Nottingham Forest's Steve Cooper rubs salt in Swansea City wounds with half-time statement

Steve Cooper said he knew Swansea City would offer up "a hell of a lot of chances" and believes Nottingham Forest should have been 5-1 up at half-time on Saturday.

Cooper's players ran riot in the second half at the The City Ground, eventually running out emphatic winners by the same scoreline against his former employers. Cooper's efforts in the east Midlands this season have been astonishing, having taken Forest from bottom of the Championship when he took over in September to the brink of automatic promotion, with a mouthwatering clash against second-placed Bournemouth to come on Tuesday night.

For Russell Martin, the game and result showed where Swansea are right now and where they need to strengthen this summer, with recruitment work needed in a number of areas of the squad. The head coach labelled the second half "embarrassing" but a nine-game unbeaten run prior to the Forest collapse points to improvements, with next term a more likely gauge of progress in SA1.

Cooper, though, says they had a game plan for facing Swansea and said his team executed perfectly, believing the tie should have been out of sight at the turnaround point. He said he knew the visitors would have the lion's share of the ball and that he was perfectly happy for that to play out, adding that he anticipated plenty of chances for his side because of the way Swansea operate.

"(I) thought we were excellent today," he said. "The game plan came off perfectly. We were very happy for Swansea to have the ball. We wanted to control the game without the ball which we did brilliantly, 5-1 is obviously a great result.

"But I'll be honest with you, it could have been a lot more - it should have been 5-1 at half-time. We know Swansea have a lot of the