Nottingham Forest will be forever indebted to Steve Cooper for the work he did in restoring Premier League football at the City Ground for the first time in 23 years.
It proved a tough decision for Evangelos Marinakis to part with Cooper in December 2023. However, he really did have nowhere to turn and there will be certain regrets that the former head coach has about the end of his Forest tenure.
No Forest head coach has got everything spot on. Nuno Espirito Santo is currently sitting in third place with his Reds outfit but even he has made mistakes over the course of the 2024/25 campaign.
Cooper was arguably dealt a tougher Premier League hand than Espirito Santo. He had to blend 30 players together in the first season and then a further 13 from the summer transfer window of 2023.
One of Cooper’s biggest regrets, however, might have come over one loan signing that Forest fought tooth and nail to land before the 2023/24 campaign and the Reds really missed a trick.
Andrey Santos outperforming Elliot Anderson after Forest snub
This really was a disasterclass of epic proportions. Cooper didn’t know Forest had signed Santos until he rocked up at training and that seemed to annoy him to the point that he only gave him seven minutes of Premier League game time.
Chelsea were furious with the arrangement and recalled him in January. Subsequently, the Brazilian player joined one of Todd Bohely’s other clubs Strasbourg and he’s grown as a player with the Ligue 1 outfit.
Santos is now one of the top performers in Ligue 1. Who Scored shows that he has won 76 tackles from his 21 appearances this season – the most of any player currently operating in the top flight over in France.
Santos was very honest about how Cooper treated him when he departed. Now, the player is showing Forest exactly what they missed out on by outperforming a number of Reds midfielders, including the in-form Anderson.
Anderson and Santos would have made a brilliant pairing
Although Santos is outperforming Anderson when it comes to his Who Scored rating, there is some evidence that suggests the pair would make a strong partnership.
Forest never really got to see Santos doing what he does best. The fact that he is strong in the tackle, however, would likely see him compliment the ball-playing brilliant of Anderson just nicely.
Forest have to make sure they learn from this debacle with Santos. Thankfully, things do feel a little bit more joined up these days with Espirito Santo seemingly satisfied with things in terms of recruitment.
It’s such a shame that Forest never got to see more of Santos. He’s heavily fancied to make an impact at Chelsea in the future and this has to go down as a Cooper mistake based on how well he’s doing with Strasbourg.
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