Mark Cooper was ‘very pleased’ with the defensive efforts of his side this afternoon as they kept an impressive Notts County at bay.
Yeovil frustrated Notts County, who fell to 2nd after the draw, and Cooper said his side aren’t ready to compete in a street fight with a side like County just yet.
Speaking to BBC Somerset’s Sheridan Robins, he said: “We chose to sacrifice the ball because we’re on the start of our journey. We’re not ready to compete punch for punch with Notts County yet. They’re a good football team and if we’d have to gone toe to toe we’d have got knocked out.”
Cooper admitted setting up that way wasn’t how he’d like to go, but revealed he’d told his squad to leave their egos behind to get a result on the road.
“I said to the boys at the start of the week, we need to leave our egos at the door. We all want to go and play pretty football, but the result and the team is more important than our egos.
“So I said to them, leave your ego there, we’re going to sacrifice the ball and were going to defend really well and were going to try and play counter attack, which is not really my forte, but we had to try and get something out of the game.”
Cooper switched it tactically in the second half in search of nicking a goal, and did say his side didn’t make the most of the corners they had. But ultimately, he was full of praise for his defence, and unapologetic for setting up the way he did.
“I’ve just said to the players, they’re the best I’ve seen at defending their own penalty area and they had to do that today.
“We cant apologise for setting up like we did, we’re near the bottom and we have to get points.”