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Why Steve Cooper was never able to shake off ghost of Nottingham Forest as he grappled with new challenge
Managing Leicester City with the baggage of past Nottingham Forest links is not an impossible task. Martin O’Neill managed it. Fellow Forest icon Wes Morgan captained the Foxes to Premier League title glory. But for Steve Cooper, it was a job too far.
As the dust settles on the promotion hero’s brutal dismissal at the King Power Stadium, just 12 games into the season, a recurring theme mentioned in the detailing of his struggles there has been his Forest links. So why could Cooper not do what the likes of O’Neill and Morgan took in their stride?
Success clearly has much to do with it. O’Neill was a brilliant manager for the Foxes, arriving from Wycombe Wanderers and carving out an impressive reputation underlined by trophy success. Ditto Morgan, and then some. For Cooper, though, the odds were always stacked against him - potential points deductions (later successfully dodged), tight player budgets and a shambles of a pre-season just some of the contributory factors.
READ MORE: Nottingham Forest promotion hero sacked by Premier League rivals
But as our Foxes writer Jordan Blackwell explains, there were other issues at play that made it hard for Cooper. He writes: “Despite his success at the City Ground, Cooper wanted to totally put his tenure at Forest to bed. Behind the scenes at City, Forest were referred to as ‘the other place’ by Cooper and his staff as they tried to cut ties with their connection from the club by not even mentioning the name.
“But Cooper was not helped that the club themselves had alienated supporters. The issues around matchday prices and season-ticket charges were of huge frustration to supporters, with many saying it exacerbated their feelings of disconnect from the club.
“That’s hardly ideal for building a strong home atmosphere. At ‘the other place’, it was a cauldron during their first season back in the Premier League and was a big factor in their path to survival.”
Yet there was still more to it than just that. Cooper, as the architect of a stunning revival in Forest’s fortunes, was obviously loved. Because of that, he was able to get away with far more on the City Ground pitch than was going to be endured just 30 miles away at a club fighting for their top-flight survival, so tactics tolerated at Forest were deemed ultimately unacceptable for the Foxes, and so came the inevitable consequences.
As Jordan adds: “At Forest, having earned credit by taking the club out of the Championship and into the Premier League for the first time in years, Cooper was able to play as he deemed necessary and still have the backing of fans. At City, where there are greater expectations and the novelty of being in the Premier League has worn off, that didn’t cut it with supporters.”
In the end, the spirit of Cooper’s Forest past was simply too overwhelming for the spirit of his Leicester present, leaving the Foxes to plot an uncertain future by taking the same path as his past employers when the credit finally ran out - pull the trigger.
