[Applause] you’re listening to garibaldi red a nottingham forest podcast brought to you by nottinghamshire live hello welcome to garrett hold your red we’ve got a new music and a new intro video which we didn’t know about until about two seconds ago so those who are watching were almost as surprised as i was but it looks very smart so thanks to our producer dan for doing that um i mean i was gonna come up with some fancy words but i suppose the only words that mata are not in for us to promote is the premier league after beating huddersfield at wembley and i know we’re gonna get into all the details what it all means and what special day it was in the company of bt sports darren fletcher fletch what a day how are you today um i’m glad i’m glad i don’t have to commentate on the champions league final today because the voice is not great um heads swimming woke up this morning and it was still real so that was a bonus because i wasn’t sure and when he said there you’ve got new intro music and new pictures and all that kind of thing we’ve got a new fixture list as well and that’s what matters more than anything i think it’s june the 16th that we get to find out when we play everybody and all that kind of thing i mean what a day i mean the thing that’ll live with me forever two things the first one is the support that i mean that it was astonishing i mean i remember excuse me 1992 i was there i was working i was on the radio then and i think we all took it for granted to a certain extent because we went to wembley so much but to see everybody there yesterday i was kind of pinching myself thinking is this what it used to be like in the 90s and the 80s and be you know the 70s because it was just it was just unreal the noise and the color i mean it talked about painting the stadium red it was off the scale never doubted it but to actually visualize that you know 36 37 000 forest fans and there were more because there were loads in the huddersfield end as well right below where i was they all walked around towards where forest were at full time it was brilliant it was like the mass exodus i loved it um and the other thing was when uh steve’s son alex ran onto the pitch and jumped into his dad’s arms while all the celebrations were going on i’m an old romantic anyway and that had me in floods i mean it wasn’t a dry eye where i was it was brilliant i mean what an astonishing day what an astonishing season what an astonishing club and what an astonishing group of supporters absolutely fantastic yeah and you mentioned you know fathers and sons i mean there would be kids who were walking down wembley way with their dads 30 years ago and now they’re the dads and you were there with your wife and your kids i mean as a family day for supporters it goes out saying we’re never going to forget it aren’t we i’ve never seen my son like that yesterday um you can tell when a child is excited because they giggle uncontrollably and speak all the time and that’s exactly what he was like for 90 minutes all the way through he was nervous i mean to do it with him and my daughter my wife was there and and the amount of people i saw heading into wembley in family groups was amazing and i think one of the big things that i take away from this season is that the family feel is back at the club you know it’s what steve cooper wants that little huddle in the changing room after the match where he said i’ve got two things to tell you you know one is spend time with your family and people who’ve been good to you because it means more to them than anybody else and then the second thing is we’re back in the premier league and he gets mobbed it feels like a family club again the amount of people who go in groups families who were there all the time and to see that walking up wembley way and around the ground and all that yesterday was so special i suppose you should add a bit of context i mean you know winning but winning it won’t be in itself is enough but i remember you were on with me in september and we were discussing where do 50 points come from never mind 75 and getting in the playoffs and all this yeah i mean this leads to never been to fall some praise of steve cooper and well deserved but the turnaround i mean it does beg a belief doesn’t it absolutely biggest belief i mean i remember all the fuss that was made about crystal palace when he and dowie went in a few years back and they went on that remarkable run and got promoted to the premier league but to be rock bottom and at the time everybody was saying it me included you included is steve cooper the right man that can actually keep the team in the championship this had nothing to do with getting promoted or finishing halfway it was whether we could be better than three other teams in the division and to see the run unfold as it has is is amazing really um to be close to it and to speak to to the people in there to speak to steve which i’m fortunate to do to get to have a conversation with with people behind the scenes the club hierarchy and chat for the players when you bump into them it becomes a little bit more real because there’s such a togetherness in such a bond and such a belief i thought it was fascinating what joe warrell said on the pitch yesterday that he said it’s like he describes forrest as being like a whipped dog but if you mistreat the dog you get an aggressive dog and if you um treat the dog right you get a kind dog and he said he feels like forest the club had been treated like a whipped dog and i think there’s there’s there’s such a there’s such a togetherness down there and a feeling of of one that great things can happen when you’ve got good people all moving in the same direction and i think it’s easy at the minute to talk about the players and to talk about steve obviously because they had to get out there and get the points and do what they did but this has been building for a little while and you’ve got to talk about the people behind the scenes as well the chairman nick randall who doesn’t say a great deal he stays out of the way he’s the chairman he attends all the meetings and does what he does he’s a very very very solid secure intelligent figure behind the scenes dave murphy’s come in from barnsley and look at the impact that he’s had i mean the big decision he had to make this season was when do i sat chris shooting and who do i point and he was completely focused we’ve talked about this on steve cooper didn’t really want anybody else and the recruitment you know has been outstanding you know when you think about it the lone players that they picked have worked you know and i think forest supporters would take all of them into the premier league next season you know jed spence james garner keane and davis um uh i’m missing one um backsling as well absolutely i mean sensational you know they’ve put it steve cook i mean they put a team together extremely well and you know they proved themselves against premier league teams in the fa cup it’s a different story over 38 games in the premier league which we’ll get to but a lot of people very very good people behind the scenes who aren’t on the back page of the paper who aren’t maybe familiar to all the supporters are working so hard and have worked so hard to help the club get to where it is today and this is a collective it’s a joint thing yes stephen the players are going to get the headlines and so they should and they’re going to get the adulation on the you know the balcony of the council house at one o’clock we’re doing this at this time so me and my family can get there and enjoy i was there in 79 when they first bought the european cup round on the open top bus so i’m going to take my family and watch that today i can’t wait um but a lot of people deserve a lot of credit and all i’d say to foreign supporters now is yes next season’s going to be difficult but the right people are in the right places and the right positions to give the club the best opportunity to get there and let’s have a word on the owner too you know he put so much of his own money in as a championship club just to keep it alive and people don’t know that we always judge owners by oh they got the manager wrong or they got the manager right or are they going to be active in a transfer window but the reality of a situation at club like forest because they’ve got the great got the great corporate um thing behind them in terms of there’s not a great deal of lounges down there and boxes and they can’t generate much income but they’ve got a very competitive championship wage bill and the fact that the ground needs to be bigger because based on yesterday we could probably fill it twice yeah he put so much of his own money in just to keep it all flowing and keep it right and keep them to within financial fair play run the club properly so outside of what he’s going to do in transfer windows and all of that everything that he’s done behind the scenes to actually keep the club active and keep it where it is that needs to be acknowledged as well i think um there’s so many people commenting and i there’s too many for me to put up so but i do appreciate it and keep them coming i’ll go back through them later before we get into the nitty-gritty of the game just on the kind of emotion of watching it yesterday i mean you’re going to disagree with me here i think i found the semi-final just absolute torture and more tense i felt more relaxed yesterday for whatever reason i think you’re going to tell me it was unbearable yesterday i i felt different because i’ll be honest with you and i’ve spoke to a lot of forest fans about this second half against sheffield united i couldn’t see forest winning no i’d almost started the process of we’ll be okay next year we’ll be all right you know that i was already in mourning for the season really and then it just felt different yesterday i said to somebody yesterday and i don’t know a bit disrespectful but i said when you’ve been away for from for 23 years from the premier league you can’t then go to wembley and lose to huddersfield did you that just that’s just not the way it is that doesn’t that can’t happen so i’d almost kind of gone would be all right and then first half i was fine get the goal great we all said it half time get a second goal and that’s it and then for some reason either huddersfield stepped it up forrest started thinking about defending what they got reality starts to set in we didn’t pass the ball very well back three by the way outstanding um and then it got really twitchy and i mean i was absolutely dying a thousand deaths watching that game it was i don’t know and then time explosion it was absolutely i i don’t know i i everybody’s got their own way of dealing with situations like this and we’re all waking up this morning well at least we’re there you know no matter what you did yesterday now that’s it we’re all right yeah i mean it wasn’t a classic at all but a lot of those games aren’t i was trying to think like how many people have ever seen that don’t you tell me that’s not a classic yesterday well that’s the thing is i mean how many players how many members do you remember at wembley it’s a glass godzilla classic i think in the prayer final moments i remember there’s obviously charlton and sunderland and then as bobby zamora’s goal against darby i don’t remember too because it’s just a place for winners isn’t it and like you say hook or by crook forrest won and they they circled the wagons around samba brilliantly they deserve to win i play golf and when you put your card in at the end there are no pitches on the scorecard whatever number you’ve got down there is what you got how you got it doesn’t matter and and how you get to the premier league is irrelevant i listen to a load of nonsense after the match from the sheffield united manager this that you’re the second leg this second leg that second leg the other did he forget that in the first leg foreign because that never seemed to get a mention so over the balance of the two legs against sheffield wednesday at sheffield united rather forest should have beaten them i don’t know eight nine ten four on aggregate if they’re taking the chances so get rid of that i thought carlos corbin yesterday was fantastically dignified at the end if you think about the two penalty appeals yesterday i’m surprised that at least one wasn’t given and maybe both and i you know i don’t want to i don’t want to kind of open a can of worms but i’m not quite sure why they’re bothered with var because if you look at the var there is contact on from callback on on truffalo and jack himself on the pitch after basically said that he thought it was a penalty and the second one which i didn’t even look at was was bizarre forest fans are going to say and i get this i’m with you the amount of penalties that forest haven’t got this season bad penalty decisions if it is going to level itself up it did it yesterday so that’s fine but you know kind of on that i think on another day and next year in the premier league they’ll they’ll be given so there was an element of looking there but it doesn’t matter how you get there you know as you say you met you you remember the winners if you get a classic great but let’s not worry too much about that i mean i said to i said to somebody before the match i’ll take one nail off somebody’s backside and we nearly got that didn’t we got it off the defender’s thigh instead or whatever it was so it nearly came true but that’s fine as long as you lift the trophy up at the end it really doesn’t matter doesn’t matter what paul heckenbottom says doesn’t matter what anything we’re in the premier league and that’s what anybody’s got to worry about yeah i mean for what it’s worth i’ve only seen them seen them on the little screens the monitors you get at wembley but i thought the first one it was hard to overturn if you give a yellow card it’s hard for var to overturn that so i can kind of see what that one was i’ve seen softer penalties than that yeah than by the car in the premier league this season well i’ll make one more point then i’ll come back now because you’re right and then the second one i thought was a nailed-on penalty in real-time viewing watching it back uh i’m so surprised that wasn’t if that was at the other end i’d be talking about that for 10 years if forrest had lost that game so yeah i mean i suppose just i don’t want to dwell on var but it does come back to var being a bit subjective doesn’t it it’s not technological it’s still a bloke who’s watching a video screen in stockley park having his say you know what let’s not get off the beaten track but i sat there in paris on saturday night the team sheet came out and it tells you the referee is the var was a fellow called jerome bresar and then jerome brisa had three var assistants so there were four people in that room for the champions league final and you can imagine the arguments that they’d be having together over whether it’s right or whether it’s wrong surely it’s going to be the referee’s view one var person’s view and that’s it and if it’s not obvious just get on with it um i was a little bit concerned by john moss being the referee in the first place because i’ve got a lot of experience of watching him referee games and i can’t really remember getting back in the car after too many and saying he has a good game today i you know i i think john’s one of the weakest on the premier league list and i was concerned and that’s a big game for him to have yesterday and by the grace of god and if you’re a huddersfield fan you don’t think this but by the grace of god things went forest way yesterday but if you’re if you’re if you flip that round and those penalties as you say were ones that might have gone forest where you’d be getting battered this morning for that performance wouldn’t he but look doesn’t matter in the premier league let’s not worry too much about the details is what i’ve been saying to everybody so worry about the details i picked up a newspaper this morning and on the back it said forest promoted that was good enough for me i didn’t need to argue any more than that who stood out for you in the game if anyone was heading shoulders above anyone else i thought scott mckenna was the best player on the pitch and i thought he was assisted brilliantly by the two fellows alongside and joe worrell steve cook i thought the back three was was the reason why we’re in the premier league based on yesterday i thought mckenna was outstanding i thought james garner out of possession was excellent but i thought both him and ryan yates in midfield struggled passing the ball steve took the decision to start with keane and davis but he didn’t look completely fit to me um but i think the ones who stood out yesterday were the back three and in particular scott mckenna um and i think if they keep that unit together next season it’s a unit that they can hope to rely on in the premier league whether they decide to bring one more in or whatever the case is i don’t know but i just thought yesterday i think scott in general over the course of the season it’s easy to kind of pick the fellas that score the goals you know brennan johnson etc the wonderful campaigns but he’s glued that team together i think in many many many ways and in a lot of games he’s been outstanding maybe doesn’t get the credit outside of the forest fan base that he deserves because i know the supporters um completely appreciate what he does but i think he’s been outstanding mckenna i thought he was yesterday he deserved that performance yesterday i thought yeah i’d agree with that i thought what you said about it in general as well about jack colback because you know jack’s a central midfield player and jack’s a different wing back to jed spence you know jack’s not going to go past the opposition full back or wing back and whip cross crosses it but he’s got in there to play as a wing back this season be because foreign needed him to do that and he’s been outstanding i’ve not seen him have a bad game as a as a left wing back and when you think he’s played his entire career as a central midfield player it’s fantastic in there he wants to play in there doesn’t want to play as a left wing back but he’s done it for the team as unsung heroes go jack callback is right there at the top of the list because he he did a job for a team that needed a job doing and did it brilliantly and did it brilliantly yesterday as well yeah definitely i thought ghana was really good without the ball like you’re saying uh yeah it’s threatened to have a really good game and at times he was really good and at times he was a bit sloppy with the ball and perhaps that sums up for us but it’s so nerve-wracking isn’t it it’s got to be so hard for a player to go out and perform it’s like 10 out of 10 on an occasion like that yeah well all i’d say though and and you know we’ve seen them play against arsenal unless they’re in liverpool and i thought in those games one of the the big things we did well was keep the ball and as a premier league team next season we’ve got to keep the ball you know it’s essential you can’t give the ball away in the premier league cheaply and maybe yesterday was about nerves and maybe yesterday was about the occasion one thing that the team does have to do extremely well every game next season is keep the ball because if you don’t keep the ball in the premier league you don’t see it again until the opposition have had their fussy out and by then you can be a goal down so they have got to do that so um that would be an area where you’d say that needs to be a strength next season um lastly on the game and we’re going to do another one of these tomorrow with the fans we’re normally on so we’ll talk about train chaos and everything you’ve had enough chaos with fans i knew this weekend with the champions league and everything so yes yeah yes no yes yeah my my my wife and family were caught up in the disturbances outside the ground in paris so it’s been a it’s been a traumatic saturday and a very enjoyable sunday yesterday was organized at wembley from from my standpoint i can’t speak for the people on the trains but it was it was great for us yesterday great atmosphere you know great camaraderie between the two sets of fans to see them walking up wembley way before the game in red and white and blue and white and it was fantastic so that was that was a credit to both sets of supporters yeah we’ll do more on that tomorrow with the mikey gregan temps who are really on were your wife and kids alright in the end on saturday yeah in the end i mean it didn’t get until about 15 minutes before um kickoff and a lot of a lot of the blames being leveled towards um the supporters but i was inside so i don’t know but their version of events was that the french police were very heavy-handed the organization was virtually non-existent and there were lots of gangs of local youths around the stadium causing a tremendous amount of problems mugging supporters fighting with the police creating disturbances the big problem was that the the authorities whether it came from the police or or uefa or whoever i don’t know had decided to close off various exits so entrances rather so to get thousands of people into a stadium they would create in bottlenecks so there was a lot of crushing and there was a lot of issues in terms of you know we can’t get in and all that kind of thing which which led to a lot of concern outside a lot of danger too because there was there were lots of people trying to get into very small spaces all at the same time because they closed lots lots of the entrances off where the liverpool fans in particular were trying to get in um so it was an organization problem i think that would be my opinion and the issue lie lies with uefa lies with the french police and the fact that they couldn’t control the situation and didn’t seem prepared for what they were having to deal with on the day um well i’m glad they’re all right and as you say it was much better at wembley yesterday i mean last word on wembley you’ve been there so many times i’ve never been before i didn’t want to go unless forrester plane but i know you have been there a lot just in terms of the noise and the atmosphere at the end with those celebrations was that as loud and as you know buoyant as anything you’ve heard at wembley you can only be so loud can’t you if everybody’s singing you can only be so loud so it’s never been louder no that’s as loud as it gets you know that’s it the only way it would be louder is if you put more supporters in but i mean that’s about as many as you get because you know for cut finals and what have you it’s a lot more corporate than that so the playoff final is always an occasion where you get the majority of supporters for the respective teams in the stadium so no i’ve never heard wembley louder in fact you know the euros i would say yeah semi-final of the euros when england get through and it’s an england crowd different but for a club match i mean that is that’s as good as it gets that’s as good as it gets it was it was probably that loud in in 89 and 90 when they won the league cups i just my ears just don’t remember that you know but it probably was but there you go let’s turn the clock forwards then what are your thoughts on next season you see so much the premier league let’s be realistic a forest aiming to be like brentford or they just desperately aiming to finish 17th i’ve had a message from my mate this morning tim who season ticket holder and he’s put in and he said i’ve just looked at the premier league he said how the hell did we get 40 points against that lot can you look at it you think wow i think it’s going to be one of the strongest premier leagues next season when you think about the play the teams that got relegated the teams that are coming up the ones that are in there when you look at where aston villa finished in the table you think of the players that they’ve got and they’ve just signed and they they were what i don’t know 15 14 you know southampton just avoided relegation they were flying high in the top half for a lot of it there’s a lot of strong teams in the division um the recruitment’s going to be key obviously but i also think the players that that forest keep is important too i said before the season started um on five live that i thought of all the promoted teams last season brentford had the best chance to stay up simply because they knew who they were and what they did and i think if you do that you go into the premier league and you can get early points because you’re not changing things i think the teams that sign a boatload of players and almost have to learn the system again learn their roles again all has to be defined again by the time you’ve worked that out in a league like the premier league you’re that far behind you’re never going to be good enough to catch things up it’s been fulham’s mistake the last two times they’ve got promoted and i’ll be fascinated to see how they go about it this season i’m a big believer the players that got you there are potentially good enough to keep you there provided you tweak it a little bit and add a bit of quality and that’s what brentford did paid off for them other teams had done it as well brighton got promoted under chris newton basically kept the same team stayed up by the skin of the teeth but they were fine aston villa as well you know they were able to do it relatively similarly to what they did when sam allardyce got bolt up all those years ago didn’t make a great deal of changes year one burnley when they got promoted kind of stuck with the team they got survived and then went again i’d like to think that the nucleus of the forest team is going to be able to to start the season give them the platform in the premier league next season and then work it from there i would be more concerned if i look at the forest team in august for the first fixture and seven or eight players have changed from the one that played yesterday you know i look at that group and if they could somehow do a deal to get jed spence either on loan again if he gets bought or buying the back three if they can keep that together with the goalkeeper i think they’ve got to work out what they do on the left side of defense as a wing back and then don’t change a great deal you know if you go into the season you’ve got brennan johnson on one side you can keep it believe in it you might need a better number 10 or you might want to play three in midfield but i just kind of look at it and think the teams that go about it best are the ones that give the players who got them there the chance and then add a bit of quality and i’d like to think that that’s the way they’re going to go but the flip side of that is i wouldn’t um question the recruitment the policy and i wouldn’t question steve cooper’s judgment because i think he’ll bring good players in so i’m quite optimistic you know look it’s the hardest thing in the world you think about watford and norwich 20 odd points this season and it took what 35 the team above them was relegated with 35. so you’ve got to get the 36 37 and then you’ve got a fighting chance and you’re just going to do it step by step you can’t get bogged down by what’s ahead take every point that comes the draw’s not a bad result the premier league let’s not forget that you’ve got to win all the time draws a good good results get a point on the board moving on but you know i i’ve got faith in the fact they’ll go about it the right way there’s quite a statistical approach to how they do it an analytical approach in there it’s the way they do it the way they they select players so i’m pretty sure they’ll be they’ll be you know fully equipped to get the right ones in but i’m just hoping that there’s been a lot of speculation matt about the players who are going to leave and whether they can keep x y and z i’d like to think they can sit down with everybody now and and have a fair crack at keeping the ones in there that have got them there because they deserve it yeah yeah i’d love to see them keep i don’t know all the lonely well three of them certainly i mean davis uh i might ask you about that after if there’s a deal to be done there i would i think zinc and eagle will go back to what fidel wants and won’t they try and get back up but like you say i mean i don’t think for gibbs white today he’d be a good signing i think that kind of young i think the gibbs white thing is interesting because you work with steve for england as a as a younger player and there doesn’t seem to be a defined role for him at wolves what i’m told is that a lot of big clubs like morgan gibbs why so i think if forrest could get morgan gibbs white and play him as a 10 in the zinc angle position you’ve got a good player there but whether they’re able to do that whether steve’s pull is enough there then but if that’s the kind of player you’re looking at for next season then it’s both intelligent and the player is talented so all of a sudden you’re looking to build something aren’t you as opposed to let’s go and get a gaggle of foreigners from all over europe and spend millions and millions of pounds and hope we catch lightning in a bottle because let’s not forget forest recruitment was better that’s the way they were going about it in the championship so we don’t really want to see that again so you want to go down that road where it’s a process and you get the right ones and you identify them quickly and you get them in but players like morgan gibbs white are the kind of players that you you want to see in i agree with you i think zinca nagle’s played his part this season in the championship but i don’t think he’s going to be good enough to do that in the premier league and it is going to be interesting because in the in the championship steve’s tended to play the two with ryan yates and garner and then zinc and agua’s been able to float around and play it as a 10 and try and make things happen i wonder whether he might think he needs one more in midfield with a bit of industry in the premier league because premier league midfields are so strong it’s a big area you think about the three-man midfields in the premier league are so difficult to play against if you go against them with two you’ve got a problem uh i think we saw that four spells against sheffield united in the second leg where they were one short sometimes in midfield and that’s where the game was being dominated particularly in second half by sheffield united so i think as a premier league club they’ve got to make sure they get that balance in midfield just right yeah i think they definitely go out and buy a proper holding midfielder you know powerful nasty player would do quite well for me even if he doesn’t play every game you need something he’s not particularly happy at chelsea so that’s big it’s not the biggest like i think they’ll probably get a center half as well because just for depth or if figuerado goes i think they’ll have to get someone else in his cover of quality cover what about grabbing uh he’s out of contract now i mean we spoke about this didn’t we yeah yeah for grabbing and taylor is a salaries and product over production and i think if if lewis grabber wants to stay then you know maybe there’s a role for him if he’s fit he comes off the bench i don’t think i don’t think lewis grabbing’s a starter in the premier league by any stretch but i think he could be an impact player off the bench because he’s a fantastic finisher and you need goals so you’re not going to give goals away but i think he’s going to fit within the budget he’s got to be he’s going to be sensible in terms of what he’s asking for you know i don’t think he’s going to get any kind of long-term deal is he so you know i just i just think the problem is when you see teams get promoted and then get relegated you always look at the same thing and you say they just didn’t score enough goals it’s all right scoring goals in the championship but it’s entirely different to score goals in the premier league so you’ve got to get a source of goal you’ve got a source of goals you’d be all right i always think that was the biggest problem forrest had when they were in there before if then he got promoted and kept kevin campbell and pierre van hoyneck they’ve got a fighting chance when you go to arsenal on the first night of the season with glenn hodges as your forward you’ve got no chance so i think they’re going to go into this season now feeling they can score goals um and i think keenan davis can play in the premier league he has played in the premier league and i think if you you put your arm around him and coach him and help him get better there’s potential still within and we’ve seen on occasions this season some of the goals he scored you think how is he not getting 25 a season i remember one at the city ground i can’t remember it was against but he picked it up midway inside the opposition half ran into the box like stan collymore used to do and side-footed into the corner and he’s saying we’ve got them big fella i’ve seen kevin campbell score that goal at the city ground i’ve seen stan do it you know i’ve seen good players do that so if you can do that more often in terms of his physical attributes his braveries intelligence as well you’ve got a player and i’ve been in steven gerrard’s ribs from thursday because he came with us for bt for the champions league and every time we sat down he’s going to sell his keenan davis you’ve got to sell us cleaning david’s come here he’s got to sell his keenan davis so i’ve done my bit of stevie’s now gone on holiday so look you can do it give us keenan davis so try try don’t be best you have you have certainly what’s brennan’s potential in the premier league is it is it fair of us to expect 10 goals out of him in the first season because they’re going to need something aren’t they like that i think so i think so and i’d like to see it you know i want to see it in a forest shirt you know the fact that decent-sized clubs in the premier league are being linked with him and i know they’re interested in it because i’ve spoken to people who’ve told me that they’re interested in it so there are clubs in the premier league who like him good clubs now if they like him that shows that they think he can play in the premier league um and i’ve got no doubt that he can score goals in the premier league i thought as a finisher over the course of the season you could see his game develop that he became a more natural comfortable player in front of goal at that level as the season went on he was starting to take goals instinctively and he was starting to stick the ball away impressively and i think he’s going to score goals if they get him into the position to score them and he’s got he’s got speed you know he can he’s got good pace and in the premier league you need that you need a player that can score play with pace they’ve got to keep him you know they’ve got to get the new contract under his nose he needs to sign it needs to commit himself to the club but i think the most important thing and i i’m surprised they didn’t do it after sheffield united and they certainly should have done it by this morning steve cooper’s got a year left and they cannot cannot lose that man cannot that they could manage losing anybody else and replace them but the heartbeat of that club is him and they’ve got to sit down with steve said all the right things post match yesterday that this he said he said post match on sky he said being the forest manager has changed my life he said it certainly changed my career and i’m lucky enough i get to sit and have a cup of tea with his dad keith and his brother neil lovely people and they adore the city of nottingham as a family they adore nottingham forest this is not baloney for show this is he adores the club and if anybody deserves a long-term contract it’s steve cooper and they should sit down with him asap in fact they should have done it by now and i i hope they have i don’t know whether they have i might be saying all this and they might announce it later on today but they should do that the first thing the first order of business for this club forget the fixtures forget the season tickets forget who you’re gonna buy forget you’re gonna sell forget who you’re gonna release get the manager locked up on a long-term contract because i guarantee you this there are clubs in the premier league that will come for him if they don’t even if forrest struggle next season his cv now is good enough that premier league clubs will go we’ll have him and he needs to be looked after he needs to feel happy he needs to feel loved he needs to be supported and then he can really build something special but they’ve got to get steve cooper signed up on a long-term contract asap and then everybody connects and i think that will seriously help the recruitment as well because players will want to come and play for him because his reputation within the game is fantastic and even more significantly managers will be happy to send their players to him because as i’ve said so many times i like a broke record on here they know that he’s going to make the young player better when they go back so it’s a win-win and all i want to see is news released from the club long-term contract with steve cooper we can all then breathe a sigh of relief and then we can let things happen organically and let’s see it built i’m hoping producer dan’s alert in the background he’s got a 30 second clip of cooper teed up if he wants to play it now let’s see but it’s been a brilliant season you know in terms of the attitude the culture that that you know the training ground is such a good laugh you know and there’s such a um such a pride in there and such a togetherness and um yeah it’s been a brilliant to be part of it from from from day one and that’s that’s all i am it’s just yeah i’m just really proud to be at you know at nottingham forest it’s just such a nostalgic brilliant massive club in the country that everybody knows and i’m just pleased that you know i’ve been part of the journey that’s got us back to the to the premier league sounds great well done on the ball i mean that that is a humble man that is a man who’s grateful for the opportunity he has it’s a person that you gravitate towards you know the players love him and yesterday he’s doing the post-match thing with with stuart pierce and brooks and michael heffela and they’re all rounded tipping champagne on his head and all this kind of thing i mean they adore the fella you know and that’s that’s half the battle the respect and the love that you’ve got for your manager is going to dictate whether you go the extra yard you know when it’s difficult and you’re knackered or you’re injured are you going to play or are you going to let him down and you you sit in there and you look inside yourself and you think he won’t let me down so i can’t let him down and that’s that’s invaluable he’s got my back so i’ve got his and that that love for the club is genuine it’s genuine like you say that’s half the battle i think the other half is adding quality players we saw in norwich and watford they just didn’t do it i mean i do you think marinakis ego as much as anything as well of his pockets as such he’s gonna throw money at it he’s gonna back his recruitment team now to at least try and get forrest what they need to compete next season why wouldn’t he why wouldn’t he the amount of money that he’s put from his own bank account into the club as a championship club just to keep it going why would you not as a premier league club now have a gun i don’t think he’s in it to fart about in the championship is he he wants to be in the premier league he wants to own a club in the premier league which he now does and he’s made a real success of doing that in greece at olympia arcos they play in the champions league a lot they’ve got good players and when you think about the players from that club we’ve come to the premier league jose sarri’s at wolves he’s a damn good goalkeeper costas simmycast is at liverpool he’s a very good left-back would play if it wasn’t for andy robertson by the way annual podence at wolves is a very good attacking player three players who’ve all come from olympia archos now you wonder had forest been a premier league club with those players there whether they would have come to the city ground so he has got a club as well that does have good players champions league players now the better players have never come to forest the other ones have because in terms of financial fair play and all that kind of thing difficult to do but now you think that they’ve got that ability to to almost cross-pollinate the two clubs you know the players will the better players will come and play in the premier league because these players olympiacos want to play in the premier league of course so there’s the opportunity to do that i don’t think norwich and watford are a fair comparison and i’ll tell you why because they’ve had two goes at it in norwich’s case to come up and do it right forrest are doing this for the first time so i think if you’ve had a go twice and you’ve messed it up twice you’ve got to take a look at yourself and stuart webber came in as the bright eyed bushy tail chief exec he got his way of doing it he’s going to stick to it come what may it’s not work twice so you’ve got to look at their process now wonder whether it’s right watford the same too many changes too many goes back to the point i made they get promoted with one team and then they get relegated with a completely different one and then they start again and i think when they’re in the premier league before you know if you’ve got tsar on the wing i mean you should be getting promoted with players like that so let’s let’s not worry too much about that but i think from an owner’s perspective from a recruitment perspective you know i think the feeling has always been in there but because of the financial restrictions placed upon the club as a championship side it’s very hard for them to get out because they’ve got no parachute payment and they’re not a club that generates a great deal of revenue outside of ticket sales because they’ve only got a couple of lounges they’ve only got a few boxes you know it’s not as if they can generate a load of their own money from within so it’s hard when you get into the premier league and those restrictions are eased then the financial benefit that forests have with their owner then becomes more of a factor because he can now use that to make them better i’m not saying that it’s easier to stay in the premier league than get into the premier league but you kind of get on where i’m coming from that he’s got more room now as an owner as a premier league side for his financial advantage to be advantageous to forest so it would be a good thing and i don’t think he’s got promoted just to go well let’s get relegated again then i think they’re all going to give it a damn good go and if they’re not good enough this time i think they’ll set themselves up as a club to be able to come back again after that and also what you’ve got to think about is they want to make a lot of improvements at the training ground and the academy which makes you a better club down the line and they’ve now got the finance to do that they want to make the city ground bigger which again has a big impact on the club not just just in terms of the fans in the city who can go and watch but then it does make you stronger from a revenue standpoint because you’ve got more facilities within your stadium and you can use it for different things and you make the club bigger so i think the pot is something like 180 million isn’t it this year it’s gone up again so it’s a lot of money and some of it’s going to be used for a bigger wage bill some of it’s going to be used on players some of it also i suspect is going to be used on the infrastructure of the club to make it a better club and then you start to grow the club as well it’s not just about a season in the premier league on the pitch they want to get bigger off the pitch too and that should be applauded as well it should be supported too because that ultimately down the line is going to make everything easier and more straightforward and hopefully it then gives you more chance to succeed on the pitch yeah i mean you’ve led into the point i wanted to finish on really because i know you want to go to market square it’s kind of relevant to what i want to say i’ll leave you hanging i’m off to the market square taxi forest shirts in there we’re all ready to go i’ve only put a t-shirt on for you i’ve got the shirt in there i’ll be down with everybody don’t worry about that well let me get this last point and i’ll let you answer it i live on the edge of leicester yeah and every kid around here wears leicester shirts because they’re good there’s no city shirts there’s no united shirts there’s very few there’s a few liverpool shirts but you talk about the excitement of your boy there yesterday and the excitement is going to generate in the the city i mean there’s a new generation of forest fans where i’m getting at who are gonna fall in love with the club and if this is gonna open so many doors isn’t it this yesterday as it coops life changing i mean it is really isn’t it yeah it is and i mean it’s a good thing and it’s something that the shirt makers have got to work out you couldn’t buy a shirt for loving the money headed into the final if you didn’t have one you couldn’t get one and they were being sold on ebay for ridiculous amounts of money 200 250 quickly but you couldn’t go to the club shop and get a shirt now they’ve got to address that they want to see people walking down the streets and knocking him in shirts they’re going to make them available number one because they would have sold 10 000 of the blooming things i would have thought for wembley at least you couldn’t get one so they’ve got to address that for a start but i think there is a new generation my boy i i’ve not taken my family to they we go off and do the games in europe and they don’t they don’t travel but because it was paris the eurostar they came with me to the champions league final and i can tell you how my kids were way more excited about going to wembley yesterday because it was forest and they care about it then they were watching what is called and is the biggest club game in in world football on the saturday night champions league final that was a nice night out they enjoyed it but all they spoke about all weekend was wembley forest wembley forest wembley foreign are we going to get up so there is a generation now and if you’re a youngster now and you go down there and it’s 29 000 then it’s raucous and you go to wembley and it’s like that why do you want to go anywhere else why would you want to go watch anybody else what are you going to get anywhere else we’ve got a unique fan base and a unique club two european cups and all the european cup winners next season from england are going to be in the division together again why why would why do you need to support anybody else if if they’re messing about in league one as they were or struggling at the bottom of this i get it maybe you don’t want to do it why would you pick anybody else now and go and experience that because i think the biggest thing of being a football fan is what it feels like i’m a bit of an old romantic like that but i’m a field person so when i walk in the ground and i feel it i want to go back and i could take you to a lot of grounds in the country and you don’t feel it you feel it in forest and if you take your son or daughter to that match and you stand there and mulliken tyre comes on and the whole place goes up and forests are playing well and there’s that buzz all the way through that utter raw emotion which you get in that stadium from a fan base that’s been through thick and thin by the way and never wavered thick and thin and never wavered think about that you think about some of them clubs in the premier league right that have been made by money and if they stop winning what would the grounds look like what would the ground look like they are empty i think the champions league semi-finals and they can’t fill it some of them crackers crackers yet they call themselves big clubs that won’t happen here win lose or draw next season that place will be full because you can count on the supporters to do it because they’ve been there through thick and thin it’s a genuine relationship between nottingham people and that club and and that is special it should be nurtured and for everybody that’s been there everybody who experienced the second leg against yeovil everybody who was in league one everybody who’s been there so pleased for them because i’ve lived in this city all my life and i won’t leave it and i know what it means my grandad when i was when i was on his knee talked to me about brian clough i’ve been lucky enough to work with brian clough i’ve seen i’ve been lucky enough to commentate on this club i commentated on the last game in the premier league way back when i’ve commentated on promotions all sorts and it’s special and it will always be special and i’m just pleased for everybody that it’s back where it belongs we’re back where we belong and i just i just hope everybody enjoys today there’ll be a buzz around the summer and next season it’s just going to be magical absolutely magical my son said to me yesterday on the way back he said you know what dad he said there aren’t any bad fixtures now are they he said when you look at the program and it was hull at home you think well i’ll go or pizza or whatever he said but even the rubbish ones next season are good aren’t they so i mean there’s not going to be a bad game next season so it’s just i’m like a kid at christmas i’m waffling i’m going on i apologize i’m going to leave you and go to the market square and be annoying down there but it’s ah and i i’m also just pleased for everybody down there i said it at the start doesn’t get a mention there are so many good people at that football club you know people like nick randall simon fatheringham uh dane murphy people behind the scenes that you don’t see in the in the in the lounges in the ticket office there’s a smile on everybody’s face when you walk through the door and it’s it’s it’s it’s bang on it will do for me and i i i’m ecstatic yeah yeah i mean i wish i could like bottle up the noise and the emotions of that sheffield united game when the fans were cheering that wembley experience that muller of kintyre who celebrated and just you know open the bottle whenever you’re feeling low and because you’ll never forget it was unbelievable your taxi is about to arrive your mrs gonna be banging on the door come on darren i’m going to let you go i’m going to end it there uh thanks to everyone who watched song and enjoyed it if you’re off to market square like fletch have a great time we’ll be back tomorrow with uh you made me always cry though listen if you are going i’ll meet you by the lions i said that on twitter i’ll have it in the market square i’ll see you by the lines back tomorrow with greg mikey attempts to talk about the fan experience at wembley and their take on next season as well thanks for everyone who watched i said if you liked it uh like and subscribe the usual stuff the usual appeal i make we’re getting loads more viewers and subscribe so i appreciate that right fletch thank you very much i’m so glad you’ve had me on this morning otherwise i would have annoyed everybody in the other room so well yeah well lauren could thank me as well then but not annoying all right i’m gonna go i’m gonna go uh thanks very much dan you can press the end now see everyone soon