Steve Cooper insists Forest have written to PGMOL to stand up for themselves
Forest have submitted a dossier to Howard Webb and the refereeing body highlighting perceived refereeing injustices.
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Your support makes all the difference.Nottingham Forest boss Steve Cooper says his club have written to the PGMOL in order to “stand up for ourselves”.
Forest have submitted a dossier to Howard Webb and the refereeing body highlighting perceived refereeing injustices this season.
Incidents from Sunday’s 2-2 draw with Everton, the 1-0 defeat to Wolves and the 2-2 draw with Brentford before Christmas are understood to be included.
Cooper said: “We have talked internally about, do we need to toughen up a bit? Do we need to stand up for each other a bit more?
“I don’t know what other clubs do… is it more or less?
“What I do know is we’re in a situation where we need to say something about how we’re feeling.
“But it’s not just a call and a moan. It’s with detailed footage and data.
“And it’s not all negative. After one game, we don’t complain about a referee’s performance, that’d be narrow minded.
“It’s got to be over a course of time, a course of games, like you’d judge maybe me and the team.
“We do have to stand up for ourselves, in a respectful way, but at the same time, we don’t want to get walked over either.
“We’ve done this with detail and let things settle, we took a couple of days to feed back.
“It doesn’t have to be all negative, when Howard Webb came in it was a positive meeting. Let’s all try and help.”
Cooper was visited by new chief of the PGMOL Webb recently and said the meeting was productive.
Clubs have been encouraged to give feedback and Cooper says Forest are feeling especially frustrated with decisions at the minute.
“We haven’t heard anything back yet. We have submitted some feedback, I’m quite happy to do that,” he added.
“It’s something that the PGMOL are encouraging. Like every club we had a visit from Howard Webb and some of his staff members four to six weeks ago, but that was a normal visit that he’s been doing in his new role.
“One of the things he’s really been encouraging is feedback. We have submitted how we’re feeling at the moment and it’s the first time we’ve done it this season.
“It’s the first time the club has made a call, whether it’s through me, the sporting director or even more executive than that.
“We’re not a club that feeds back every game, every single week. We’re certainly not complaining, we want to feedback 1) in some reflections and 2) to have a good relationship to help, and that’s where we’re at.”
Forest midfielder Lewis O’Brien is in talks with MLS side DC United about a possible loan switch.
O’Brien was left out of the 25-man Premier League squad ahead of a proposed loan move to Blackburn on deadline day of the January transfer window.
However, the paperwork was bungled by the Championship club and the EFL rejected Rovers’ appeal toregister him.
Now Wayne Rooney’s MLS side have made a move about a loan deal.