Cooper’s side have won one of their eight Premier League games this season
Nottingham Forest manager Steve Cooper has signed a new contract with the club until 2025.
Cooper, 42, led the club to promotion to the Premier League last season but his side lie bottom after eight games.
There were doubts about his role after Monday’s 4-0 defeat by Leicester City but it was decided that he would remain in charge.
“It brings clarity to speculation. Nobody ever questioned how much I love it here and want to be here,” Cooper said.
“If it’s talked about, it can stop. It doesn’t mean we’ll win the next game and everything will be fine,” he added.
“It put an end to the interrogation and that’s great.”
A statement from the City Ground Club said they were “delighted” to announce Cooper’s new deal.
“It is now important that we focus solely on football,” the statement continued.
“As a group we are all focused and will do everything we can to help the side move up the table and once again demonstrate the qualities that got us to the Premier League.”
Cooper was named forest manager in September 2021, bringing them back to the top flight for the first time since 1999 at the end of his first season in charge.
He then spent £145m on 21 players in the summer transfer window.
Despite the heavy spending, Forest have won just once in the league this season, with the loss at King Power Stadium being their fifth straight run.
analysis
Colin Fray, ` Radio Nottingham
The news from City Ground comes as a surprise, but a welcome surprise. It is rare for a football club to offer real backing and support to a manager under pressure.
Surely it will come as a welcome surprise to the vast majority of Nottingham Forest fans, who have supported the head coach in every way imaginable over the past few days – from loudly chanting his name as Leicester went 3-0 down to flooding social media with messages of support.
Whether fan power helped influence that decision is difficult to gauge, but it was undoubtedly difficult for the club to ignore this week.
The feeling of a significant number of those fans was that even if the worst happens this season and Forest returns to the Championship, Cooper is the best man to lead them back up the ladder. And as Burnley and Norwich have done with Sean Dyche and Daniel Farke respectively, this is perhaps an indication that feelings at the City Ground are now similar towards their head coach.
The club’s statement suggests they are together as a group and are determined to move up the table.
Monday’s home game against Aston Villa always felt like it was going to be a “Night of Steve Cooper Appreciation”. This message will not change that.
As difficult as the current spell is, maybe now fans can look forward to more of those famous celebratory Cooper fist pumps in the future.
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