Mark Cooper watched on from the stands as his Yeovil Town side conceded a stoppage time penalty to draw 1-1 with Maidstone this afternoon, and the new Glovers boss was pleased with aspects of the performance – but said his side had to get the balance right.
Speaking to BBC Somerset following the match, Cooper said: “We asked the players to be more front foot, to play more in the opposition’s half, to try and get more balls in the opposition box, which is where the goal came from. We had another couple of little bits that we maybe we could have extended the lead – that was good.
“And the second half we conceded too much possession, and we allowed the opposition to have too much of the ball. so that’s the big part, we’ve got to get the balance right between playing too much football and being effective.”
Chris Todd was in the dugout, but in constant communication with Cooper, who *we think* was serving game seven of his eight match ban picked up when manager of Barrow. From his vantage point, Cooper said he noticed the side’s commitment and defensive strength.
“I think you saw the commitment. We defended really well, we cleared lots of balls, headed lots of balls. Listen all you can ask for is commitment, 100%, they gave us that and a little bit of quality. But, like I knew, we’ve got work to do and that’ll start again on Monday.”
He refused to be drawn on the penalty decision, which appeared to be a soft one: “I think when you get that deep into a game, you expect to win it. With seconds to go, you should really win the game. I don’t want to talk about the goal, I don’t want to talk about the penalty. I think when everybody sees it back, they’ll make their own assumptions about what it was.”
Alex Fisher opened the scoring in the 13th minute with his second of the season and Cooper was impressed with his front man’s performance and that his goal came from a result of the gameplan.
“It was ball in the box. We wanted to put more balls in the box to give the striker something to go off. I said to him today, I don’t want you running in the channels, I want you sating the width of the six yard box, always in the frame of the goal and that’s how the goal came about.”
Before the match, Cooper said he would be looking to add a couple of players to ‘freshen up’ the group and when asked after the match he reaffirmed the point. “We need to try and make us more competitive. More competition [for places], a little bit more legs, athleticism. So, if we can make the team better, we’ll try and do it.”
The new manager apologised for not being able to thank the travelling support and hoped that with spirited performances, supporters would continue to get behind the team.
“[Getting more supporters at games] only comes with winning games and getting spirited performances. If you do that they’ll come. So we have to keep doing that and if you keep getting results the fans will support the the team. They were great today,. I’m sorry I couldn’t get down to thank them today because I was up in the stands, they were great.”