been loaned to Turkish side Fenerbahce for the season following relegation and was now expected to be sold permanently.
There were question marks over what Ayewâs attitude would be like if he was not moved on but Cooper worked hard to get him onside; to persuade him to play at second-division level. He duly scored 16 Championship and play-offs goals in 2019-20, then another 17 last season and paid tribute to Cooperâs influence as they both left the Welsh club this summer.
Cooper also used his contacts to persuade England manager Gareth Southgate to have a Zoom meeting with his Swansea captain Matt Grimes, as he felt the midfielder would benefit from an in-depth discussion about the nature of leadership.
âIt was just me and him, like this, on a call for an hour and a half, talking about all the things it takes to be a leader and to get the best out of the people around you,â Grimes told The Athletic at the time.
Cooper embraced Swansea as a place, getting himself a flat in the city and representing the club in the community, even if much of his tenure saw their games played behind closed doors because of the pandemic.
He is not a character who likes the limelight, who seeks praise for his work. He is humble, but also fiercely ambitious. He wants to get to the highest level possible in management; there is a drive within him.
It will be interesting to see how Cooper âmanages upâ at Forest. Having had a very positive, close relationship with Trevor Birch, the CEO who appointed him at Swansea, he did not form the same bond with Julian Winter, Birchâs successor.
Cooperâs relationship with the Swansea hierarchy deteriorated in the second half of last season, which led to his departure.
There was a feeling he was disappointed the club did not sign a striker in January, which meant having to use Ayew as a No 9, which was not his natural position, as well as converting winger Jamal Lowe into a centre-forward.
With more key players having left over the summer after another promotion near-miss, Cooper decided the time was right to step away from Swansea, as he perhaps sensed the struggle that was to come. (Their new manager Russell Martin has six points after seven games, half of them from goalless draws in three of their four home matches.)
But he has joined Forest because he believes he can change the fortunes of another club.
What is Cooperâs tactical approach?
At Swansea, the approach was not obviously direct and it was not particularly possession-based.
Looking at âdirect speedâ shows how fast a team typically advance the ball towards goal (in metres per second), with a higher number showing a team that is more willing to get the ball forward quickly. Last season, Swansea were about average in the speed in which they advanced the ball â 1.6 metres per second on average.
A speed of attack can be considered in alongside a more possession-based style, where a team with a high volume of âpasses per sequenceâ suggests a considered build-up in making many passes rather than a single ball hoofed upfield. Again, Swansea hovered close to average here, with 2.8 passes per sequence in which they had the ball last season.
But it was effective and efficient.
Swansea were difficult to break down. They did not concede many too many shots last season (11.1 per 90), and on average, the quality of those shots were low (0.1 xG per shot conceded). Swanseaâs defensive record was poor before his arrival, but Cooper brought organisation, improved them at set pieces and generally made them more solid.
Defensive solidity was preferred to swashbuckling play out of possession, as shown by Swanseaâs [passes per defensive action (PPDA) last season. That is, they allowed 13.2 opposition passes before making a defensive action, which was fairly passive relative to the rest of the league. It shows that Cooper preferred good organisation and structure than high energy, pressing play.
Territorially, Swanseaâs possession was not exactly camped in the opponentâs box last season. Their field tilt â which measures the share of possession a team has in a game only using passes in the attacking third â was about average, with a 52 per cent share of touches in the attacking third compared with their opponentâs touches in their respective final third.
At a time when Forest want to stop the rot, that will not be a bad starting point.
Cooperâs philosophy is perhaps different to what was sometimes evident from his Swansea teams. Those close to him say he does carry a desire to play possession-based, expansive football.
Forest have assembled a squad with a plan to play 3-4-1-2 this season, making 10 additions during the summer transfer window.
It will be interesting to see if Cooper retains the more structured, disciplined approach that brought success at Swansea, where they found a way to win with a very specific group of players, or whether he will have a different mentality with this different squad.
There are stats to support the notion that he was also a little bit misunderstood in west Wales.
Over the course of Cooperâs two seasons in charge, Swansea kept a Championship-best 35 clean sheets and conceded the fewest goals (15) from set pieces. They played the second-least long balls in the division under him, while registering the second-highest pass total overall.
They also played the second-most passes into the final third of the pitch and scored the fifth-most goals (120).
What is certain is that Swansea overachieved to get themselves to last seasonâs play-off final with the tools at Cooperâs disposal.
Swansea fans will remember a dismal performance once they reached Wembley, losing 2-0 to Brentford without registering a shot on target. But propping up the Championship table as they are, Forestâs need for points, for substance, is the most immediate priority.
Style is something that can be worked on later.
What situation is Cooper coming into?
Cooperâs job title at Forest wonât be âmanagerâ. He will be the head coach.
When Murphy was appointed as CEO, there were questions raised about how Hughton would fit into the new set-up as an old-school manager.
In the end, it was results, more than anything else, that prompted a change. But Cooper will sit more comfortably into the clubâs philosophy and structure all-round than Hughton.
He is still expected to have a say on transfers â possibly even the final say â but the recruitment team will generally oversee exactly that, while working alongside the head coach.
George Syrianos is head of data and analytic recruitment after arriving this summer from Bundesliga side Stuttgart. Chris Brassâs title has been revealed as director of scouting/head of academy recruitment, while Taymour Roushdi, who worked with Murphy at Barnsley, is now head of football administration.
There is a structure in place and that will be further bolstered by the appointment of Steve Rands who worked with Roberto Mancini and Pep Guardiola at Manchester City before working alongside Cooper at Swansea over the last two seasons â as head of performance analysis, as well as Alan Tate to the backroom staff.
Martyn Margetson â who was goalkeeper coach under Cooper at Swansea â will not be joining Forest, however. He is understood to have taken an increased role with the FA in the England set-up â a role he performed alongside his duties at the Welsh club. Steven Reid, who took charge of Forestâs 2-0 victory over Huddersfield at the weekend, is also expected to be part of Cooperâs team.
Crucially, Cooper is understood to be excited about what this new-look staff can achieve together, having held extensive discussions with Murphy in particular about the way forward.
Having finally started his relationship with Forest, he will hope that more success soon follows.
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We have turned the scoreline upside down at Barnsley!!!
And another!
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This one is in the bag
Heading for getting out of the drop zone