Steve Cook

"Fulham are by far the best team in the league and congratulations on promotion.

"But you could tell we wanted it, we needed it more than them.

"We were hungry. We've come a long, long way.

These are the things I worry about... I've only seen us want it more or be hungry for it a few times this season... One of those was Tuesday night in the last 35 mins...

Forest will come here and throw everything at us... We need to throw more at them...
 
SlowDownDerek said:
Where did you hear this? I think you made it up.
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Blake froze him out on wage cost and SP made him train with the kids to try and force the move and release wages for Cahill. Now Phillips has been brought in on a large chunk and we are paying double what Cook wanted for two players that aren’t as good as him.

Not that the sycophants will want to hear this. Great business in their books as was releasing him to Forest who are clearly no threat.
 
Neil Dawson said:
Blake froze him out on wage cost and SP made him train with the kids to try and force the move and release wages for Cahill. Now Phillips has been brought in on a large chunk and we are paying double what Cook wanted for two players that aren’t as good as him.

Not that the sycophants will want to hear this. Great business in their books as was releasing him to Forest who are clearly no threat.
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So Valencia made it up as I said then? It wasn't Parker's decision at all.
 
You have to admit that Cook would have improved our defence this season.

Knew the team inside out, wore his heart on his sleeve and has definitely improved an opposition rival.

Financially he may have been expensive, but we've spunked his wages and more, on a player in the final stages of his career, and one who we don't own who is no better.

It was all about getting him off the books, nothing to do with his ability.

Blake should be held to account for this own goal.
 
What is it that all the experts on here would have done differently? Offer Cook a three year contract at the wages he's on at Forest? Not offer him a contract and deny him a move that secures his future? Force him to finish his contract here and run the risk of getting injured?

What's the strategy then?
 
SlowDownDerek said:
What is it that all the experts on here would have done differently? Offer Cook a three year contract at the wages he's on at Forest? Not offer him a contract and deny him a move that secures his future? Force him to finish his contract here and run the risk of getting injured?

What's the strategy then?
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The club's financial policy of summer 2021 seems obviously different and more austere to January 2022's spending push.

I totally understand trying to do something about Cook's wages under the summer 2021 plans. Once the August deal fell through, I think it's fair to say we could have better used Cook in that Oct-Dec period.

Once we arrived at Jan 2022 and the decision to release more funds for a push, I would have liked the club to contact Cook and ask him to stay and contribute to the push by seeing out his contract with an added promotion bonus incentive / golden handshake. Only go looking for a Nat Phillips type signing if we couldn't get Cook to agree.

The flaw in that plan is I'm not privy to what promises may have been made to him prior to that for securing a multi year move elsewhere. When talks with Forest first began. Or what bridges may have been burned between Cook and our club's hierarchy over the months.

But in an ideal world that's how I would have liked it to play out. And for all I know, Blake may have tried to talk Cook into staying on. But I doubt it from what little bits we hear.
 
northstandmark said:
The club's financial policy of summer 2021 seems obviously different and more austere to January 2022's spending push.

I totally understand trying to do something about Cook's wages under the summer 2021 plans.

Once we arrived at Jan 2022 and the decision to release more funds for a push, I would have liked the club to contact Cook and ask him to stay and contribute to the push by seeing out his contract with an added promotion bonus incentive / golden handshake. Only go looking for a Nat Phillips type signing if we couldn't get Cook to agree.

The flaw in that plan is I'm not privy to what promises may have been made to him prior to that for securing a multi year move elsewhere. When talks with Forest first began. Or what bridges may have been burned between Cook and our club's hierarchy over the months.

But in an ideal world that's how I would have liked it to play out. And for all I know, Blake may have tried to talk Cook into staying on. But I doubt it from what little bits we hear.
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Precisely, this plan involves denying a club legend the opportunity to secure his future elsewhere.
 
Neil Dawson said:
Careful, Blake got us up two divisions… apparently.
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I just don't get this

If Blake is so completely fucking clueless, why does a successful businessman employ him as a CEO on fat wages?

Is Demin thick?

I'm not saying you're wrong about your assessment (oft repeated) about Blake, but I can't get my head round this question
 
adam0102 said:
I just don't get this

If Blake is so completely fucking clueless, why does a successful businessman employ him as a CEO on fat wages?

Is Demin thick?

I'm not saying you're wrong about your assessment (oft repeated) about Blake, but I can't get my head round this question
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The truth is almost certainly that Blake is nothing special but he's also clearly not as useless as Neil makes out.

If you look closely at Neil's arguments on Blake they boil down to this squad being simultaneously the strongest in the league whilst also being full of dreadful Blake signings.
 
SlowDownDerek said:
Precisely, this plan involves denying a club legend the opportunity to secure his future elsewhere.
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I think this assumes that Cook was chomping at the bit to move on and secure a three year contract elsewhere before the end of this season. If that was the case, then absolutely, we owed it to a club legend to allow him to secure his future.

However, if this wasn't the case, and Cook was happy to see out the final year of his contract here, try and gain another promotion, and see how the land lay in the summer, then freezing him out based on finances seems to have been a mistake and also not a very fair way to treat a club legend.

Obviously we'll never know which scenario was true. I'd guess at the latter, based on Cook's record, but that isn't based on any real knowledge.
 
klaus_afcb said:
I think this assumes that Cook was chomping at the bit to move on and secure a three year contract elsewhere before the end of this season. If that was the case, then absolutely, we owed it to a club legend to allow him to secure his future.

However, if this wasn't the case, and Cook was happy to see out the final year of his contract here, try and gain another promotion, and see how the land lay in the summer, then freezing him out based on finances seems to have been a mistake and also not a very fair way to treat a club legend.

Obviously we'll never know which scenario was true. I'd guess at the latter, based on Cook's record, but that isn't based on any real knowledge.
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This is true. Who knows but it's always funny how people assume that what's happened is the logic defying solution. The club let Cook go and signed Phillips. It might be because they like wasting money and making promotion less likely or it might have been a decision taken that was thought best at the time.
 
SlowDownDerek said:
This is true. Who knows but it's always funny how people assume that what's happened is the logic defying solution. The club let Cook go and signed Phillips. It might be because they like wasting money and making promotion less likely or it might have been a decision taken that was thought best at the time.
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Agree, there has to be some method to the madness. As @adam0102 says, Demin isn't an idiot.

Assuming the second scenario was true, my guess, and it's only a guess, is that they planned to move Cook on last summer and bring Cahill in on less money (I personally don't think this was a particularly fair way to treat a club legend, but hey ho). As it transpired, Cook was still here, but by that point not in Parker's plans. Cahill then got injured meaning we panicked a bit and went in for Phillips. So with hindsight, the Cook decision was a bad one, but, as you say, probably thought best at the time.

Alternatively, if scenario one was true and Cook just wanted to leave, us trying to facilitate that and then looking for a replacement was clearly justified.
 
klaus_afcb said:
Agree, there has to be some method to the madness. As @adam0102 says, Demin isn't an idiot.

Assuming the second scenario was true, my guess, and it's only a guess, is that they planned to move Cook on last summer and bring Cahill in on less money (I personally don't think this was a particularly fair way to treat a club legend, but hey ho). As it transpired, Cook was still here, but by that point not in Parker's plans. Cahill then got injured meaning we panicked a bit and went in for Phillips. So with hindsight, the Cook decision was a bad one, but, as you say, probably thought best at the time.

Alternatively, if scenario one was true and Cook just wanted to leave, us trying to facilitate that and then looking for a replacement was clearly justified.
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I reckon (same caveat, just my speculation) that it's similar to your first scenario. We can see from the books that they've done well cutting wages. After Begovic, Danjuma, etc. moved on only Cook and Jeff were left on big PL wages. The task was to cut running costs from 2022/23 so there was no prospect of offering Cook an extension. Now, whether they should have built the team around him for this season or not is a fair debate but you can understand the reluctance of relying on a player in the last year of his contract given what happened with Fraser, King, etc.

The decision to let Cook go and sign Cahill looked a great decision until he got injured. The problem was that Cook couldn't find a club in August and so was still on the books. Should they have put him on the bench more? Perhaps. He did ok when he did eventually come in. It might not have been fair on the club legend but he did say that the club had been fair with him, who knows?

I suspect that by January that Cook had advanced talks elsewhere and it was too late to get him to stay. Like with Moore, sometimes good decisions can turn into bad decisions when players get injured.
 
Not sure if this article has been posted before, below from the Athletic’s Peter Rutzler.

PR: Cook had fallen down the pecking order at Bournemouth under Scott Parker, mainly due to competition in the form of Lloyd Kelly, Chris Mepham and summer arrival Gary Cahill. Opportunities were few and far between and naturally, Cook had become frustrated. I imagine too that Bournemouth are likely to have wanted to reduce their wage bill, and Cook has been at the club for some time. His departure though does seem amicable, with the club set to honour his testimonial after passing 10 years with the south coast club this month.

https://www.nottinghamforest.news/2...-verdict-on-nottingham-forest-man-steve-cook/
 
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