Plymouth Argyle: Michael Cooper makes “identity” claims after Ian Foster sacking | OneFootball

Plymouth Argyle goalkeeper Michael Cooper wants to see his side go back to their old way of playing, after former manager Ian Foster was sacked.

Nearer the start of the season, when Steven Schumacher was in charge, Plymouth were often involved in high-scoring, end-to-end, attacking games. That reputation has slowly dissipated as the 2023/24 campaign has progressed, and that could partially be put down to their former boss' exit.

Argyle scored only 12 goals in their 14 league games with Ian Foster as manager. Even when you add in the three cup ties that he led them in, he only amassed four wins over his 87 days with the club, and only two of them were in the Championship. Foster was sacked after the side's loss to Bristol City on Easter Monday, and the combination of director of football Neil Dewsnip and first team coach Kevin Nancekivell will lead the side until the end of the season.

Cooper - Plymouth's 24-year-old goalkeeper - has identified what he felt went wrong under Foster, and what he wants from his team between now and the end of the season.

In a video posted on the club's X account, the shot-stopper revealed that he felt there was too much of a focus on the opposition when the former boss was in charge, and that he wants to see a change to the team's approach in the upcoming games.

"It's about us now. I think previously it has been a lot about the opposition, but for me I want to go back to our identity of games being about us, free-flowing attacking football, scoring more goals than the opposition and getting three points, and that's going to hopefully keep us up.

"That's the obvious goal. There is no reason why we can't do it but we can't sit around too long waiting on the next game, waiting on the next game. It has to start Friday."

Neil Dewsnip and Kevin Nancekivell have a big job on their hands

The club's CEO, Andrew Parkinson, said, in an open letter to the club's fans, that he felt that it would have been too much of a risk, at this time, to bring in someone who would need a bit of time to get to know the squad and familiarise themselves with the club. So Parkinson believed that the pre-existing connection and "football knowledge" that the director of football and the first team coach shared made them the right choice.

Relegation survival specialist Neil Warnock, who got the club promoted from what is now known as League Two in 1996, said that he would have come back to the club to help them if they had called, but they didn't.

The task of making sure Plymouth doesn't drop any further down the table falls at the feet of Dewsnip and Nancekivell. Their superior goal difference to all the teams around them makes Argyle's one-point gap to the drop zone a bit better, but, with only half-a-dozen games to go, they are still embedded deep in this relegation battle.

There's no doubt that both of them know a lot about football, but managing a team is a different kettle of fish. Their advantages are that they know the players and how they tend to operate, but the lack of experience that they have in this role specifically might, understandably, worry Argyle fans.