Cooper: I have to take it on the chin

Yeovil Town manager Mark Cooper said he had to take calls for his sacking “on the chin” after watching his side capitulate to a 4-3 defeat at home to Gateshead on Bank Holiday Monday.

The Glovers raced in to a 3-0 half-time lead with a display which the boss described as “electric“, but they crumbled after the visitors scored a minute after the restart and the final indignity came when Heed substitute Kain Adom scored the winner deep in to injury time.

Throughout the second half and after the game, there were calls of “We want Cooper out” coming from the Huish Park stands and the manager was asked for his reaction to them after the game.

He told BBC Somerset’s Josh Perkins: “If you do not win games, that is what happens. I am a big boy and you have to take it on the chin. The biggest frustration is that we played so well (in the first half) and as a manager, a coach and as a staff, we set the team up to do what we did in the first half.

“That makes it even more frustrating what happened in the second half and you have to take it on the chin and move on to Saturday and make sure we put in a really good performance (at FC Halifax Town) on Saturday. If play like we did in the first half and we get to 60 minutes (playing like that) then I think we will get some big results and that is what we have to hold on to, the way we played in the first half.”

Having failed to convert any of their chances in the 1-0 defeat at Braintree Town just 48 hours earlier, Cooper had called on his side to be more ruthless in front of goal and in the first 45 minutes they responded in style. An opener from Josh Sims was followed by goals from forwards Junior Morias and Harvey Greenslade to leave the home crowd on their feet at half-time.

But, when Kyle Hurst pulled a goal back for Gateshead after 46 minutes, the visitors smelt blood and a double from substitute Adom and an inevitable strike from Glovers’ old boy Frank Nouble on his first return to his old stomping ground sealed the win.

On the first half performance, Cooper said: “We spoke after the game at Braintree and said we have to score (our chances) and I thought we were electric in the first half, scored three great goals, should have scored more, possibly should have had a penalty. The message at half-time was ‘let’s go again’, we needed to replicate the energy, the desire, the press and let’s go and score five or six.”

On the second half performance, he added: “When you concede the first one by not being aggressive and sinking in with safety in numbers, it effects the players’ mindset, they want to drop and defend and that is not the way to do it. We have to be on the front foot, we can’t sit in and defend, we have to get at them and we didn’t. All the goals were individual mistakes, people not doing what they are supposed to do. It is a tough one to take, I do not think you will see two more contrasting halves of football anywhere in the country.

“The fall out will all be about the second half and rightly so because it is about professionalism and making sure we do our jobs professionally and diligently and second half it went out of the window. We did not do our job. We are going to talk about the second half, for sure.

“Our message all season has been ‘let’s be aggressive and front foot’, we want to get up to the teams we are playing against and that was the message today. Players shrank in to their shells in the second half and we have to as a club, a squad and a staff, we have to feel that and make sure that never happens again.”

The manager disappeared down the tunnel at the final whistle and BBC Somerset were reporting he was “in a meeting upstairs” at Huish Park which presumably ended when he appeared in front of the microphone.

Yeovil’s first opportunity to respond to the defeat comes on Saturday when they travel to FC Halifax Town, who were held to a 1-1 draw at ten man Scunthorpe United in their Bank Holiday fixture.

Asked what he expects from that game, Cooper said: “They will see (the second half performance) and think if they put the ball in the box they will score. Again, we have to be on the front foot, we have to make sure we put it right on the pitch. If you are a professional footballer, you have to do your job. If that is heading the ball out of the six yard box, that is what you have to do, if that is staying with your man, you have to do it, but not just for 45 minutes.

“The atmosphere (inside the ground today) was electric in the first half and we gave them really good entertainment in the first 45 minutes, but we have to do that for longer, be braver and go and press and not hold on to what we have.“