Should last-place teams troll opponents *before* games? Who’s to say

Nottingham’s Forest’s social media team may want this one back

Trolling an opponent on Twitter can be a delightful exercise, riling up opposing fans while giving your own supporters a little extra edge.

But — and this is important — it’s an infinitely better exercise to do after a win, and it’s an especially terrible idea to do it pre-game if you are a last-place team.

That is a lesson that Nottingham Forest’s social media team learned the hard way this weekend.

Prior to Saturday’s match at fellow strugglers Wolves, Forest posted a picture of striker Emmanuel Dennis on the field at Molineux surrounded by wolf cubs with the caption: “playtime.” The post was eventually deleted, but the damage had been done.

After Wolves inevitably won the game 1-0, their social media team was ready to pull the trigger on an incredibly justified response: “playtime’s over.”

Cooper: Tweet ‘wasn’t helpful’

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Nottingham Forest manager Steve Cooper admitted what everyone already knew to be true: That post perhaps wasn’t the best idea ever.

“I was asked about it in the press conference afterwards but I wasn’t aware of it. Then I was notified about what happened afterwards,” Cooper said.

“It wasn’t a good thing from the club and it wasn’t helpful. But it’s been dealt with. The important thing is about learning from it.”

Forest has now hopefully learned that the time for riling up an opponent is after a victory, not before a game. But with one win in 10 so far this season, the next trolling opportunity for the newly promoted side may not be for a while.

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