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Nottingham Forest fans rub salt in the wounds with chant about Steve Cooper in win at Leicester

Nottingham Forest fans rub salt in the wounds with a cheeky chant about Steve Cooper in their win at Leicester on Friday night.

It was a night to forget for Steve Cooper and his side, losing to his former club, while ex-Foxes player Chris Wood put two past his former club.

An end-to-end game with both sides having chances in the first half, but it was Nottingham Forest who stepped up in the second half with difference being the prolific finishing of Chris Wood, making it seven goals in nine games this season.

Forest fans were on the wind up, Steve Cooper who was the subject of chants from Nottingham Forest in the second half, then they sang about Gary Neville after the final whistle.

Have a listen on the videos below…

The result leaves Forest sitting 5th in the Premier League table with 16 points form 9 games while Leicester are 14th with 9 points from same amount of games played.

Player ratings (per Sky Sports):

Leicester: Hermansen (7); Justin (5), Faes (5), Okoli (6), Pereira (5); Ndidi (6), Winks (7); Fatawu (6), Buonanotte (6), Mavididi (6); Vardy (7)

Subs: El Khannous (6), Ayew (6), Soumare (6).

Nott’m Forest: Sels (6); Aina (7), Milenkovic (7), Murillo (7), Moreno (6); Yates (8), Dominguez (7); Elanga (6), Anderson (7), Hudson-Odoi (7); Wood (9).

Subs: Morato (6), Williams (6), Silva (6), Sosa (6), Awoniyi (6).

Player of the Match: Chris Wood.

Nottingham Forest striker Chris Wood to Sky Sports: “It’s a very nice start for myself and the team. I’m not someone who will put one in the top corner, I rely on myself and the service from my teammates and it’s been great.

On being fifth: “It’s fantastic. We spoke about it before, it’s all about accumulating as many points as possible. It’s not about league position yet.

On half time: “Not strong words, just about consistency and getting back to what we’ve been doing well in the season. He tweaked it well and we got the early goal.

On scoring tonight: “You know where the goal is, sometimes you don’t need to look as a striker. Yatesy was on the edge of the box screaming for it. You know where the six-yard box is, you try to know where you are all the time as a striker. You try to get it on target at least.

 Wood to Sky Sports on his second goal: “The goalkeeper could have come out but you have to wait. Thankfully it just went over him and dipped over the bar. I’m hoping he comes out because all I can do is loop it over him.”

On improvement: “It’s consistency with what Nuno’s been working on. We got better and better last season but we also conceded poor goals at times. I think consistency is the biggest thing. I wouldn’t say it fuelled us, we conceded a lot of set-piece goals and we worked at that and we’ve got to keep going.”

On the big centre forward and Haaland: “We want to try to bring it back or I’ll be out of a job! For a period of time, the small centre forward with a lot of pace was used but thankfully Erling has brought it back.”

On Golden Boot: “I just want to keep scoring as many as I can. He’s [Haaland] a very formidable man and he’s probably going to score 30 goals this season. He’s a very formidable man to chase. He’s {Nuno Espirito Santo] come in and put an emphasis on putting the ball in the box. He’s worked on that in the training pitch.”

Nottingham Forest boss Nuno Espirito Santo speaking to Sky Sports: “It was a good game, very stable, confident and solid. I thought the possession was good. Delighted.”

On moving up to fifth place: “It’s not about the table. What is more important is seeing the fans how they are today. We see these players work every day and we demand from them. It was a tough season last season but it’s in the past. Now we have a new cycle. More important than anything is the bind inside of the pitch.”

On Chris Wood: “He’s done an amazing job. He’s very honest and he gives everything on the pitch for us. We are delighted and we want to continue. Chris deserves his plaudits.”

On the most pleasing thing from the match: “It’s the commitment. This group wants to progress and they want to make the fans enjoy. The limit is the next training session and then against West Ham, it’ll be tough.”

Nottingham Forest captain Ryan Yates speaking to Sky Sports: “I thought it was quite an open game at the start, a bit like a basketball match. We don’t mind that, we’ve got pace and power up top. I want to add goals into my game more, it’ll take me up a level if I can add that from midfield.”

On change in tactics: “We saw they were playing a box and we couldn’t get pressure on. We just dropped one of ours at the right time to match their box and we ended up turning the ball over at times.”

On his poor miss: “There was spin on the ball! I was just begging they didn’t score to make it 3-2.”

“We’re in fantastic form and the lads are really confident. We thought the more the game wore on, we could start implementing our ideas. We tried to make it tense for their fans.

“There’s so much more we can do, I’m genuinely we didn’t score four or five. I should have scored and that was game over.”

Leicester City boss Steve Cooper speaking to Sky Sports: “It’s self-inflicted, no doubt about that, and it’s on us. We all have to take responsibility for how the game panned out.

“We made poor mistakes for the goals, no doubt about it, and we were punished for it but I just think conceding so early on in the second half was obviously not a good thing.

“There was still a lot of time for the game to settle again, us to carry on with things we were doing in the first half, improve and be the threat we wanted to be.

“The third goal was just a real killer and still there was a lot of time left but the game just became a little bit of trying to get players on in certain positions, territory all that stuff, defenders on, extra attackers on, we just lost any sort of rhythm we got in the first half – we lost it completely because of scoreline so it’s on us.

“We have to take responsibility for it. It’s a setback after winning a few games coming into this. We have to accept it, completely on us and me and we’ve got punished for the poor giveaways on the goals.

“Conceding so early in the second half was far from ideal but I still felt ‘ok let’s recover again’, we had some good control in the game and painting some pictures at half time, where we felt we could do even better and maybe there was a little bit of not panic but probably a little bit of trying to put things right maybe too soon rather than sticking to plan, keeping going believing we would get the game how we wanted it to be.

“Forest are a counter-attacking team, they are really good with it and we gifted them moments for them to show that.”

On how the players have responded: “We feel like we are in a good way and on the right path but this is a setback, there’s no doubt about that and especially with the local rivalry and all of that we knew was in the game.

“We really have to feel the hurt for supporters and ourselves and take it on the chin and know that we fell short. At the same time, it’s happened, we have to reflect on it, talk about what didn’t go right tonight and be very determined to not let that happen again.

“There’s going to be loads of ups and downs this season and that’s the nature of the league, where we’re trying to get establishment in the Premier League – it ain’t easy. You see the last two games, some highs, today was a low and even more difficult because it was a local game but there will be lots of ups and downs this year and how we recover from setbacks will define where we end up and we’ve got to go through that process now.”

On whether he feels it more because it was against his former club Nottingham Forest: “No not at all, anyone who knows me knows I’m always for the greater good, always for what’s right for the club or organisation that I work for and I’ve just been completely focused on the game tonight and trying to do the best job possible.

“It didn’t go as we’d have hoped, that’s on us. I was completely locked in on that. All I’m thinking about is why the game went as it did tonight and really motivated and determined to put it right.”

Leicester City midfielder Harry Winks speaking to Sky Sports: “First half we were excellent, we were back to how we were, we controlled the game. We made sure we were up the pitch to counter them as well when we lost the ball we made sure we were there to win ball again

“We knew we’d concede a couple of chances on the counter, which was ok because we wanted to dominate the ball. First half we were excellent, second half it was some poor errors that led to goals and them being ruthless and clinical on the counter attack.”

On Jamie Vardy’s equaliser: “We worked on that a lot last year, the way we played out from back me and Ricky [Ricardo Pereira] having that combination play to bring people onto us and it worked really well. We wanted to invite them on to press us, find space in behind, it worked really well.

“First half I thought we were excellent doing that, we controlled the game and we conceded some chances on the counter but that’s football. That’s gonna happen we played positive and we enjoyed it and I think in the second half we maybe took a step back a little bit and the game got a bit frantic towards maybe the 65th onwards when we were chasing the game and lost a bit of that control and I think that’s something we need to look at.”

On conceding early in the second half: “Individual errors caused us our own problems, it wasn’t so much them with a bit of quality causing us problems it was just us but it’s a bit sloppy, it happened throughout the game today.

“It’s football, it happens people make mistakes it’s fine – it’s how you react. I think in the second half after we conceded the third goal I think it was a tough ask to get back into the game. It was important we tried to stay to our principles and keep trying to control and find spaces.”

On taking positives: “It’s the Premier League, you get punished if you make mistakes, us players have to take full responsibility for that we were the ones on the pitch who made mistakes but if we can try and bring that first half into every match this season, try and play like that throughout the season I think we’ll be fine. We showed how much quality we have, good players in the team but it’s just about trying to find that consistency and keep doing that throughout the match.”

Twitter users gave their reaction as Nottingham Forest fans rub salt in the wounds with a chant about Steve Cooper in their win at Leicester…

@willmaddocknffc: Shit housery at its finest and I’m fucking here for it!

@4evaNFFC: Fuck Steve Cooper. We are all on the piss with Nuno tonight. We can go back to respecting Coops after the game. I do not want to hear 1 Steve Cooper song this evening #nffc

@TrickyRedRad: Should have been 7, love that your managers name is being sung by a club he loves more then you. Absolute demo job. #nffc #lcfc

@LondonHolly1865: How did your cup final go? Y’know.. that world famous ‘East Midlands Derby’ 🤣🤔

@Mega_Phone_Man: 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 you’re wank, we were tired after Monday and never hit full tilt, could’ve hit 5 🤣😭

@ForestAreMagico: Steeeeevie Cooper! He hates the Leicester, he hates the Derby, Forest are magic! 5th 😍 enjoy relegation x

@Mister_Forest: I can’t tell how happy and positive I’m feeling about us this season! Literally can’t stop smiling this morning. Cooper said the defeat was self inflicted, I disagree I thought we did a job on them second half and should of finished with 5 or 6 #nffc

@TeddyLesterCoC: Top shithousery 🤣😂

@xCleaver_NFFC: Hahahahaha fuck off back to the championship

@95Redss: The Cooper chant was a stroke of genius. Nothing heartfelt, just sarcasm at its finest 🤣 #NFFC

@Dazzler1865: By far the worst team we have played so far this season 💩 Easy 3 points! Cheers Stevie Cooper 😁👍🏻 #NFFC

@AmyGrimmers: Sounds like a home game. Fans in fine voice ❤️

@Dazzler1865: Smashed in your Cup final! 💩

@NMBLAKE: I’d like to pass on my gratitude to both Agent Henderson and Agent Cooper for their great work this week. #NFFC

@Only1Carlton: Absolutely loved the ironic “Stevie Cooper” chant, perfectly timed & sounded brilliant on the TV 😂👌🏼 #NFFC

@Luca_Reale92: Away lot singing “cooper hates the Leicester” is fucking incredible shithousery 😂😂😂 #nffc

@Davidsm37973608: Straight back down, straight back down Leicester city…….

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