Steve Cooper fuming as Nottingham Forest players ‘don’t do their jobs’ against West Ham United.
Nottingham Forest were beaten 3-2 in the Premier League after failing to defend set pieces at the London Stadium.
Steve Cooper was clearly angry with his Nottingham Forest players after they lost 3-2 to West Ham United at the London Stadium.
The Reds should have taken at least a point after scoring through Taiwo Awoniyi and Anthony Elanga, but they conceded goals from two second half set pieces to lose, with Tomas Soucek heading in the winner after 88 minutes.
In his post match press conference, Cooper was swift to point out that Forest should have left the London Stadium with a positive Premier League result, but they only had themselves to blame for failing to deal with James Ward-Prowse corners.
“If we’d drawn 2-2 I’d have been disappointed. To lose 3-2 is really, really disappointing. I can’t and shouldn’t look past the goals we’ve given away,” he said. “We’ve gifted an opportunity right at the start of the game through not being ready to start and a poor individual mistake (by Nicolas Dominguez). We get level and should go 2-1 up in the second half before we do go 2-1 up.
“To concede a corner three, four, five, seconds after kick off and then defend that corner as we did with players not doing their jobs is frustrating. The third goal, it’s a throw in halfway up the pitch and we’re defending a corner again. We’ve not done our jobs again and we’ve been punished for it.
“That’s our own fault. A lot will be said about James Ward-Prowse’s delivery and rightly so. He’s fantastic at it but if the ball coming in is brilliant or average, it doesn’t matter if you’re not willing to stay with your men, you run the risk of conceding goals. In the end that’s what we’ve done.”
Forest slipped back down to 15th in the Premier League table and have one win in seven games after beating Aston Villa a week ago with a far more polished defensive performance.
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