“I wouldn’t want my players to do that, what Richarlison did,” said the Nottingham Forest boss. “If that’s accepted at Spurs, it’s nothing to do with me, but it wouldn’t be accepted here.” Tottenham manager Antonio Conte said he did not have a good picture of the incident because he was discussing a late substitution with the bench, but insisted Richarlison meant no disrespect. “He was juggling the ball, wasn’t he?” Conte said. “It’s a game and you’re under pressure. I think it’s ok. I don’t think he wanted to disrespect Nottingham Forest, a really good club with a long history.” Richarlison’s late cameo capped a scrappy Spurs win, sealed by two Harry Kane goals at either end of the game that moved him into third on the Premier League’s all-time scoring list. But Forest had the majority of possession and plenty of chances, giving Cooper cause for encouragement ahead of a daunting trip to Manchester City on Wednesday. “We don’t want to be in awe of these big teams, we want to attack them head on,” Cooper said. “The performance was good, we really took the game to Spurs, we got into good areas to threaten the goal. Despite the play and possession we had, we didn’t convert it into enough attempts on goal. But there were a lot of good things from our game today.” Conte, meanwhile, had a problem of his own. The Italian pointed out that Spurs were the only of the big six teams scheduled to play three games in six days this week, with games against West Ham on Wednesday and Fulham on Saturday to follow. “I don’t want to complain. But this time we were unlucky and hopefully next time someone else will be unlucky.”
