Cooper: The players deserve all the credit

Yeovil Town manager Mark Cooper gave full credit to his players after a 2-1 home win over an Oldham Athletic at Huish Park this afternoon.

A double from midfielder Sonny Blu Lo-Everton, who the boss revealed was playing despite suffering illness this week, saw the Glovers deservedly pick up the three points despite a late consolation goal from the visitors.

Speaking to BBC Somerset’s Mark Stillman after the game, Cooper said that his squad had not used the off-the-field turmoil following the decision of owner Martin Hellier to step down as chairman and put the club up for sale as an excuse for poor performances.

He said: “The players deserve all the credit today. With all that has been going on off-the-pitch, they have not used that as an excuse, they have kept going and got some good results. We should have got a result (in the 2-1 defeat at Altrincham) last weekend, we won two games before that and we have put ourselves in a healthy position in the table and hopefully things get resolved off the pitch. The current owner is kindly still funding the club and we need that to continue until something is resolved.”

The day started with the news that on loan defender Kyle Ferguson had been recalled by his parent club Rochdale, on top of on loan Oldham winger Otis Khan being ineligible to play against his parent club, and injuries to midfielder Charlie Cooper. Defenders Jake Wannell and Michael Smith made their first starts since coming back from injury and there was an appearance off the bench for Morgan Williams, his first in more than two months.

Cooper said:  “We are besieged with issues, losing players late yesterday with Kyle Ferguson (being recalled from his loan spell), Otis (Khan) obviously could not play (against his parent club), Charlie Cooper’s Achilles was not right, Sonny turned up not well, Michael Smith not ready to start, Morgan (Williams) was not really ready. It was just a case of managing the minutes enough so we did not risk any repeat injuries.

“(Jake) Wannell did not really want to play 90 minutes but we had to leave him on because of the state of the game. The players deserve all the credit, they stuck to the game plan, we nullified a lot of what Oldham did and always carried a threat ourselves. The boys were great today against a squad full of really good players and we had to be good to get any points. We were really just committed.”

Williams, who has not featured since the 1-1 draw at Dagenham & Redbridge at the start of February, came on as a 57th minute substitute for Smith to counter the appearance of Oldham top scorer Mike Fondop, thrown on after Lo-Everton’s second goal four minutes in to the second half.

The manager added: “The physio was not happy I put him on. He was supposed to have 20-25 minutes, but at that point Michael Smith had to come off because we did not want to risk his hamstring going again. Once Oldham put Fondop on, we needed another big player to be able to defend the box.”

Lo-Everton took his tally to three goals for the season with a strike early in each half. Cooper said: “The second one was great play from Ciaran McGuckin. He doesn’t give up and managed to get a foot to it before it goes out of play and crosses it for Sonny. The first one is a great finish from Sonny. I thought we were really good in the first half, but once our players that are coming back from injury started to tire, you could see that was when Oldham started to get a bit of a foothold in the game. They are going to have a spell in the game, I could not see their goal coming, it is 40 yards out, drop ball and we should do better on that one, but we managed to see it through.“