For the best part of half an hour, Steve Cooper has been fielding questions centred around Nottingham Forest’s next opponents.
Manchester City, Pep Guardiola, Erling Haaland and the Premier League title race are all topics of conversation. With a sidestep as neat as any footwork Morgan Gibbs-White can produce, Cooper successfully dodges any predictions over who will be crowned champions.
“There’s a lot of talk about City, which I understand, but we are focused on ourselves,” he says, making a point rather than a complaint. “I’d rather talk about what I think about my team and my players, because we’re on our journey as well and we’re trying to be the best we can be.”
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Like the vast majority of managers, though, Cooper admires the way City play under Guardiola, and he is appreciative of the way his counterpart operates. During his years at Liverpool’s academy, he travelled to Spain several times to watch that much-revered and highly-successful Barcelona team play.
Watching La Liga on TV was a regular appointment. “That was the highlight of my weekend for years when my kids were small, although don’t tell my wife that,” he quips. “Get them to bed early, get La Liga on.”
Cooper is very much his own manager. He talks frequently about coaches - and players - having to find their own path. But he acknowledges how Guardiola has had a wider influence on football in general.
“For sure, Pep has been and is one of the greatest coaches, in terms of - first and foremost - how much he’s won. He’s a winner. Having had a few years now in a first-team set-up, that’s what we’re all trying to do,” says the Welshman.
“Of course, what goes with Pep is the how he does it - the way his teams play, the innovation and the creativity, both with and without the ball. If you study Pep’s teams, it’s just as intriguing watching how they defend as it is watching them with the ball.
“I’ve got massive admiration for him. I did travel to Barcelona a lot as a younger coach, through the (Frank) Rijkaard years and then Pep, and did see that team play a lot. Like everybody else in the world, I admired the success they had.
“I was coaching young players at the time. Barca have always been known for being a creative team with creative players, but particularly at that time. Then there was Sky Sports having La Liga Saturday and Sunday nights, Real Madrid one Barca the next or vice versa.
“It helped what you really believe in as a coach. And it was pretty accessible from Liverpool, with flights, so it was great to go to the Nou Camp.
“At the time, we were going through a real change in development, in terms of really encouraging younger players… It was before EPPP (Elite Player Performance Plan) but they were changing the coaching courses and coaching education, and there was a real desire from the FA and the Welsh FA, who I was connected with, to change the way young players play the game. More technical based, more possession based, more bravery on the ball, less focus, particularly at the younger ages, on results and more on performance - although both are really important and you have to learn to do both.
“We’ve all been on our own coaching journeys. I think you also have to find your own way. You have to believe in yourself, particularly when you get to first-team level. That’s what I and everyone else is trying to do. But of course, Pep has been one of the pioneers - and still is.”
Youth development remains a passion of Cooper’s, as he has spoken about plenty of times during his time at the City Ground. For him, it is not just about progressing the likes of Gibbs-White and Brennan Johnson in the first-team, he is a regular observer of sessions among the younger age groups at the Nigel Doughty Academy’s training dome.
“I always stick my head in the dome on the way home,” he says. “Normally, by the time I leave, the kids are training, and I’ll always go spend 10 or 20 minutes watching them. I like to pick up some coaching ideas, because young coaches now have got some brilliant creativity. And I also like to see the players play. It always intrigues me how good some of these young kids are and how they play at 10 or 11.
“You’ve seen how the England teams have done, and at senior level as well, with reaching finals and the success they’ve had. And how well Wales have done as well, speaking about the two countries I’ve been connected to.
“It’s been a big change in youth development over the years. It’s not just been down to Barca and Pep, I think there’s been a real desire to improve ourselves, and we’ve seen that. Academies are continuing to strive to get to the next level.”
So to coming up against City this afternoon, then. Cooper lets out a short, sharp exhale of breath when he recalls the first time he managed against them.
That was four years ago in the FA Cup, when he was in charge of Swansea City. “What I remember is just how competitive they were in the game,” he says. “They show you respect, but they were ruthless in the way they played. I remember driving away thinking, ‘pfft’, and also about how athletic they were as well.
“But that is the Premier League. And they’ve been the best team for a few years now.”
Forest have already experienced just how ruthless Guardiola’s men can be. Haaland bagged a hat-trick in a 6-0 thumping at the Etihad Stadium in August. “I can’t remember the game,” Cooper teases.
The Reds were in a different place back then, still trying to get to grips with the Premier League. At the time, Cooper rued their “naivety”. Now, "belief" is one of his most commonly used words in interviews.
“That was at the start of, or a game or two into, a bad run and there were certainly some things in the course of those games that were real standouts for us that we had to change,” he reflects. “We’re still changing and still working on stuff. We’ve had some forward steps, but some backwards ones as well.
“We could have played brilliant in that game and still not got a positive result out of it, but there were certainly some parts of the performance that were self-inflicted and made the scoreline and the game what it was. As always, what we try to do is learn from it.
“We could play really well this time and still not get anything out of the game. I hope that’s not the case, I hope we’re a bit luckier than that and we earn more than that. But they’re a really, really, really good team with brilliant players.
“But we are in the Premier League, and you face everything - teams like Man City and then other teams with different qualities - and you just have to try to tackle it for what it is. You have to try to come up with a plan that you think can help on the day and can go and support the players to be who they are.
“We have to be aware of that, and I hope we’re not naive on the day, because they’re certainly not. For all of their obvious strengths and attributes, they also have good decision-making. Even watching them against Arsenal, when they took the lead and how they managed the game from there, then got a third, tells you they are such an experienced and mature team as well, not just technically and tactically at a massive level.
“We need to try to be a good version of that ourselves. It’s going to be a real game for concentration and mentality. You find in games that you can tire physically, but you can also tire mentally as well; this is one of those games where we really have to stand up to that.
“There is the risk that you show them too much respect. You certainly have to get the balance right between recognising who they are and what they can do, but also backing yourself as well.
“Football is a competition, and you have to compete in every way. If we don’t do that - and we’ve learnt that at times this year - then there’s less room for error in this league. You have to get the balance right, and I hope we do.
“I’ve been part of a couple of successful teams now, whether it be with England, Swansea and last year at Forest, and the common denominator when things have gone well is a real strong spirit, so that’s always the aim.
“There’s been a lot of, and continuing to be a lot more, work focusing on that this year because there’s so many new players and the step up in leagues and the demands. I don’t know if siege mentality is the phrase, but certainly we are really sticking together and having the greater good and bigger purpose of the club in mind."
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