He didn't attempt to use the same style of play we'd been so successful in employing. I said after his first two or three pre-season games in charge that it was completely impossible to tell what his plan was and that his removal of all that had made us hard to beat would be a problem. He made no attempt to employ the same types of strategies with similar types of players during any of his time with us, but instead, wanted to instill his culture of 'player freedom' and whatever other bollocks he called it. That was never, ever going to work.
We had players who were well drilled and comfortable playing in a specific way and yes, it may have been difficult to maintain that in the PL but I'm absolutely convinced that we'd have more points now if we'd have got someone in to build on what had been scaffolded under Maresca. Instead, it was systematically broken apart bit by bit until we became a group of individuals rather than a team, none of who had a ****ing clue about what they should be doing. They lost any faith in the management and this is always difficult to repair at the best of times, let alone when you then go on to appoint what is essentially, a rookie.
Cooper wasn't trying to appease anybody, he just didn't know how to build from where we were. He wanted to put his stamp on things which is probably why, although a lot of it may be conjecture, there were many reports about him insisting on being given freedom of choice on who to bring in.
RvN isn't going anywhere for a while I wouldn't have thought and it doesn't matter either way for this season. The damage is already done and we're hurtling back down which is why I'm not too unhappy about seeing us save our cash rather than rush out to buy more garbage.
