Yeovil boss Mark Cooper spoke to BBC Somerset’s commentator Chris Sykes following the 4-0 loss at York. The boss described the afternoon as ‘wasted’ and that he’d need to sign a couple of centre halves before the visit of Barnet on Wednesday. Here’s the transcript of the conversation. You can listen here at 38:50.
CS: A difficult afternoon. Mark. What your initial thoughts off the back of that?
MC: Yeah, the game’s over as a contest after 10 minutes with the sending off and then the goal – game’s over. So yeah, then it was just a long afternoon. We can’t make that mistake at the back, you know, we’ve got a centre half trying to Cruyff turn on the edge of his own box. Compounds it by getting sent off, and then they scored for the free kick. Game over. So it was an afternoon wasted. It was a trip wasted. Our chairman paid for us to stay in a lovely hotel last night. Supporters, 340, or whatever of them, traveled untold miles in horrendous weather and we played a 10 minute game, and the rest was just a waste.
CS: Is that kind of the point you’ve made to the players, after about fans making the trip?
MC: Our fans always make the trip. So we, we know we’ve got brilliant fan. I’m about more disappointed with the discipline and decision making of some in some key areas. You know, that’s two more defenders sent off today. We’ve already lost Jake Wannell. You know, the players know that we’re struggling for defenders, and then one of them gets sent off in the last minute with a ridiculous tackle, which probably is yellow, but referee can’t wait to send him off. But for me, that’s just ridiculous decision making.
CS: Ultimately, he’s put himself in that position when you’re whether it’s yellow or red. He still put himself in position when he didn’t need to?
MC: The ref was only gonna book green shirts today, he was never going to book reds. But he [Bernard] still shouldn’t put him, if he knows that as well, he shouldn’t put himself in that position. The game’s over. No point making that tackle. So the discipline is something that I have to address, because that’s too many now.
CS: The fact that it now has left you very short in defense ahead of, ahead of the next few matches.
MC: Yeah, we have to go and sign. We have to go and sign a couple of players, because we’ve only got Morgan Williams. He’s the only centre half. So yeah, we’ll have to go and sign a couple of centre halves before Wednesday.
CS: How frustrating is it for you as a manager when you when you know you’re in the situation, the team knows in situation without Jake Wannell, and then two more get sent off. How frustrating is that it’s
MC: It’s just the level we’re at. Players make more bad decisions than the level above that and level above that. When we have our best defensive unit on the pitch, we don’t concede. So when we don’t have that on we’re in trouble.
CS: In terms of the you obviously went one nil down, down to 10 men very early on. What did you make of your side and the reaction to that throughout the first half
MC: Yeah. But then we the goalie throws one in. Ollie’s been fantastic, but he had one of those games today which keepers do. You, he’s thrown the second one in, it’s definitely game over then, because you’re playing against a good team that’s possession based. I said at halftime to the players, I take 4-0 now, so we got away with it.
CS: And you know, another game against a tough opponent, again, Barnet, coming on Wednesday. You know, where does this kind of leave you?
MC: Good game for us. Good game. We know we have to be at it, otherwise we’ll get turned over. I’ve just asked the players now, like, they just need a bit of honesty, a little bit of humility. And people to put their hand up, and say I’ve let the club down today, and we need a response. So as a staff we”l certainly be doing that. I’ve just asked the players there, that we need a little bit of honesty after that game. And it’s not about, ‘well, it wasn’t me, it was somebody else’. Everybody’s got to have luck in the mirror today and say we need to be better than that.
CS: Is there kind of a feeling of obviously bad results there, but generally speaking, it’s just one?
MC: Not really no, because we wasted an opportunity last week to get three points. With this game in mind it put us in a real position to attack this game. And last Saturday has put us in the difficult position now where we’ve come to York and got beat and now we got to play at the top team in Barnet so players have to respond.