Steve Cooper's style, approach and methods at Leicester City explained

It’s not all doom and gloom for the East Midlands club, however. Cooper also employed free-flowing modern football at Forest. Foxes fans are more used to seeing that in the Premier League and last season in the Championship.

During Cooper’s first spell in management at Swansea City, his philosophy had a heavy emphasis on possession. He used a similar style to Brendan Rodgers when he was at Leicester.

That is where both managers primarily set up their teams in a 4-2-3-1 formation. With most of the attacking play coming from wide areas through wingers who were good in one and one situations. And having full backs who wanted to push up the pitch.

When Cooper was in charge of Swansea, they averaged 1.61 points per game in the 105 fixtures he oversaw as he led the Welsh club to seventh place. In comparison, last season LCFC averaged 2.11 points per game on their way to the Championship title.

Another important note about Cooper’s spell in charge of the Swans and Forest, was that he gave youth the chance to prosper. One notable player fro the Swansea side which made it to the playoffs being Marc Guehi. While at Forest, academy graduate Ryan Yates got valuable minutes.

Towards the end of the Welshman's tenure with the Jacks, his side were accused of keeping possession for the sake of it. Plus not trying to progress up the pitch with the same intent as when he first took over the team. Once again this draws similarities to the Rodgers era at the Foxes.

During Forest’s first spell back in the Premier League, they tried pressing high up the pitch whilst attempting to continue in a similar way to what they did in the second division. Which they obviously got caught out doing in the EPL, to the delight of LCFC supporters. On the way the Trees picked up some heavy defeats, a 4-0 loss to Leicester and 6-1 versus Manchester City. 

With this poor start being made, Cooper and his backroom staff had to revaluate their lineup along with system and change what needed to be. This way they could hope to maintain top-flight status. This led to a new formation; changing to a 4-3-3 with the ball and then a 4-5-1 while out of possession. This made the XI compact in the midfield area and able to spring counter attacks through Brennan Johnson’s lighting pace and the creativity of Morgan Gibbs-White. 

Changing to a style of play that made them closer also had deficiencies, like all setups. Forest were consequently more susceptible to crosses into the box and conceding chances from wide areas. The perfect example of these deficiencies would be against Bournemouth at the City ground where all three of the Cherries' goals came via crosses in the wide area.

With all this being said, Cooper will mix his style of play to suit whatever opposition City are playing. If they are up against one of the Premier League's elite teams, he’ll set up to break away fast and to soak up pressure. But if Leicester are at home to someone around them in league positioning, they’ll play more of an expansive style of football on the front foot.