Steve Cooper explains where Forest really disappointed him vs Liverpool
Steve Cooper has explained where his Nottingham Forest team let themselves down at Anfield yesterday. The Reds were thrashed 3-0 by Liverpool as Diogo Jota, Darwin Nunez and Mohamed Salah all scored.
Forest are now six games without a win and Cooper will start to feel the heat. Forest have an ambitious owner in Evangelos Marinakis and after another summer of spending, he will be expecting better.
The Reds were pretty much out of this tie at half-time. Two goals in a matter of minutes – we’ve seen that before – all but consigned Forest to yet another defeat on the road and left Cooper with questions to be answered.
Cooper explains where Forest disappointed him
It’s hard not to feel some sympathy with the Forest boss at the moment. Cooper can only do so much and right now, it’s individual errors on the pitch that are crippling Forest and costing them points.
Yesterday’s performance looks familiar to some of the showings at the beginning of last season. There was little in the way of urgency, Forest looked disjointed and ultimately it proved an embarrassing showing.
After a defeat for Forest, Cooper told BBC Sport: “It’s frustrating. The idea was to keep the pitch as small as you can. When you open up the pitch that’s when Liverpool are at their most dangerous.
“We look at the goals and think ‘we should have done better’. I had no fit striker to start. It’s a really tough place to come, especially when you don’t have a striker.
“At 2-0 down at half-time, I’ve seen teams not give the effort we did in the second half and go under and I don’t think we did that. We just ourselves down a bit with the goals.”
Cooper now has work to do
Nobody has worked harder than Cooper at Forest over the past couple of years. However, now he has some pretty big questions staring him in the face and he’s got some work to do.
Forest now face Aston Villa, West Ham and Brighton. After that, they play Everton at home and that game against the Blues already feels like being a pretty big one for both clubs.
After a promising start to the campaign, Forest now look to be in a bit of bother again. They’ve slid to 16th in the Premier League table and are without a win since they beat Chelsea in early September.
Cooper knows that simply won’t do for a club the size of Forest. Does the club have the leaders in the dressing room to dig themselves out of this hole? Only time will tell.
