Steve Cooper gives verdict on Leeds United, Notts Forest postponement and Premier League action

Forest and Leeds were due to lock horns at Elland Road for a first top-flight meeting between the two sides since April 1999 on Monday night but the fixture was postponed as a mark of respect to Queen Elizabeth II following Her Majesty's passing at Balmoral last Thursday afternoon.

The decision to play or postpone was left up to the Premier League who opted to postpone all ten of the weekend’s fixtures, including the tenth and final Monday night match between Leeds and Forest.

Top-flight action will resume this weekend but not for Leeds whose Sunday match against arch rivals Manchester United at Old Trafford has also been postponed due to events surrounding The Queen’s State Funeral the following day.

There were concerns over the number of officers Greater Manchester Police would have at their disposal and Jesse Marsch's side will not play until October due to the two-week international break following on from this weekend's games.

Forest are back in action this evening at home to Fulham and Cooper gave his thoughts on the postponement of the Leeds clash at Thursday afternoon's pre-match press conference.

Asked if the extra time on the training pitch would be a help to his side which features a stack of new faces, the Forest boss reasoned: "I don't want to say that anything has been a help or an advantage in a sad situation because that would be wrong.

"The Premier League made the decision to postpone the games and we will respect that decision and then we have to adapt in terms of the programme.

"Obviously you quickly go from preparing for a game which for us was Leeds to then not playing for over a week and trying to get the right programme of work so we have tried to maximize the time for sure.

"Obviously it was on the back of a really disappointing week previous to it which was not a nice result that we had here against Bournemouth and the way that unfolded so it has given us a chance to come together a bit more.

"There's obviously a lot of new players here and a lot has been said about us having to find a way, find a new way in terms of the team that we want to end up becoming.

"And while we're doing that, we've got to win enough games and pick up enough points while we're doing that so we've tried to use the time wisely.

"There's nothing better than building a team and a style of play than time that is given to you and we've obviously we've been given time and we've tried to try to use it wisely.

"But at the same time we've still got a lot of games coming up and obviously the international break after this.

"We've got to work in a way that gets us ready for the next game but at the same time really tries to bring all these players together to be the team that we end up wanting to be."