Steve Cooper's reasons for turning down Burnley, Birmingham and Sunderland explained | OneFootball

The former Nottingham Forest boss has been announced as the next Leicester City manager.

Steve Cooper will be the next Leicester City boss, and his reasons for turning down other approaches from EFL clubs like Burnley, Birmingham City and Sunderland have now been revealed, with the Welshman not wanting to be dubbed a "second-tier specialist".

Enzo Maresca's successor has been found. After leading them to the Championship title, and promotion to the Premier League, in his first season as a manager in England, the Italian jumped ship to take over from Mauricio Pochettino at Chelsea.

With the financial state that the Foxes look to be in, and the potential for some of their best players, like Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, to be sold this summer, managers may have been looking at the opportunity and not been wholly convinced.

But Cooper has finally got back into top level management after around half-a-year out of work, having left Nottingham Forest in December 2023, even though, at one point, it very much looked like Graham Potter was going to be leading Leicester in the near future.

The Welshman had been linked with other Premier League roles during his time away from the game. He was said to be one of the leading contenders to become Crystal Palace boss before Oliver Glasner was offered the job, according to the Evening Standard.

He also had opportunities to return to work in the EFL, but Cooper batted away these advances for one particular reason.

Cooper didn't want his next opportunity to be with a team in the Championship because he didn't want his reputation to become that of a second tier specialist, instead of somebody who can work in the top flight too, according to The Athletic.

Losing his job at the City Ground is reported to have hit the 44-year-old hard, emotionally, but he believed that another job of that calibre would once again come around.

Other teams who are believed to have tested the waters with Cooper include Hull City, Norwich City and Stoke City.

He had taken Forest from a relegation-threatened side to promotion within the space of a season, and had Swansea City in the top six in his two campaigns in charge of the Welsh side.

His record in the Championship is undeniable, but he is right to not want to pigeonhole himself into the Daniel Farke and Scott Parker category of managers because he is capable of much more than that.

Steve Cooper's record warrants a Premier League job

It went sour for him at Forest, but, even with the poor results, a lot of fans still wanted him to stay.

People were quick to forget about the turnaround that he enabled at that club in the 22/23 campaign; from a chaotic summer transfer window and being written off by the masses to surviving the drop.

Forest signed 21 players in their first summer window back in the Premier League. Cooper had to manage almost two squads' worth of players, get them to be cohesive, pick a consistent team that would pick up points, and try and keep all the players happy.