...but I won't pretend that, for the most part, I'm NOT happy with the football I'm seeing
Neither am I.
But if players are under-performing just who do you turn to in order to get them playing better? Of course much of the responsibility lies with the players themselves but it has to be part of a manager's (and his coaching staff) remit to teach them to perform better.
Manager and his coaching staff should prepare players physically, tactically and mentally for games. Players do a lot of basic stuff in training like passing drills, set-pieces, triangles, attacking patterns etc. But how do you teach players not to be sloppy at passing? How do you teach an experienced centre-back not to give a stupid penalty away? How do you teach Grimes to make a professional tackle when needed, and you know that he already knows that? Is it necessary for a manager to tell his players not to give the ball away in dangerous areas? They f****** know that.
Allowing players to make costly mistakes is a part of a developing process, and that's what Cooper should continue to be doing. That's what Potter was doing last season, and we gave him quite a long leash. The trouble is that we all have short memory, and we only remember good football we played under Potter, whilst at the same time we forget some really crap performances under him. Do you remember how shot-shy we were under Potter during the first half of the season? We used to pass from the back and we mostly played in our own half. Now we play more in opposition half, we shoot more and we create more chances. Can't we give some credit to Cooper for improving our number of shots and shots on target compared to Potter? Actually, double as many shots on target. Under Potter we played more counter-attacking football then we do now, but we had James and his incredible pace. Under Potter we leaked goals from set-pieces, under Cooper we conceded one goal from set-pieces in 15 games. Under Potter we earned 33 points from the first 25 games, under Cooper we already have 28 points from 15 games. When Potter took over we spent €7,15 m on new players, Cooper spent €550.000 on Peterson.
Potter had James (4 goals, 7 assists), McBurnie (22 goals, 4 assists), Fer (25 appearances, 1 goal, 2 assists), Montero (3 assists), Olsson (17 appearances, 1 assist), Bony (played a couple of games,1 goal), CBR (3 goals), CCV, Celina (5 goals, 6 assists), and then Hoorn, Rodon, Roberts, Naughton, Carroll, Dyer, Routledge, McKay, Byers, Fulton, Asoro, Narsingh, John, Dhanda.
The question is do we really have a better squad now? I doubt it. I don't think any of our strikers will score 22 goals this season. Do we have Montero's trickery and James pace in our squad? Not yet. Let's see what Peterson and Kalulu can offer. Peterson didn't have a proper pre-season with us, and Kalulu has been injured since August. Also, the Championship is more competitive this season than it was last season.
We have to remember that we don't have the best strikers in the league, we don't have the best wingers in the league, we don't have the best midfielders in the league, and we don't have the best back four in the league. Ask yourself which Swansea player would walk in the Leeds, WBA and Fulham squads? And yet, we have 5 points more than Fulham, 7 points more than Cardiff, 12 points more than Huddersfield, and 20 points more than Stoke - all of them were among favourites for play-off places in the beginning of the season.
Cooper is neither Marcelo Bielsa nor Slaven Bilic, but for a rookie manager, who manages an average Championship squad, he is doing well.