Cooper: Derby edge will bring best out of Glovers
Yeovil Town manager Mark Cooper has said that he and his group are looking forward to the FA Trophy clash with W*ymouth this Saturday and thinks the occasion will make for a better environment and feeling.
Speaking to BBC Somerset’s Jack Killah on Thursday morning he spoke of his respect for the opposition, but that he was looking forward to renewing the rivalry;
“Every club has their closest rivals that they want to beat and our is W*ymouth, it’s the closest, biggest club to us – W*ymouth, Taunton are similar – and like you say, throughout history there’s been some big encounters, that will be no different on Saturday, it adds a bit of spice to it, rather than just being an mundane occasion, we’re going to have a real edge to the game, I think we’re better when that is the case. We full respect every team we play, and we know we have to get everything right and work really hard to get a result.”
“We’ve watched their last five, six games. They’re different, now without a manager, they changed their manager last week, Jason Matthews is a great lad, he’s in charge, he’ll have them organised, whatever W*ymouth team turn up, we know, just by the occasion it’s going to give them a lift, so, form goes out the window. We have to play well.”
Jack Killah confirmed in his questioning that Will Buse will NOT be eligible to play for his loan club against his parent club, but other than that, on a Yeovil front, things are looking up.
The gaffer confirmed that he has a clean bill of health with club captain Matt Worthington available after his cameo against Woking and it’s only the two suspended defenders that are unavailable.
“We’ve had a frustrating period with having key players unavailable, which has rocked us, probably you would say most teams get that, hopefully ours is done now, after this Saturday we get Wannell back, Bernard back and obviously now we have got Matt (Worthington) back too,
the longer you have your key players, best squad players available, the better, you have more scope to pick and it’s good to have as many players available as we can.
We came through pretty well unscathed (from the Woking game), it wasn’t a high distance covering game for us, we played most of the game in their half and we managed to save quite a lot of distance in our legs.”
On the competition as a whole, Cooper appreciates that both Yeovil and he have had individual success in, which will come with all the perks of a cup run, including the financial rewards.
“I’ve been lucky enough to win it as a manger, it’s fantastic to take thousands of fans to Wembley and win it, it’s a prestigious trophy, it’s the FA Cup for us and it’s one that we want to try and go far in, we tried to set our sights on at the start of the season – can we have a really good Trophy run?
Winning at Wembley is fantastic feeling, the best feeling as a player or a manager.”
“Saturday will be a good gate which means more revenue for both teams, and if you get to the latter stages, the semi finals you’re going to bet big gates, if you get to the final and you play another big club, it’s a big crowd and you get a split of that, we want to try and go far”
So, would we, Coops!
