I am no supporter of Cooper
@Yankee_Jack. Indeed, I would wholeheartedly agree that his failure to use any subs or change tactics in the Cardiff game was indicative of a manager flailing about with no overall direction for the team or plan for improvement. Yes, I'd like some width in our play, some better passing instead of hoofing, more shots on goal especially ones on target, and stop persisting with players who are failing like Byers (bring in Fulton) and Routledge (bring in any of our other wingers). A lot of this is down to Cooper and how he is using his squad and the training sessions. Agreed.
However ... you seem unwilling to grant the man ANY credit for anything he does. That indicates someone who is unwilling to watch the crow being prepared never mind eat it! To me it seems that you are willfully interpreting everything Cooper does as negative and automatically feeding into your negative bias. He doesn't stand a chance when held up against your uniformly negative template for him.
Freddie Woodman has been a saviour in goal for us and is entirely down to Cooper, these three new loanees are very promising and are entirely down to Cooper, Ayew's willingness to stay and his commitment every game is at least partly down to Cooper, our excellent away record from a largely unchanged approach to away games from home games is partly down to Cooper, the resurgence of Kyle Naughton is down to Cooper (I just wish he'd teach him to do throw-ins that take less than two minutes!).
There are other positives. They are not enough for most of us on here. But they are, in my mind, enough to build some hope on. Clearly they are not even enough of that for you. It seems like what is most important for you is for Cooper to live down to your initial assessment of him and fail
regardless of the facts. Perhaps the difference here is I am an optimist wishing to see the glass as half full and looking forward with hope to watching my team; you are a pessimist willing the glass to be half empty and despondent about watching your team. The transfer window loanees are an excuse for me to enjoy my team and get excited about watching them on the weekend. For you the loanees seem to be yet another reason for you to despair of the team and arm yourself with ready-made criticisms before they even take to the field on Saturday. My condolences.
I am sorry if this seems like an attack on you personally. It is more an attack on the unceasing negativity on here and you just happen to have been in the line of fire! Yes, there's a lot wrong with what's going on at the moment, but there are also a lot of good things going on. For goodness sake we're one point off the play-off positions and we should celebrate that rather than keep pointing out how we wouldn't be there if it wasn't for August. Good God, we could be Stoke; THAT's a reason to complain. Let's not drown the good stuff in our rush to be the winner of "most critical poster" of the year award.