Football is a tough career.
Coops has been a great guy by all accounts, a great captain and for 3 or 4 seasons a very capable Championship defender. His lack of pace has always been his achilles heel and he has got to the stage where he has lost another yard of pace.
He has been a great servant and deserves his testimonial. Its tough to say after his dedication to the club but he just isn't at a level where he is reliable anymore. Dennis was always going to be a problem last night for him.
The 2nd half of your 2nd paragraph is the worry for me. Yes I know I'm not Coops biggest fan but you could see his flaws majorly last season. Regarding Dennis he's Lower level Prem league at best unless we beef up the back of the pitch then we're going to get rolled over by the likes of Man City again. It's great to sit there and claim that this squad is better than last seasons but honestly are they? What this team has done that last year's didn't do is put there all in to it unlike last season where the players were on to their agents trying to get moves to Germany.
I was listening to The Sound of Silence this morning and wondered how the game went