andyjm1983
First Team Squad
Snowing anywhere?
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Official Matchday Thread: Nottingham Forest v Everton: Saturday 2nd December.
- Thread starter Red Dog in a Forest
- Start date
PynchonForest
John Robertson
I'd rather have signed Bette Davis.
Aussie Forest
First Team Squad
Let’s be honest any opposing midfielder looks class against us. Lets not kid ourselves
PynchonForest
John Robertson
Anyhow, lots of blame to go around but most still seem to not wish to lay any at the door of the manager. I get it---Cooper is a likeable fella, he's taken to Nottingham in a way few managers do with any club these days. But we have to look at how he deployed his midfielders today, and how he failed to a side that is average at best but managed to overrun us badly much of the game. I felt he had Sangare and Yates pushed too far forward, and with the level of pressing Everton was employing Mangala and the defence has few outlets to move the ball through the press--we were not nearly compact enough and when we turned it over they had loads of space to operate in and it was really not if but when they would score. Vlachadimos can't be blamed for their goal. I certainly have questions about his ability to deal with crosses but that isn't why we lost today. Cooper's tactics were poor, the adjustments were too little too late and he must be smarter and more proactive in his decision making processes. Cooper has made a number of tactical blunders this season and his ability to adjust to what the other side is doing is far too laboured. What is perplexing, for me, is how he can make us look so good at certain points in time, and then falter (again) against sides that really are not so good. He's got two games to get it right. If he doesn't, Marinakis will act, and I think we all know it.
Col Steve Austin
Viv Anderson
Exactly this. Wood needs to f*** right off and Cooper should watch some videos of late Totti era Roma where Totti played as a false 9 with a runner on each side.
If he is going to insist on MGW being played on the wing, at least swap him and Elanga around so that Elanga can play like an actual winger on his right foot, rather than running down the wing and stalling as he cuts back onto his right, and MGW can cut in and open up his body a la Grealish at City.
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Wes' Organ
Biggles
Edit: Having read the rest of the thread, you recognise that we can have an effect on the atmosphere where as others are as passive as a Chris Wood attack so I'm DEFINITELY not having a go Dan!
A Block was pretty decent for most of the 1st half and if the rest of the ground matched it, it would have been F***ing buzzing.
Everyone gets angry at the lack of atmosphere yet very few try to improve it.
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Agree, MGW is ineffective and wasted on the right (goal against Brighton aside)
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YellowBelly Red
Viv Anderson
Serge should have done better with the goal. Seemed to duck under it, not helped by having his hands behind his back!
Possibly unsighted the keeper as well.
Possibly unsighted the keeper as well.
Monkman
Grenville Morris
Not seen it back, but from where I was sat he should have been closer to McNeil when the cross came in as well.
Berkshire Red
Jack Armstrong
The Villa game is the outlier. And without Taiwo we can't recreate it.
Des Walker Texas Ranger
First Team Squad
Without Awoniyi we don’t appear to have a clue what we are or how we play
Felt to me like Cooper picked a side to combat Everton’s aerial strength (bringing back Boly, Yates, Serge) rather than pick a side he believed would go out and dictate a home game
Dyche has spent enough time lingering around the City Ground and had clearly done his homework. press us into panic mode, force the ball to the right side of our defence, wait for them to cheaply cough up possession within two passes, rinse and repeat.
Really bad day at the office which will bring the spotlight firmly onto the bonce of Steve Cooper
- We don’t have a keeper I believe in yet
- Murillo is now the star of this team, not MGW. He was our best attacker last night!
- Nice to see Felipe back. Thought it could have been brief if his flying kung-fu tackle had connected with the nearest Everton player!
Felt to me like Cooper picked a side to combat Everton’s aerial strength (bringing back Boly, Yates, Serge) rather than pick a side he believed would go out and dictate a home game
Dyche has spent enough time lingering around the City Ground and had clearly done his homework. press us into panic mode, force the ball to the right side of our defence, wait for them to cheaply cough up possession within two passes, rinse and repeat.
Really bad day at the office which will bring the spotlight firmly onto the bonce of Steve Cooper
- We don’t have a keeper I believe in yet
- Murillo is now the star of this team, not MGW. He was our best attacker last night!
- Nice to see Felipe back. Thought it could have been brief if his flying kung-fu tackle had connected with the nearest Everton player!
incapable hulk
Best served cold
The side doesn't look like it has a real grasp of whatever it's gameplan is. The amount of times the ball was given away by players firing long passes to an everton player, despite having red shirts around them, was really frustrating.
Everton didn't really have to work for the win as we gave them absolutely no trouble.
Everton didn't really have to work for the win as we gave them absolutely no trouble.
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Monkman
Grenville Morris
Absolutely - and some of the blame for that lies with the players, but some must also lie with the man at the helm. If he didn't specifically tell them to lump it long to Wood (and who knows if he did), it's pretty clear he also didn't tell them specifically NOT to do it, which he should have done as it patently never worked.
Sir John Borlase Warren
Youth Team
Yesterday morning I was optimistic that we could bounce back after Brighton. We have plenty of talent, including a half decent bench, and a home record that a team like Everton should fear. When we click (early v Man U, late v Arsenal, Chelsea, Villa) we’re a force to be reckoned with.
Yet for all the flashes of brilliance we rarely feel in complete control and when we are you can be sure ten minutes later things reverse and we can’t keep or pass the ball. Of course it’s complicated…injury absences, players not match sharp after injury, individual errors, not making set pieces count, random VAR…but our game management is poor at this level. If Brighton was a battle between two coaches with injury lists then we were given a lesson. If Everton was a battle between two teams in the relegation fight a year ago then bar the points deduction Everton have overtaken us.
Until yesterday only Luton really troubled me, but when you have days when the team doesn’t turn up it questions your faith. Alan Tate seemed to be the only man bothered.
So what do we do? Dismiss the guy who saved us after 23 years during which it began to seem possible that we’d never see Forest in the top flight again? To achieve what - have an outside chance of finishing 10th? Or let him have a proper go in the belief that we’ll finish no worse than 17th? Progress has stalled and transitioning our style is painful but I’d let SC have a chance to crack this because he earned the right in my book and there's still time. That's what I'll tell Evangelos when he invites me over later.
Yet for all the flashes of brilliance we rarely feel in complete control and when we are you can be sure ten minutes later things reverse and we can’t keep or pass the ball. Of course it’s complicated…injury absences, players not match sharp after injury, individual errors, not making set pieces count, random VAR…but our game management is poor at this level. If Brighton was a battle between two coaches with injury lists then we were given a lesson. If Everton was a battle between two teams in the relegation fight a year ago then bar the points deduction Everton have overtaken us.
Until yesterday only Luton really troubled me, but when you have days when the team doesn’t turn up it questions your faith. Alan Tate seemed to be the only man bothered.
So what do we do? Dismiss the guy who saved us after 23 years during which it began to seem possible that we’d never see Forest in the top flight again? To achieve what - have an outside chance of finishing 10th? Or let him have a proper go in the belief that we’ll finish no worse than 17th? Progress has stalled and transitioning our style is painful but I’d let SC have a chance to crack this because he earned the right in my book and there's still time. That's what I'll tell Evangelos when he invites me over later.
MaxiRobriguez
Bob McKinlay
So many players had an off day yesterday that I don't think even a different tactical set up would have made us any better.
MGW - not sure he completed an accurate forward pass all game?
Sangare - lost the ball countless times in his own half and like MGW lots of loose passess.
Aurier - not a single sprint all game. Pass to MGW and then didn't run off him to give him another option. Half arsed attempt to defend in the goal we conceded.
Wood - lots of running but didn't win anything in the air, first touch was garbage and pointlessly led a single man press time after time.
Elanga - Delivery in the final third five yards off every time. Same for his shots on goal.
Vlach - Flapping liability.
That's half your team who haven't done the basics, and that's before you start to talk about the better-yet-still-mediocre performances of Toffolo, Yates and Boly. They tried but they weren't up to what we've seen in the past.
So your left in a situation whereby only Mangala and Murillo played up to expectation.
2/11 players playing decently isn't enough to win a game of football no matter how you want to dress it up.
No one knows who's fault that is yet. We've not seen so many players play so badly in one game for ages. Hopefully it's a one off and we can go back to the heady heights of losing games because of an individual mistake rather than the all round 90 minute clusterfuck that was last night.
MGW - not sure he completed an accurate forward pass all game?
Sangare - lost the ball countless times in his own half and like MGW lots of loose passess.
Aurier - not a single sprint all game. Pass to MGW and then didn't run off him to give him another option. Half arsed attempt to defend in the goal we conceded.
Wood - lots of running but didn't win anything in the air, first touch was garbage and pointlessly led a single man press time after time.
Elanga - Delivery in the final third five yards off every time. Same for his shots on goal.
Vlach - Flapping liability.
That's half your team who haven't done the basics, and that's before you start to talk about the better-yet-still-mediocre performances of Toffolo, Yates and Boly. They tried but they weren't up to what we've seen in the past.
So your left in a situation whereby only Mangala and Murillo played up to expectation.
2/11 players playing decently isn't enough to win a game of football no matter how you want to dress it up.
No one knows who's fault that is yet. We've not seen so many players play so badly in one game for ages. Hopefully it's a one off and we can go back to the heady heights of losing games because of an individual mistake rather than the all round 90 minute clusterfuck that was last night.
Omar Devone Little
Mr Realistic
Agreed. When we win Cooper gets praised a lot on here.
It can't be when we win it's Cooper and when we lose it's the players.
Redemption
One less gobshite...
There is a material difference.
You can at least see what the players did or did not do.
You have no idea what Cooper did in preparing them for the game.
So criticism of him is based on your own speculation about what you think he did or didnt do (and using concepts you learned from Mark Lawrenson and Alan Hanson on MOTD).
But fill your boots.
Haych
John Robertson
I’m not even bothered about the result on Wednesday I just want to see us try and play football, if we stand off and aimlessly hoof the ball forward I think I’ll have an early night.
Far have we travelled
Youth Team
As he was when he played for Wolves.
Far have we travelled
Youth Team
It was a good strike and a good goal, simple as, I'm afraid.
RedRich
First Team Squad
I thought that too, though maybe it was the camera angle?
Annesleyred
Youth Team
Terrible marking for the goal CHO stood around pointing instead of helping. I reckon he should rest/drop Wood and Sangare for the Fulham game they looked jaded (hopeless). We're in a relegation fight now
RedRich
First Team Squad
My concern is that we look awkward as a team. Nothing seems to 'flow'. Mostly forward passes seem to arrive at a player with their back to goal, who then inevitably passes backward and any impetus dies.
Omar Devone Little
Mr Realistic
The performance of the team is ultimately the responsibility of the management. And we're in free fall at the moment with performances getting worse by the week.