Cooper has done brilliantly this season and I rate him highly. HOWEVER, where he has gone fundamentally wrong (in my humble opinion) is in making too many unforced changes to the starting XI.
The team below played week in, week out over and over again for Ardiles, so much so that it is still etched on my memory now. OK, we got a little bit lucky in terms of injuries and suspensions and I suspect Foley was getting pumped full of Cortisone before every game just to get him through. Even so...
1990 Play Off winning Team
Digby, Kerslake, Bodin, McLouglin, Calderwood, Gittens, Jones, Shearer, White, McLaren, Foley
And look at the '93 play off winning team...
Digby, Kerslake/Summerbee, Bodin, Hoddle, Calderwood, Taylor, Moncur, McLaren, Mitchell, Ling, Maskell
Not quite as settled as the '90 team but not far off. The main change would have been Kerslake going on deadline day and being replaced by Summerbee. Hazard and White played a fair few games as well and McLaren missed a fair bit of the season but once he was fit, he was a fixture in the side. Overall though, it was a pretty settled side.
And the the '10 team (yes we lost in the Final but were easily good enough to have won the play offs. God knows what went wrong)...
Lucas, Amankwah, Sheehan, Greer, Jean-Francois, McGovern, Ferry, Douglas, Ward, Austin, Paynter.
The point is, those teams largely picked themselves and that's what you need for a successful tilt at promotion. We've not been close to that this season.
Can't disagree with a word of that. So, I would argue Cooper needs to pick his best 11, regardless. To me that is: Foderingham, Stephens, Thompson, Turnbull, Byrne, Toffolo, Kasim, Luongo, Swift, Williams, Smith.
There is an argument to play Gladwin over Swift, but the rest just pick themselves.
