The best and worst decisions made by Mark Cooper at Forest Green

Mark Cooper has been in charge of Forest Green Rovers for four years and six months, and guided the Gloucestershire outfit to the Football League for the first time in their history back in May 2017.

A former Forest Green club captain and Supporters’ Player of the Year, the 51-year-old has been a controversial figure during his tenure at The New Lawn and despite clear success and progress at the club, Cooper isn’t entirely popular with supporters and some say he has perhaps underachieved in recent season particularly.

Here are some of Cooper’s best and worst decisions from his time so far as manager of Forest Green Rovers:

Best decision #1 – Signing Christian Doidge

During Mark Cooper’s first transfer window in charge of Forest Green, the club signed Christian Doidge from relegated Dagenham & Redbridge on a two-year deal.

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At the time, Rovers’ forward ranks were densely populated with various impressive strikers, such as Matt Tubbs, Rhys Murphy and Kieffer Moore. The signing of Doidge raised little eyebrows, with the Welshman arguably fourth choice upon arrival, despite being Dagenham’s top scorer in League Two the season previous.

When he arrived at The New Lawn Doidge stated “I want to score 20-plus goals”. These comments weren’t taking seriously at the time, but Doidge’s confidence was backed up, with the striker leaving FGR after three seasons as the club’s record goal scorer with 66 goals in 120 games.

Doidge joined Hibernian in June 2019 for a deal worth in excess of £250,000 and after a slow start to life in the Scottish Premiership, the 28-year-old netted 19 goals in 39 appearances in the 2019/20 campaign.

Bringing Doidge to the club was a masterstroke from Mark Cooper with the poacher-like striker a true Forest Green Rovers legend, and a vital cog in the success of his Rovers team.

Best decision #2 – Implementing a brand of Football at the club

Since Mark Cooper’s arrival at Rovers in 2017/18, he has been trying to implement a style of football and a philosophy that is winning both plaudits and points.

A common stereotype of the lower tiers of English Football is that teams play more traditionally and direct, but Forest Green are, perhaps unsurprisingly, different – Rovers having adopted a free-flowing attacking style of football, with an emphasis on possession and playing out from the back.

The style of controlling games by keeping the ball and attacking down the flanks worked well in the 2018/19 play-off campaign, with former assistant manager Scott Lindsey a major factor in the success of this particular style of football.

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FGR aren’t a very physical side, with no really physically imposing defenders, but instead deploy smaller, smart ball-playing centre backs in Liam Kitching, Jordan Moore-Taylor and Udoka Godwin-Malife, who are all key in retaining and recycling possession.

Forest Green like to dominate games by controlling possession, with the wing-backs stretching wide to give themselves width. Adams and Winchester are the two midfield pivots who compliment each other brilliantly, with Adams an excellent ball winning box-to-box midfielder, and Winchester simply moving the ball quickly and retaining possession for his side.

Rovers are showing up well statistically thus far this season too with FGR third in the League Two standings and dominating the possession, pass accuracy and shots per game figures too.

Despite Mark Cooper adapting his team’s style and tactics for certain games, with a slightly more direct approach to suit new target man Jamille Matt, possession based, attractive football is still the main focus at Forest Green.

Worst decision #1 – Calling his own fans ‘deluded’

Following on from a 4-3 win away at Mansfield Town, Mark Cooper expressed how unhappy he was with the travelling supporters by telling them to “get a life” and “grow up” in his post-match press conference.

Cooper stated: “Sometimes you find yourself down in a game; you don’t need the fans to start singing the manager out. It’s embarrassing – wake up, get a life.

“There’s a majority of them that are really good. There’s a few that are absolutely deluded. They need to wake up and get behind the players.”

Cooper’s comments angered a majority of the Forest Green fanbase, and while negative chants towards the manager aren’t always suitable, calling your own supporters ‘deluded’ in the media was certainly not a great response from the man at the helm.

Worst decision #2 – Letting Kieffer Moore go

It’s amazing to think that Kieffer Moore, a player who was once deemed not good enough for National League at the time Forest Green Rovers, is now a regular Championship starter for Cardiff City and is scoring goals on the international scene for Wales.

After a brief spell out in Norway with Tippeligaen side Viking, the 6ft 6in striker signed for Forest Green in January 2016, making his debut for the club playing as an unorthodox central defender interestingly.

Moore was an important part of the Forest Green Rovers attack, with 10 goals in 14 starts in the National League, either side of a loan spell with home town club Torquay United.

Having fallen out of favour under Mark Cooper, the forwards joined Ipswich Town for a reportedly low fee of just £10,000 in January 2017. A year later he made the move to Barnsley for a fee close to £750,000, before spells at Wigan Athletic and now Cardiff City.

With estimated total transfer fees of over £5 million, it’s hard to understand why the striker wasn’t kept on at FGR, with Moore scoring goals when given chances.