Yeovil Town manager Mark Cooper has said that he felt that his side could have taken a point from the game against Solihull Moors on Tuesday night.
The boss said his side’s a lack of quality in forward areas, and a questionable offside call, cost his side from getting anything from the match.
Speaking to BBC Somerset’s Mark Stillman after the game, he was audibly frustrated at how easily the Glovers allowed their visitors to dictate the game.
He said: “We gave a team that wanted to counter attack and sit in, the perfect fillip with the goal, which means they can sit even deeper and catch us on the break and that makes us really tense and erratic.
“We huffed and we puffed, but we never really looked like scoring. We did score a great goal, a free kick that’s not offside, [I’ve] just seen it, it’s miles onside and a draw would have been a fair result.”
Speaking on the Glovers’ form at Huish Park, which has seen three 1-0 losses in their four home games since of the season so far, Cooper suggested there was probably more to it that the final scorelines.
He said: “We played really well against Rochdale for 70 minutes and deservedly lost, didn’t deserve to lose against Hartlepool and I didn’t think we deserved to lose tonight.
“The second half, all the play was in their half, but we didn’t have any quality, our forward players produced zero quality, we had a really good attacking performance where all our forward player contributed on Saturday and tonight, apart from the free kick where we ‘scored’ the header, I don’t think from open play we’d have scored if we’d have been there until tomorrow night.”
“I don’t think from open play we’d have scored if we’d have been there until tomorrow night.”
The manager confirmed that his half-time substitutions were made with the fitness of both defenders Dom Bernard and Morgan Williams in mind saying that they both needed the minutes as they both work towards full fitness.
He did not want to evaluate the season’s start as a whole just yet, focusing on picking apart Tuesday’s showing instead.
“I’m just evaluating tonight, now we’ve got to look at why were so good on Saturday – really good offensively – and tonight, in the forward areas we were really, really poor.”
As for Saturday, Cooper said that it was full focus on their own actions, particularly in the final third.
“We want to win the game, it doesn’t matter what the opposition do, if we’re that toothless and we don’t ask enough questions in and around the penalty area, it’s not going to work.”
He’s living in a dream world.
Total garbage from start to finish. No pace, no movement, no width, no creativity.
And if he sets up with the same narrow formation on Saturday, it’s surely going to be the same result.
As for the opposition setting up to counter attack, how can it be counter attacking when the ball’s always in our half!
Three home games out of four without a goal, & I can’t remember any of the opposition keepers having to make a save worthy of the name.
It looking like a really smart idea for the owner to award him a 3 year contract before the season kicked off. Let’s hope he included some get out clauses in that contact!
My opinion, we deserved to lose to Hartlepool & Solihull Moors, we probably deserved a draw with Rochdale but paid the price for letting them dictate the final 20 minutes.
“Deserved a draw”, presumably he means 0-0 as we never looked capable of scoring and they did eg their superb goal. Early days and while his public face won’t slate his players I imagine his private one went berserk.