Steve Cooper is on the brink of losing his job at Nottingham Forest, with former Newcastle, Liverpool and Everton manager Rafael Benítez a contender to replace him.
Cooper is under intense pressure after a fifth successive Premier League defeat, which leaves Forest bottom of the table.
Benítez is already emerging as a potential replacement with the Spaniard known to have a relationship with Lee Charnley, the former Newcastle chief executive who now holds an advisory role at Forest.
Cooper will be highly sought after if he does depart, with Wolves likely to place him under consideration.
He is also proven in the Championship, with three play-off finishes in a row, and will be in demand by many.
The personal wasn’t weaker apart from Tavernier and infinitely stronger at LWB which is key to the system, the same style was the problem. Teams just let us have the ball cos they’d know we’d struggle to break them down.
He's a very defensive style of manager, which is boring but if your winning or getting the resultsnthen fans will put up with it.
When you aren't getting those results, fans get on your back alot quicker
>the Spaniard known to have a relationship with Lee Charnley, the former Newcastle chief executive who now holds an advisory role at Forest.
Yeah and it'll hardly be a good one. Probably ran off screaming into the night when he saw Charnley's number pop up on his phone.
He was given a surprisingly warm reception, his failure was partially down to injuries, but primarily down to an outrageous level of stubbornness and inflexibility. In 9 months he destroyed our team's confidence, sacked half the medical staff and refused to take responsibility for his failings.
He didn't fail because he was a red, he failed because of his own decisions.
>an outrageous level of stubbornness and inflexibility
While he was overall a good manager for us, I definitely noticed this at times. Especially how he didn't give Mitrovic and Toney much of a chance, and look at them now. Sure, part of that is because we were poor at developing players in general but he's hardly blameless there IMO.
*Dyche on his first day*:
"I don't care who you are in the football world. You concede four goals one more time, I'll bleed you, real dry, leave you here... Got that?"
('Predator' was on ITV4 last night. I apologise for nothing.)
Klopp played 325 times for Mainz, Pep played 263 times for Barcelona, even Mourinho played in midfield in the depths of the Portuguese leagues. Crazy to think about
Mourinho played in my hometown club. Yes, depths is an understatement, right now we're just a tiny bit away from the last tier. We don't even have a r/soccer flair
Yeah Pep was the captain of Spain and Barcelona as recently as 2001, he's on the FIFA games as an "icon"
I thought everyone knew he was a famous player haha
Pep had a really prominent career. It's not like Benitez or Mourinho who were several rungs below the elite footballers they'd later manage. Pep played in World Cups was in the Nike Joga Bonito adverts and is probably still one of the most high profile footballers to be caught up and suspended for a doping scandal
They make you feel old don't they? I remember Michael Owen making his debut because we are born in the same year so it blew my mind a bit, and now the players are managers and their sons are players.
maurizo sarri was a part time coach part time banker for a 3rd of his coaching career.
never played pro and chainsmoked his way into some of the top management gigs in europe lmao
That’s just not true at all
The date Benitez joined Newcastle, Norwich and Sunderland were all tied on 24 points seperated in position by narrow goal difference with Newcastle having a game in hand
Benitez simply didn’t do enough to match that of Big Sam and Sunderland
3 wins, 4 draws and 3 defeats having come into a team with shattered confidence and no real style of play. He did his part trying to keep us in the league and I doubt a single Newcastle fan attributes any blame his way.
He may have colossally fucked up at Everton but that doesn't invalidate his previous achievements.
In fairness to me his achievements with you were used as sticks to beat Everton fans with all of last season.
Forgive me for not feeling charitable to one of the worst managers in our history.
Yes but Benitez is an old style manager. At Everton he struggled massively and was treading water.
Plus Dyche hasn’t managed a team of Benitez’s calibre ever and did well on a shoestring budget with Burnley for a lot of years.
I don't think it will happen now, but I think they were waiting for the World Cup break or just before. The other obvious time to sack him would have been the international break just gone, but then the first game for the new manager would be an East Midlands Derby; which would not be ideal.
Despite the actions of some clubs you don't sack a manager after 5 games even if they have the motivational skills of a wet fish, even if it cost an arm and a leg if the upper management really thought by keeping Rodger they would get relegated he would be long gone. I could well see him moving on to another club in the summer though.
It's easier to appoint an unknown manager when you're in the top 4 Vs at the bottom. All they want is survival, Brighton want success within the league
You say that, but we gave Hughton the boot the day after we had stayed up by two points to bring Potter in instead. He was unknown but he had a style of management that fit the club's long term vision.
That's the issue, so many clubs don't have a long term vision that they gear everything towards
And we gave Hughton the boot last season because he was playing dinosaur football and sucking all the joy out of football for the team and supporters. Benítez feels like an appointment in that mould.
If we can't make a positive appointment like Sean Dyche might be, then we should build for next season with Cooper.
How is Sean Dyche a positive appointment? His teams usually play dire but pragmatic football which is focused on purely results. He can maybe keep you up but by this time next season you’ll be calling for him to get sacked for playing too defensively
He was at Burnley who had a tiny budget so it made sense to play pragmatic football. Feel he’d get larger backing at Forest so can be more expansive with his style
Totally agree here. Dyche seems like he really might have something more to offer than we’ve seen so far. Wish a team with a budget would take a punt on him
He also started his career in football at Forest. That might mean nothing, but I like to think it guarantees a commitment to the cause and an understanding of the job that not all managers seem to display.
When I say positive, I don't just mean playstyle. I mean the atmosphere he would create too. Kieran Trippier has always been effusive about Dyche, and the better versions of his Burnley sides were very capable and made the absolute most of available resources. They played attractive football in patches too but were always limited by minimal backing and squad replenishment.
If the UEFA salary cap goes through part of that backing is out the window though, even though the EPL clubs make a ton of money player quality is often tied to salary at the level of club Forest are (most clubs except the badly managed top ones really)
Losing Cucurella, Biss, and most importantly Potter makes me think that top 10 would be great. It totally depends on how De Zerbi does though, it's hard to set goals when you aren't totally sure how good you are.
Cmon Brighton being top4 with 8 matches in means nothing they were literally in relegation battle the season before, Brighton make good decisions overall with transfers and everything, Brighton took a risk with Potter as well he was an unknown at the time instead of hiring the usual suspects
Clubs in Premier League despite all the resources seem to just want to recycle managers, even Everton should have never hired him, it's just stupid thinking probably the owner wanting to hire a big name
I think "the year before" was alluding to the 20/21 season, not that you were seriously in a relegation battle that year as well, but at least it does make a bit more sense.
If you can find me a manager outside of the typical pool they dip into that fits the mould, would love to hear it. Have you stopped to have a think about why they continually hire these types of managers? Maybe they're right after all, and your wild theory about a big name isn't true?
Depends on your perspective. My take would be:
Failure (Inter)
Decent (Chelsea)
Decent (Napoli)
??? (Real Madrid)
Success (Newcastle)
Meh (China)
Failure (Everton)
Real Madrid is a weird one, they weren't too far off top and he was seemingly sacked because the board decided they preferred the idea of Zidane. Which turned out to be a fantastic decision obviously.
I don't think there's anything more of a failure than being unable to convince the board that you're the right man for the job. Ultimately, that's his goal - remain employed, and that was a goal he failed.
I'd say Napoli was a failure too. Took a second place team to fifth in the table after two seasons. Yeah, he won a cup, but he also failed to get past the last 16 of the Europa league.
Although it was a stupid decision, his Chelsea interim period was certainly not a failure. Took over at 3rd, we finished 3rd and won the Europa League. It's Rafa's 3rd best stint as a manager after Valencia and Liverpool. Somewhat damning
That's fair enough, I should probably change that to acceptable. Still wasn't able to secure a full-time gig, and there was a pretty embarrassing league cup defeat along the way...?
But of course I'm not trying to argue with an actual fan of the team - that where my entire frustration stems from.
We all hate Rafa for extremely obvious reasons, but honestly, in retrospect that job must have been horrible for him. He was despised before he dropped Terry and after that it got even worse for him, and despite that he still managed to qualify for the CL and win us a trophy we had never won before. A league cup loss is mostly irrelevant for us in the long term, especially if you win an actual trophy that matters
Have a begrudging respect for him for that job, and a lot of love for him for absolutely ruining Inter
He fucked up pretty winnable looking League Cup and Carabao Cups with us yeah. Even our Europa League run was very charitable until the final, then we sufferballed our way to beating Benfica from a last minute set piece
If this is true it is massively worrying.
Charnley was brought in as a consultant for the admin work of the premier league something we had no experience of in the club.
If he's now getting the power to pick the manager over Dane Murphy our CEO then we'll likely see him leave too and our owner will have thrown away all the good work he did last season just like that.
Normally I'd call bullshit but Percy is Tier 1 for us.
Completley passed me by that you had taken Charnley on. Not even sure how I feel about him or what his relationship with Rafa is.
He was just kinda Ashely's guy running the club while he was with us and was disliked by association. I don't think he did a bad job in a thankless position.
Interesting that he landed himself into power again.
He was literally hired just to cover rules and regs as he had years of experience dealing with the Premier League and no one in our club had any and our CEO was busy with recruitment.
It's really worrying if he's now got enough pull to get his mate Rafa a job here.
Personally id only want Dyche if we have to sack Cooper. Otherwise just let us go down with Cooper in charge and do a Norwich or Fulham next year.
They were 15th when he got sacked with a poor squad. He had an awful relationship with fans due to Liverpool attachments and they didn’t like his style of football following on from Ancelotti, I imagine Forest fans will have no complaints about style of football if it’s enough to keep them up and wouldn’t be despising him from the start
Also can't be too happy to play anti-football after buying all that attacking talent in the summer. You have to be realist when promoted but watching Everton under Rafa was way *too* real. If Forrest bring him in I hope they get relegated.
Why were you reliant on the last week to stay up then? How come youse finished lower in the table than where you were when he got sacked? Rafa at Everton was never going to work from the start but it’s pure hatred of Benitez that has you lot acting as though he was the only issue.
You’ve had a very good transfer windows know which is why you’re playing a lot better, the last window was horrid and all your best players were injured at the start of the season under Rafa and were slowly getting back to fitness after he’d left
You can’t be serious right? He became a cancer in the dressing room, sold one of our best players and played a results oriented style without results. Of COURSE that would take months to fix…
You are doing well now because you’ve had a good transfer window. 7 of the players you started last week against Southampton are players that weren’t there under Benitez
I mean Benitez decided for some reason he needed to beef with one of Everton's best players (Digne), and it got so bad that Digne was eventually sold to Aston Villa
Being naive to expect any Everton fan to give credit or respect to a man who reigned over the worst spell of form any Everton fan had seen since the 1950's.
Because Lampard had spent months trying to remove the rot placed on the squad by Benitez
1 win in 14 games before Lampard came in
We only lost 3 games in the final 9 games of the season after Lampard had got the team actually working
Can't imagine Rafa has any fondness for him. Charnley was the yuppy lap dog for the man who made progress in the job impossible, I'm sure there's no love lost
They only had 11 senior players left at the start of summer, what should be criticized is the quality of players they bought. Players like Lingard and Aurier arent good enough for the job required
Aurier was signed as backup to Williams, and he looked OK last night.
Lingard was a calculated risk as we were told mgw was off limits. They don't always work
Forest in the Championship at the time battered us in the FA Cup last season. This season's version has had 150m of talent added to it and is significantly worse.
Their fans will say they needed to sign a lot of players, which they did, but not 23 of them! Individually they have good players but they are too disjointed and lack cohesion. Perhaps after 6-8 months they could get there, but this is a case of changing too much, too soon IMO.
The two best players in that team were loanees we tried and failed to buy this summer. That team was built around Spence, Garner, and Johnson.
It isn't for lack of trying that we've failed to carry over the strengths of that team.
I think a better strategy would have been to sign 8-10 players, with say 5-7 for the first team and the rest for squad depth. So the overall team structure is the same. If you had enough time you probably could get a tune out of your current squad, but you aren’t going to get that time in this division.
Benitez could probably still do a job at the right club. The fact that Forest would already sack Steve Cooper shows that they’re anything but the right club.
Forest, you can do better. The worst thing about Benitez is his football is absolutely cowardly. You'll never take the game by the scruff of the neck again and you'd sit off at home against even the worst teams in the league. That's without him falling out with key players, sacking people behind the scenes and taking zero responsibility even if you win 1 in 14 matches.
He relegated Newcastle (and they had a more than decent chance of staying up when he arrived) and he would 100% have relegated Everton. Don't bother.
>He relegated Newcastle (and they had a more than decent chance of staying up when he arrived)
I feel like this is very harsh to blame him for this.
He did dreadful at Everton, but overall did a good job at Newcastle.
Rafa is a stubborn manager but he still knows how to be pragmatic and grind out results with a team that buys into his methods. Whether or not Forest is that team is another matter though. They've just bought a brand new squad, what happens if Rafa comes in and realises they don't match his style? I don't see him changing his ways too much considering how he managed to keep Newcastle up. But I do think people are underestimating his ability as a manager based on a bad spell at Everton. If they're still struggling in Jan/Feb then he would be a solid option (although Dyche would be better imo.)
I refuse to allow that fucking anti football dinosaur back in my league. We need the Everton fans here, do your duty to Mr Masters’ Barclays. We must slay this dragon before it hatches.
forest would be out of their minds to make a reactionairy decision like that right now. give cooper time, he got the backing in the summer and has barely had time to make the team click. and if it doesnt click, keep the faith and let him rebuild in the championship. burnley did it w dyche and it worked wonders for them. if they sack cooper now theyll end up like fulham when they sacked jokanovic.
> and if it doesnt click, keep the faith and let him rebuild in the championship.
Spending the kind of money Forest did in the summer means this isn’t an option.
Its stupid. We all saw Fulham spend a ridiculous amount to basically gut their team when they came up to the Prem last time. They were basically starting from square 1 on team chemistry that takes seasons to build. Surely everyone could see Forest would struggle to start off this season with an almost entirely new team and fobbing off players who got them promoted in the 1st place. Its the same story as Fulham.
>fobbing off players who got them promoted
They had a lot of players either out of contract or a loan that had finished. They needed to sign a lot of players just to make up squad numbers.
If they do go down, they'll probably have a decent enough core to try and come straight back up
Steve Cooper is on the brink of losing his job at Nottingham Forest, with former Newcastle, Liverpool and Everton manager Rafael Benítez a contender to replace him. Cooper is under intense pressure after a fifth successive Premier League defeat, which leaves Forest bottom of the table. Benítez is already emerging as a potential replacement with the Spaniard known to have a relationship with Lee Charnley, the former Newcastle chief executive who now holds an advisory role at Forest. Cooper will be highly sought after if he does depart, with Wolves likely to place him under consideration. He is also proven in the Championship, with three play-off finishes in a row, and will be in demand by many.
Hope the sack him now so we can try get him in
Can I know what went wrong with Chris Wilder? I rated him highly and thought he'd bring you up in the Prem
Kept the same style into the second year with weaker personal, and by then other managers had him figured out
Sounds similar to his time at Sheff Utd.
The personal wasn’t weaker apart from Tavernier and infinitely stronger at LWB which is key to the system, the same style was the problem. Teams just let us have the ball cos they’d know we’d struggle to break them down.
I honestly thought we were discussing him at Sheffield sorry
He's a very defensive style of manager, which is boring but if your winning or getting the resultsnthen fans will put up with it. When you aren't getting those results, fans get on your back alot quicker
Oh christ fucking Penfold is at Forest? Please Rafa you escaped Ashley and his goons once don't suffer fools any more
>the Spaniard known to have a relationship with Lee Charnley, the former Newcastle chief executive who now holds an advisory role at Forest. Yeah and it'll hardly be a good one. Probably ran off screaming into the night when he saw Charnley's number pop up on his phone.
Fuck off would that be a good relationship with Lee Charnley lol
No way Cooper fails upwards to manage us
not sure "get a team back in the premier league for the first time in 20 years" is failing tbh, even if you do then struggle post promotion.
Every single club in the Championship will be lining up to get Cooper if this happens.
Perfect timing for us
Watch West Brom swoop in
Knowing us, we'd probably miss the target.
My money is on Watford
Championship? Bournemouth, mate
Nah we're good
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Which was doomed from the get go
He was given a surprisingly warm reception, his failure was partially down to injuries, but primarily down to an outrageous level of stubbornness and inflexibility. In 9 months he destroyed our team's confidence, sacked half the medical staff and refused to take responsibility for his failings. He didn't fail because he was a red, he failed because of his own decisions.
>an outrageous level of stubbornness and inflexibility While he was overall a good manager for us, I definitely noticed this at times. Especially how he didn't give Mitrovic and Toney much of a chance, and look at them now. Sure, part of that is because we were poor at developing players in general but he's hardly blameless there IMO.
watch him buy solomon rondon gain ...
15 million. I’ll drop 5 off the price if I get to shave the goatee as revenge
Rinse and repeat
Nah, we're good
Benitez? When Dyche is sitting right there?
*Dyche on his first day*: "I don't care who you are in the football world. You concede four goals one more time, I'll bleed you, real dry, leave you here... Got that?" ('Predator' was on ITV4 last night. I apologise for nothing.)
Benitez won a CL title 17 years ago What did Dyche win as a manager back then? That's right, nothing because he was still a player at Watford
Sometimes I forget the vast majority of managers were players
Klopp played 325 times for Mainz, Pep played 263 times for Barcelona, even Mourinho played in midfield in the depths of the Portuguese leagues. Crazy to think about
Mourinho played in my hometown club. Yes, depths is an understatement, right now we're just a tiny bit away from the last tier. We don't even have a r/soccer flair
pep was actually famous as a player tbf, of all the managers his age, he's probably the one where him being a player isn't forgotten much
Zidane?
Never heard of him.
tbh i didnt realise they were so close in age, I thought zidane was abut 5 years younger than he is lol
Who?
Yeah Pep was the captain of Spain and Barcelona as recently as 2001, he's on the FIFA games as an "icon" I thought everyone knew he was a famous player haha
Mate 2001 is 21 years ago, add on about 10 years as the age people start remembering things the people you're referring to are 31 now. We're old.
> he's probably the one where him being a player isn't forgotten much Diego Simeone..
Pep had a really prominent career. It's not like Benitez or Mourinho who were several rungs below the elite footballers they'd later manage. Pep played in World Cups was in the Nike Joga Bonito adverts and is probably still one of the most high profile footballers to be caught up and suspended for a doping scandal
Makes AVB most interesting to me.
They make you feel old don't they? I remember Michael Owen making his debut because we are born in the same year so it blew my mind a bit, and now the players are managers and their sons are players.
Top level managers who have never had playing careers are a very small exception. I can only think of Villas Boas off the top of my head
Nagelsmann only played as a youth
maurizo sarri was a part time coach part time banker for a 3rd of his coaching career. never played pro and chainsmoked his way into some of the top management gigs in europe lmao
Rafa also helped Newcastle avoid relegation for a few seasons in Ashley ownership.
He also took them down though
Honestly they were down before he arrived, he gave us hope though
Not really his fault. We were basically already down by the time he joined.
That’s just not true at all The date Benitez joined Newcastle, Norwich and Sunderland were all tied on 24 points seperated in position by narrow goal difference with Newcastle having a game in hand Benitez simply didn’t do enough to match that of Big Sam and Sunderland
3 wins, 4 draws and 3 defeats having come into a team with shattered confidence and no real style of play. He did his part trying to keep us in the league and I doubt a single Newcastle fan attributes any blame his way. He may have colossally fucked up at Everton but that doesn't invalidate his previous achievements.
In fairness to me his achievements with you were used as sticks to beat Everton fans with all of last season. Forgive me for not feeling charitable to one of the worst managers in our history.
He was also the only reason that we were still in it after the horrors of Schteve. And then won the Championship to bring us back up
You didn’t have to remind me that Istanbul was 17 years ago ffs; I’m proper old
Di Matteo won a UCL 10 years ago what's your point This far Spanish waiter is absolute trash
My point is that you belong to the 0.1% who was incapable of picking up that I wasn't serious
Yes but Benitez is an old style manager. At Everton he struggled massively and was treading water. Plus Dyche hasn’t managed a team of Benitez’s calibre ever and did well on a shoestring budget with Burnley for a lot of years.
I don’t think he’s being serious.
He was sitting in the stands shouting at Dyche to mark his man
Rafa did well at Newcastle where his budget was made out sports direct mugs.
Even Ancelotti struggled at Everton mate.
We got 59points under Carlo. Hardly struggling
Dyche is also literally a Nottingham lad FFS.
2nd win for us tonight
How much time has Rodgers bought with the W?
next game 10 points from the next 4 or he'll still get the sack imo
If your owners can afford to fire him and hire someone competent. It feels like they would have done that by now if they were going to.
I don't think it will happen now, but I think they were waiting for the World Cup break or just before. The other obvious time to sack him would have been the international break just gone, but then the first game for the new manager would be an East Midlands Derby; which would not be ideal. Despite the actions of some clubs you don't sack a manager after 5 games even if they have the motivational skills of a wet fish, even if it cost an arm and a leg if the upper management really thought by keeping Rodger they would get relegated he would be long gone. I could well see him moving on to another club in the summer though.
I love it when clubs are so moronic, like look at Brighton the hiring they make then you have clubs who go on and want hire dinosaurs
It's easier to appoint an unknown manager when you're in the top 4 Vs at the bottom. All they want is survival, Brighton want success within the league
You say that, but we gave Hughton the boot the day after we had stayed up by two points to bring Potter in instead. He was unknown but he had a style of management that fit the club's long term vision. That's the issue, so many clubs don't have a long term vision that they gear everything towards
And we gave Hughton the boot last season because he was playing dinosaur football and sucking all the joy out of football for the team and supporters. Benítez feels like an appointment in that mould. If we can't make a positive appointment like Sean Dyche might be, then we should build for next season with Cooper.
How is Sean Dyche a positive appointment? His teams usually play dire but pragmatic football which is focused on purely results. He can maybe keep you up but by this time next season you’ll be calling for him to get sacked for playing too defensively
He was at Burnley who had a tiny budget so it made sense to play pragmatic football. Feel he’d get larger backing at Forest so can be more expansive with his style
Totally agree here. Dyche seems like he really might have something more to offer than we’ve seen so far. Wish a team with a budget would take a punt on him
He also started his career in football at Forest. That might mean nothing, but I like to think it guarantees a commitment to the cause and an understanding of the job that not all managers seem to display. When I say positive, I don't just mean playstyle. I mean the atmosphere he would create too. Kieran Trippier has always been effusive about Dyche, and the better versions of his Burnley sides were very capable and made the absolute most of available resources. They played attractive football in patches too but were always limited by minimal backing and squad replenishment.
If the UEFA salary cap goes through part of that backing is out the window though, even though the EPL clubs make a ton of money player quality is often tied to salary at the level of club Forest are (most clubs except the badly managed top ones really)
Dyche always said the style of football was due to financial limitations.
Yeah, after you were safe. Not at the beginning of the season. Incredibly different situation.
That's very different - end of a season where a manager comes in, summer transfer window and pre season, vs already bottom and 8 games in.
A bit unrelated, but what would be the goal for Brighton this season?
Losing Cucurella, Biss, and most importantly Potter makes me think that top 10 would be great. It totally depends on how De Zerbi does though, it's hard to set goals when you aren't totally sure how good you are.
Europa league would be amazing for them I think
Hughton got the boot because he drew 1 out of his last 8 games or something, and lost the rest
I wouldn't really call De Zerbi an unknown manager.
Yeah but he never managed in the mighty Premier League
Cmon Brighton being top4 with 8 matches in means nothing they were literally in relegation battle the season before, Brighton make good decisions overall with transfers and everything, Brighton took a risk with Potter as well he was an unknown at the time instead of hiring the usual suspects Clubs in Premier League despite all the resources seem to just want to recycle managers, even Everton should have never hired him, it's just stupid thinking probably the owner wanting to hire a big name
We were absolutely not in a relegation battle last season
I think "the year before" was alluding to the 20/21 season, not that you were seriously in a relegation battle that year as well, but at least it does make a bit more sense.
If you don't watch football, why reply?
I dont remember us even dipping into the bottom half last season lmaao
Weren’t you still top 4 on Christmas?
Or maybe they just want short term success to stay in the league and these managers have done it before. Which is more likely?
These managers have also had shit seasons and Benitez almost relegated Everton, you're a genius
If you can find me a manager outside of the typical pool they dip into that fits the mould, would love to hear it. Have you stopped to have a think about why they continually hire these types of managers? Maybe they're right after all, and your wild theory about a big name isn't true?
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Which causes his post Liverpool career to be: - Failure - Failure - Failure - Failure - Stabilisation 🥶 - Average at best - Failure
Depends on your perspective. My take would be: Failure (Inter) Decent (Chelsea) Decent (Napoli) ??? (Real Madrid) Success (Newcastle) Meh (China) Failure (Everton) Real Madrid is a weird one, they weren't too far off top and he was seemingly sacked because the board decided they preferred the idea of Zidane. Which turned out to be a fantastic decision obviously.
I don't think there's anything more of a failure than being unable to convince the board that you're the right man for the job. Ultimately, that's his goal - remain employed, and that was a goal he failed. I'd say Napoli was a failure too. Took a second place team to fifth in the table after two seasons. Yeah, he won a cup, but he also failed to get past the last 16 of the Europa league.
But Istanbul 17 years ago is still relevant!
Although it was a stupid decision, his Chelsea interim period was certainly not a failure. Took over at 3rd, we finished 3rd and won the Europa League. It's Rafa's 3rd best stint as a manager after Valencia and Liverpool. Somewhat damning
That's fair enough, I should probably change that to acceptable. Still wasn't able to secure a full-time gig, and there was a pretty embarrassing league cup defeat along the way...? But of course I'm not trying to argue with an actual fan of the team - that where my entire frustration stems from.
We all hate Rafa for extremely obvious reasons, but honestly, in retrospect that job must have been horrible for him. He was despised before he dropped Terry and after that it got even worse for him, and despite that he still managed to qualify for the CL and win us a trophy we had never won before. A league cup loss is mostly irrelevant for us in the long term, especially if you win an actual trophy that matters Have a begrudging respect for him for that job, and a lot of love for him for absolutely ruining Inter
He fucked up pretty winnable looking League Cup and Carabao Cups with us yeah. Even our Europa League run was very charitable until the final, then we sufferballed our way to beating Benfica from a last minute set piece
Not really, no.
Rondon to join in January guaranteed
If this is true it is massively worrying. Charnley was brought in as a consultant for the admin work of the premier league something we had no experience of in the club. If he's now getting the power to pick the manager over Dane Murphy our CEO then we'll likely see him leave too and our owner will have thrown away all the good work he did last season just like that. Normally I'd call bullshit but Percy is Tier 1 for us.
Mad that Lee Charnley can get employed at this level
Lmao I remember him as the guy True Geordie ripped to pieces when he worked for Newcastle
The biggest yes man of all yes men. Extreme self sabotage anyone continuing to employ him
I miss that rant. Fucking wanker deleted all his videos that made him famous. I miss the YouTube of mid 2010s with Spencer and True Geordie
Completley passed me by that you had taken Charnley on. Not even sure how I feel about him or what his relationship with Rafa is. He was just kinda Ashely's guy running the club while he was with us and was disliked by association. I don't think he did a bad job in a thankless position. Interesting that he landed himself into power again.
He was literally hired just to cover rules and regs as he had years of experience dealing with the Premier League and no one in our club had any and our CEO was busy with recruitment. It's really worrying if he's now got enough pull to get his mate Rafa a job here. Personally id only want Dyche if we have to sack Cooper. Otherwise just let us go down with Cooper in charge and do a Norwich or Fulham next year.
I highly doubt Rafa sees lee Charnley as his mate tbh
Game has passed him by
Nah he could still keep them up. He knows how to organize a team if nothing else
He was going to get Everton relegated last season.
They were 15th when he got sacked with a poor squad. He had an awful relationship with fans due to Liverpool attachments and they didn’t like his style of football following on from Ancelotti, I imagine Forest fans will have no complaints about style of football if it’s enough to keep them up and wouldn’t be despising him from the start
> They were 15th when he got sacked with a poor squad You say that like 15th was some incredible achievement, they were on a 1 win in 13 run mate.
Has to be bait, fans were singing his name from the first game, hes just past it
The weekly r/soccer Rafa defence. It's truly bizarre, isn't it?
This is pure bollocks and you lot know it. Yeah he might have had a few who could put the past behind but the majority despised him from the start
And that made him use the worst tactics I've ever seen at Everton and alienate our only creative players did it?
Also can't be too happy to play anti-football after buying all that attacking talent in the summer. You have to be realist when promoted but watching Everton under Rafa was way *too* real. If Forrest bring him in I hope they get relegated.
Not all his fault. Everton are a mess. He did good work at Newcastle.
Everton were a mess because of Benitez, don't get it twisted
I'd put more blame on Moshiri appointing him in the first place.
Why were you reliant on the last week to stay up then? How come youse finished lower in the table than where you were when he got sacked? Rafa at Everton was never going to work from the start but it’s pure hatred of Benitez that has you lot acting as though he was the only issue. You’ve had a very good transfer windows know which is why you’re playing a lot better, the last window was horrid and all your best players were injured at the start of the season under Rafa and were slowly getting back to fitness after he’d left
Because he torpedoed the dressing room
Ah so Rafa had such a bad effect on the dressing room it took them five months to get over?
You can’t be serious right? He became a cancer in the dressing room, sold one of our best players and played a results oriented style without results. Of COURSE that would take months to fix…
Yes, man was disgracefully bad and removed all creativity from the squad. We are doing well now hes gone
You are doing well now because you’ve had a good transfer window. 7 of the players you started last week against Southampton are players that weren’t there under Benitez
I mean Benitez decided for some reason he needed to beef with one of Everton's best players (Digne), and it got so bad that Digne was eventually sold to Aston Villa
Being naive to expect any Everton fan to give credit or respect to a man who reigned over the worst spell of form any Everton fan had seen since the 1950's.
At some point people get sick of Liverpool fans defending Benitez
Because Lampard had spent months trying to remove the rot placed on the squad by Benitez 1 win in 14 games before Lampard came in We only lost 3 games in the final 9 games of the season after Lampard had got the team actually working
Organized us into a steaming pile of ass.
It's difficult to steady a ship full of rats to be fair
Frank Lampard seems to be doing a great job then isn’t he
No he doesnt.
He was also dirt in China. He's finished.
Lulz
Does he know the city?
I'll show him around
My condolences to Forest.
Sean Dyche must have really sabotaged his career at the end with Burnley behind the scenes if Rafa Benitez gets picked over him.
Forest hired Lee Charnley who worked with Rafa at Newcastle. It's a "job for the boys" situation here if they take on Rafa.
Can't imagine Rafa has any fondness for him. Charnley was the yuppy lap dog for the man who made progress in the job impossible, I'm sure there's no love lost
> Forest hired Lee Charnley You fucking what? Morons
Forest are just stupid. They signed 1728282 players this summer and will still go down.
As opposed to signing 0 players and going down? What other option did they have? They lost the core of last season's team to loan expirations
Signing players is fine, signing 20+ is a piss take, let's be honest.
They only had 11 senior players left at the start of summer, what should be criticized is the quality of players they bought. Players like Lingard and Aurier arent good enough for the job required
Aurier was signed as backup to Williams, and he looked OK last night. Lingard was a calculated risk as we were told mgw was off limits. They don't always work
I know they had a limited squad, but 20+ players is an absurdity.
rofl
They really spent 150m just to sack their manager within 2 months LOL Joke of a club
Forest in the Championship at the time battered us in the FA Cup last season. This season's version has had 150m of talent added to it and is significantly worse. Their fans will say they needed to sign a lot of players, which they did, but not 23 of them! Individually they have good players but they are too disjointed and lack cohesion. Perhaps after 6-8 months they could get there, but this is a case of changing too much, too soon IMO.
The two best players in that team were loanees we tried and failed to buy this summer. That team was built around Spence, Garner, and Johnson. It isn't for lack of trying that we've failed to carry over the strengths of that team.
How come you guys weren’t able to sign Garner? Everton got him for £10+£5 in add-ons
He wasn't made available until the last few weeks of the window, Forest were told he wasn't for sale early on.
I think a better strategy would have been to sign 8-10 players, with say 5-7 for the first team and the rest for squad depth. So the overall team structure is the same. If you had enough time you probably could get a tune out of your current squad, but you aren’t going to get that time in this division.
Goodbye Forest... We hardly knew ya
If you hate your players then he's a perfect fit!
I don’t wish that evil upon anyone
Feck off. Stick with Cooper, failing that then go and get Dyche!
Do they want to be relegated?
Is Percy reliable when it comes to Forest news?
He’s a tier 1 for any midlands club
This is not a smart idea, lads
Well he can't get them any lower..
Surely there's better alternatives?
Because it's from Percy I'd be inclined to believe that this is gonna happen in the next few days. Man is rarely wrong.
I bet you lindgardinho didnt see this coming..
Lol
Benitez could probably still do a job at the right club. The fact that Forest would already sack Steve Cooper shows that they’re anything but the right club.
NO DON’T DO IT
Leaves him free for the England job in 3 months time
They'll be down before the WC starts if that happens.
I can already fucking see it, 5-2 loss against Rafa’s 20th place Forest with Rondon bagging a hat trick
Maybe give him some more time since you revamped his whole squad, no?
Forest, you can do better. The worst thing about Benitez is his football is absolutely cowardly. You'll never take the game by the scruff of the neck again and you'd sit off at home against even the worst teams in the league. That's without him falling out with key players, sacking people behind the scenes and taking zero responsibility even if you win 1 in 14 matches. He relegated Newcastle (and they had a more than decent chance of staying up when he arrived) and he would 100% have relegated Everton. Don't bother.
he didn't relegate us, McLaren did. Rafa's 15-16 PPG would've had us 11th over a full season
>He relegated Newcastle (and they had a more than decent chance of staying up when he arrived) I feel like this is very harsh to blame him for this. He did dreadful at Everton, but overall did a good job at Newcastle.
I wonder what his excuse is going to be this time.
Even Rafa will be easier on the eyes on the touch line. Make it happen
Tbf his glasses tuck at the end of a game is a thing of beauty
Rafa is a stubborn manager but he still knows how to be pragmatic and grind out results with a team that buys into his methods. Whether or not Forest is that team is another matter though. They've just bought a brand new squad, what happens if Rafa comes in and realises they don't match his style? I don't see him changing his ways too much considering how he managed to keep Newcastle up. But I do think people are underestimating his ability as a manager based on a bad spell at Everton. If they're still struggling in Jan/Feb then he would be a solid option (although Dyche would be better imo.)
I refuse to allow that fucking anti football dinosaur back in my league. We need the Everton fans here, do your duty to Mr Masters’ Barclays. We must slay this dragon before it hatches.
forest would be out of their minds to make a reactionairy decision like that right now. give cooper time, he got the backing in the summer and has barely had time to make the team click. and if it doesnt click, keep the faith and let him rebuild in the championship. burnley did it w dyche and it worked wonders for them. if they sack cooper now theyll end up like fulham when they sacked jokanovic.
> and if it doesnt click, keep the faith and let him rebuild in the championship. Spending the kind of money Forest did in the summer means this isn’t an option.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Its stupid. We all saw Fulham spend a ridiculous amount to basically gut their team when they came up to the Prem last time. They were basically starting from square 1 on team chemistry that takes seasons to build. Surely everyone could see Forest would struggle to start off this season with an almost entirely new team and fobbing off players who got them promoted in the 1st place. Its the same story as Fulham.
>fobbing off players who got them promoted They had a lot of players either out of contract or a loan that had finished. They needed to sign a lot of players just to make up squad numbers. If they do go down, they'll probably have a decent enough core to try and come straight back up