Cooper: We were against the world today

Manager Mark Cooper said his side were ‘against the world’ during Yeovil Town’s 1-1 draw with FC Halifax Town.

A late goal from substitute Malachi Linton cancelled out Matty Warburton’s opener in a match that saw three players leave the pitch injured, Matt Worthington booked and facing a two-match suspension and the denial of a “blatant penalty”.

Speaking to BBC Somerset’s Sheridan Robins the manager praised the entire club: “I thought the effort today, with people absolutely out on their feet at the end, it’s criminal that we’re asking them to keep playing, but they were fantastic – the whole club today: players, staff, supporters. You saw what it meant at the end and we deserved that so much as a club. We were against the world today, I have to be careful what I say, but we were against the world.

“I don’t want to mention the referee, or speak about him, it doesn’t warrant me wasting any breath. It was a blatant penalty. I’d like to watch [the game] back, I thought we got an awful lot of decisions against us today and an horrendous tackle on Edwin Agbaje.”

Agbaje was stretchered off after a tackle in 71st minute and looks set for a long spell on the sidelines. As does Lawson D’Ath who left the pitch in the first half with a hamstring injury. Cooper said D’Ath could be out for three weeks at a minimum. He also said Alex Fisher had hurt his hamstring too. To compound it all, Matt Worthington picked up his tenth booking of the season which will see him miss the next two matches at home against Bromley next weekend and Southend United seven days later.

The boss praised his side’s first half performance though: “Our first performance was brilliant. I thought we totally controlled the game. We need to be in front. My only gripe with the players is that the first half performance needs to be that were winning the game by one or two goals. Because you know that Halifax are going to react. The situation we find ourselves in is a lack of confidence in and around the opposition penalty area. And, I said to the players ‘what’s the worst thing that can happen? You can miss a chance, so what?’ But we need to sort that bit out. If we play like we did today for 70 minutes and the last five minutes when we worked so hard, we’ll be fine.”

With injuries piling up and just four players on the bench – on loan Doncaster Rovers striker Reo Griffiths missed training yesterday and wasn’t named on the bench, although there is no suggestion of an injury – Cooper was hopeful of bringing in the right players before the deadline for registering players on Thursday.

“We need to think about what we’re going to do, because what we don’t want to do is sign loads of players and burden ourselves with loads of debt. We need to make sure that if we bring anyone in they’re going to improve us and they’re ready to go. Hopefully we can come up with a name or two and try and get them into help the boys.”