Some managers rip down pictures of great teams from the past but Nottingham Forest’s Steve Cooper is happy to sing the achievements of Brian Clough’s European Cup winners from the rooftops.
As a young academy coach, Cooper worked alongside Kenny Dalgish at Liverpool, Forest’s FA Cup quarter-final opponents on Sunday. He saw directly how a living legend could inspire the next generation. There is no thought of hiding away from the great Cloughie teams that won trophies in three different decades.
‘We will always stand on their shoulders and rightly so,’ says Cooper, who is tasked with bringing the glory days back and has lost just four of 32 games since arriving in September.