Not yet, but Steve Cooper and Nottingham Forest still have grand designs on Premier League

City Ground fans have been carried on a wave of excitement under their Welsh boss and still believe they can get promoted via the play-offs. 

EXCITED: Nottingham Forest fans celebrate a season that could still bring them Premier League football in 2022-23.

“It’s recovering from set-backs that defines you," Steve Cooper declared after his Nottingham Forest side were beaten at Bournemouth Tuesday night. "That’s what we’ve got to make sure we do now.” 

Not since Brian Clough have Forest fans been so excited about a manager and it is easy to see why; the team Cooper inherited from Chris Hughton in September had claimed just a single point from its first seven Championship games. Now the only disappointment it has to swallow is missing out on automatic promotion to the Cherries and having to watch them celebrate.

The Welshman, 42, had no playing career to speak of but cut his teeth as a youth coach at Liverpool and then England, leading an Under-17 side with Phil Foden as its star to World Cup final glory in 2017. Now the play-offs beckon with third-place Forest, a hurdle he twice failed to negotiate both last season and the campaign before while in charge of Swansea City.

Swansea showed him the door last summer but Forest fans will forgive a falling short, if it comes to that. The City Ground has enjoyed the team's transformation into winners too much. Mull of Kintyre, the song they adopted and adapted when Clough and Co began to astonish in the late 1970s, will be belted out whatever division they compete in next season.

Clough and Cooper could hardly be more different personalities of course. The former, though relying heavily on number two Peter Taylor for transfers and tactics, was an outspoken egotist when it came to media and man-management. Cooper does not seek the spotlight for himself, insisting he is but a single cog in a machine. Indeed, his players are more likely to call him 'Coops' than gaffer.

Nor is he temperamental. "I'm a believer in building self-belief and people feeling good about themselves because that's how you get the best out of people," he explained to an assembly of supporters early in his tenure. "I'm more interested in showing people a bit of love and support rather than criticise them.

"That doesn't mean you can't be demanding. You can challenge people and support them at the same time. I'm very clear on my leadership style and what I think a good culture looks like."

"We talk about it for twenty minutes and then we decide I was right," was Clough's famous description of how he dealt with players who weren't being picked. Cooper is happy to chat for longer, and to agree to disagree. When Ryan Yates arrived in his office for an explanation the player ended up telling his manager it was he who was wrong. Cooper, far from taking umbrage, admired the midfielder's attitude. Yates has now made 48 appearances this season.

Yates, 24, is also significant because he is a local lad who came through the ranks. "I believe a thriving Championship team has young players in it," Cooper said. "Teams that have done well in the Championship and won promotion have all had homegrown players because they give natural enthusiasm. I want homegrown young players in the squad.” 

Forest manager Steve Cooper celebrates at Craven Cottage.

Brennan Johnson, Nottingham-born, also personifies Forest's rise from relegation fodder to the brink of a first top-flight campaign since 1999, two years before the Wales forward was born.

Hughton, ever a defensive-minded manager, harboured doubts about the forward's readiness for Championship football despite a stellar loan spell at Lincoln City in the division below last season. Cooper embraced Johnson's potential immediately and has been rewarded with 15 goals, including one in a 4-1 FA Cup thrashing of holders Leicester City.

That cup run, which also saw Arsenal eliminated, was further proof that Cooper is creating a side worthy of a top-flight return. It was ended at the City Ground by Liverpool, who were made to work hard for a 1-0 win that also required a VAR call on a penalty claim involving Yates and a bad miss late on by Philip Zinckernagel, the Watford loanee operating in the hole in Cooper's favoured 3-4-1-2 formation.

"We are trying to build a real mentality a little like Liverpool have done over the years - whoever they play, in whatever competition, they turn up and win," Cooper said afterwards, again echoing Clough, who stopped the Anfield trophy tide on promotion in 1977, domestically and then in Europe.

Many a Forest manager has felt hamstrung by the magnitude of the success of the early Clough era and the inevitable comparisons. That is understandable but Cooper has actively embraced the club's past, sounding out two-time European Cup winning legends, many of whom still live locally, for advice.

"We want to build on the history of the club," he said. "To embrace what this football club stands for and thrive on that." 

Tuesday may prove nothing more than a temporary setback.