Steve Cooper is a victim of own success – and rift with owner

FOOTBALL | CHARLOTTE DUNCKER

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Narrated by Charlotte Duncker

Perhaps the biggest surprise about Steve Cooper’s sacking is that it took this long. His position had been under threat so many times during his two-year reign that in some ways it is a miracle he reached that milestone.

The Welshman will go down as one of Nottingham Forest’s greatest managers, but with the club struggling for results — having managed only one win in their past 13 matches — Evangelos Marinakis, the Forest owner, decided it was finally time for a change.

The fans, as they have throughout Cooper’s tenure, chanted his name during the defeat by Tottenham Hotspur on Friday, but Marinakis, who was not inside the City Ground, had already started his pursuit of a replacement even before Richarlison’s opener.

Cooper was frustrated to have little say in the string of signings that Marinakis made

ALAMY

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