Head coach Steve Cooper wants Nottingham Forest to match the fantastic City Ground atmosphere with a performance on the pitch against Liverpool on Saturday.
Reds fans have had little to cheer amid a poor run of form for Cooper’s side in the Premier League. But their support has been superb - most recently, making the long trip to Brighton and Hove Albion in numbers on Tuesday night and singing from the first minute until the last.
Cooper has underlined the role the crowd can again play at the weekend, as his team host Jurgen Klopp’s men. Forest pushed Liverpool hard in a pulsating FA Cup tie Trentside last season, but the Welshman has acknowledged the circumstances are very different this time around, following a summer squad overhaul and on the back of nine league games without a win.
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“We draw on the atmosphere,” Cooper said of last term’s 1-0 defeat in the cup. “Not just from that game, but in all of our games at the City Ground.
“We’re a different set of players now. There will be some players who played in that game who can play again, and others who won’t. It’s completely different circumstances now; that was a cup tie, this is a league game.
“We’re just thinking about the process of how we do well in the game. That’s got to include getting the supporters behind us again. There’s no doubt they’ve been brilliant at that, but we’ve got to give them something to support, in terms of our approach to the game.
“They can play a massive role, there’s no doubt about that. I’m quite fortunate really, in that I’m not a manager who has to try to rally up our supporters, because they do it off their own back.
“That’s something we will never take for granted. We’ve got to start giving them something back.
“The atmosphere will be a given. We don’t take it for granted, and, if anything, we’ve got to make sure we do our bit on the pitch, so we can match what they do off it. If we do that, we give ourselves a much better opportunity of being at our best on the day - we’ve got to really focus on that.
“It's a brilliant test. These are the games the club has longed for for so many years. We should remember that, and if we can bear that in mind, we will create a really good atmosphere - which is normal anyway - and that can help us on the day.”
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