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Nottingham Post

Sport

Jake Bayliss

Simon Jordan tells Steve Cooper to ignore 'excuse' for Nottingham Forest form

Simon Jordan Steve Cooper Forest Nottingham Forest talkSPORT EPL the Premier League Football Manchester United

Simon Jordan has told Steve Cooper to “take some responsibility” as Nottingham Forest’s poor run of form continues.

The Reds sit in the bottom three on goal difference after their 2-0 loss to Manchester United as Steve Cooper ’s side remain level on points with Everton in 17th. The defeat at the City Ground saw Forest extend their dismal run without a win to 10 games, their most recent win coming against Leeds in February.

Despite their recent poor run of form, Forest have picked up 21 of their 27 points at home, with Cooper’s side constantly struggling on the road. Giving his verdict on Forest’s hopes for survival, Simon Jordan called on the manager to address his side’s problems away from home and to not allow any excuses, ahead of the final seven games of the season.

“I am not suggesting Steve Cooper should be fired but (their away form) at times has been feeble and a tacit acceptance that they are going to be feeble away from home and rely on their home form to get them past it,” Jordan told talkSPORT. “Ultimately you are going to come up against teams at the business end of the season that have either got titles to go for or are going to fight just as hard as you do at your place of business.

"That’s where they find themselves now. They are in the bottom three on merit, you can argue that they have got lots of players out injured, then we can have the same argument that they have had too many players being bought.

"Chief executives being marginalised, directors of football are nothing to do with Steve Cooper and the team on the pitch,” the former Crystal APlace chairman continued. “Nothing to do with it. It’s an excuse if it’s used that way. It doesn’t affect the players, it doesn’t affect the manager.

“If they want to allow it to affect them then that will be up to them but that will be an excuse. What happens on the pitch on a Saturday afternoon and Monday to Friday, the chief executive has nothing to do with that. The director of football will likely have nothing to do with that.”

Ross Wilson became Forest’s chief football officer last week, following Filippo Giraldi’s departure from the club. However, Jordan has told Cooper to simply focus on his job to ensure Forest achieve Premier League safety and prove that Evangelos Marinakis is right to stick by him, following plenty of other managerial changes at the bottom of the table.

“Shall I tell you where his support structure is? His own backside and winning games,” Jordan said. “That’s his support structure and if you don’t win games, it doesn’t matter how many supporters you have got, it doesn’t matter how many chief executives are still in situ, it doesn’t matter how many directors of football will have been patted on the back by the owner of the football club. If you are not winning games you are going to get the sack.

“If he is the exception to the rule, he should go and earn the right to be the exception to the rule because if everybody else is being taken out as a result of the jobs they are doing he is at the sharp end of those jobs because it is his job to produce a winning team,” the talkSPORT pundit added.

“I like him, I think he is a very good manager, I am not suggesting Nottingham Forest should fire him, I have always suggested that Forest getting promoted to the Premier League was always a situation where there was going to be risk and they might get relegated again.

“It is not a disaster if they get relegated again, it’s a waste of people’s time and you lose some time and you are not going to get it back. But I also believe that Forest have been so poor away from home, I mean so poor that there has to be some sort of mental block and approach being levied by their manager.”