After Nottingham Forest threw away their victory over Luton Town at the City Ground two months ago, Roy Keane believes Steve Cooper was a “dead man walking.” Chris Wood scored twice in the Premier League match, the second of which came with just 15 minutes remaining, to put Forest ahead by two goals.
With ten minutes remaining, Forest’s lead looked insurmountable against a recently promoted team that was having trouble adjusting to life in the top division. However, in the 83rd minute, Chiedozie Ogbene gave the Hatters hope, and in stoppage time, Elijah Adebayo scored to tie the score and secure an unlikely point.
Forest would have moved up to eleventh place in the Premier League standings if they had hung on. Rather, they dropped to 15th place and have lost six of their last eight games, a record that has led to Cooper’s dismissal. The three points gained against Aston Villa and the hard-fought draw at Wolves are the only points that have been earned thus far.
In retrospect, Forest had only suffered away losses against Manchester United, Arsenal, and City up to the draw with Luton. They had also triumphed at Chelsea. However, Keane’s demise was sealed when they were unable to secure three points against Rob Edwards’ team, even though Cooper lived for an additional two months.
“Two months ago, they were leading 2-0 at home against Luton, and they ended up drawing 2-2,” Reds veteran Keane stated on the Stick to Football podcast, which was carried by Sky Bet. We have all experienced situations where you think, “That’s cost them the momentum and the feel-good factor,” and there is an owner there who is eager to declare, “I’m going to get rid.”
Steve Cooper had been a walking corpse for the past two or three months. They were saying, “You’ve got one more game,” and they had just lost to Fulham. What a great place to work that is. I am aware of your workload, but this question, “Is the manager going to be in today?” comes up every week.
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