Former Nottingham Forest man Steve Cooper has been announced as the new Leicester City manager.
The Foxes had been without a manager after Enzo Maresca left for pastures new when he joined Chelsea a couple of weeks ago.
Cooper had been without a job since December of last year when he was sacked by Leicester City’s rivals, Nottingham Forest.
The Welshman has signed a three-year contract at the King Power Stadium; he gave a short statement to the club’s website.
“I am really excited and proud to be appointed Leicester City’s First Team Manager. This is a fantastic club with a rich history and passionate supporters. I am excited to work with such a talented squad and I am looking forward to the challenge of achieving our shared ambitions in the Premier League.”
So, what are some of the key talking points to come out of this appointment?
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Fan Acceptance
The Leicester City and Nottingham Forest rivalry is well documented.
Like many British footballing rivalries, it has roots in geography but has grown into a fierce and deeply personal game.
Steve Cooper is thought by many in Nottingham, to have been their best manager since the late great, Brian Clough. So, certain sections of the Leicester fanbase may take some time to warm to the man who has brought their rivals such great success.
Cooper is by no means the first man to manage both sides - Martin O’Neil, Gary Megson, and Leicester City legend Matt Gillies to name a few -but history shows that managers who have coached two rivals tend to be judged on a curve.
The most recent example of this very phenomenon is Mauricio Pochettino. His Tottenham Hotspur legacy was something that Blues fans could never look past.
Cooper must take this into account and understand that his side needs to go the extra mile if he is to be fully accepted.
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Playing Style
When Cooper took over at Forest, he devasted teams with bold formations and impressive attacking football. And that was enough to see them win the play-offs and return to the Premier League for the first time in over 20 years.
He quickly realised that his side would struggle to carry that over into the Premier League and adjusted to make Forest more defensively sound.
He came up with a system that had Forest defending deeper, while simultaneously getting the most out of their dangerous attacking players.
In a Brighton sort of style, they would allow teams to press them high up the pitch and that would then create spaces, which they would attack quickly and aggressively.
It would be difficult to associate one specific style of play with Cooper. He understands the strengths and limitations of his squad and will devise a system to get the most out of his players.
With The Foxes being promoted back to the Premier League, he will likely adopt a slightly more cautious style to help his side maintain their Premier League status.
This will be something of a departure from the free-flowing, all-action Maresca ball that fans had grown accustomed to in their tremendously successful season in the Championship.
But this level of pragmatism may be exactly what they need in their first season back in England’s topflight.
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Transfer Market is key
There was a fair amount of sympathy for Cooper during his time at Forest. That was mainly down to the way the club operated in the transfer market with the phrase scatter gun coming to mind when discussing the transfer policy of Forest.
In their first season back in the Premier League they signed over 25 players with no discernible cohesion within those acquisitions.
It is thought that many of these transfers were out of Cooper’s hands and were made by the people above him in the boardroom.
Hopefully, Cooper will be included more in the discussions surrounding transfers at the King Power Stadium than he was at the City Ground.
Cooper needs to bear in mind that the club cannot live beyond their means this summer. This is due to the club’s breach of the profit and sustainability rules, the outcome of which, remains to be seen.
The good news from a transfer perspective for Leicester, is that they may no longer need to sell key players.
There had been worries that some of their marquee members in the squad would need to be moved on to comply with FFP.
But with the club receiving a sizeable chunk of compensation for Enzo Maresca, that is thought to no longer be the case.
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The Youth factor
Steve Cooper coached at many different levels of the game, including several youth teams at Wrexham and Liverpool.
He also coached the England Under 17 team to World Cup glory in 2017.
He was highly thought of in the FA and played a huge role in improving players like Phil Foden and Jadon Sancho.
Cooper takes a worldly approach when coaching young players, believing that young people do not respond well to just being told what to do. Instead, Cooper sees it as a collaborative effort between himself and the players.
He had this to see when speaking to the Premier League's media team a few years ago:
“A lot has changed in Academies, where it is a real collaborative approach now, with the players involved in the process and they are used to analysing their own games and training clips and feeding back.”
There are quite a few players in the Leicester squad who will be making the jump up to the Premier League for the first time, but they will be in incredibly safe hands in Steve Cooper.
Kasey McAteer, Stephy Mavididi, and Ben Nelson are just a few who will likely benefit greatly from Cooper’s style of coaching.
Undoubtedly Cooper will set aside time for these players and allow them to grow into genuine Premier League standard stars.
He puts a lot of faith in young players and will not be afraid to throw a youth player or two into the first team if he thinks they are good enough.
