Toothless Glovers frustrate Cooper at Chesham

Mark Cooper’s frustration with his Yeovil Town side was clear in his post-match interview following this afternoon’s FA Cup defeat. The Glovers tripped at the first hurdle of this season’s competition, losing 1-0 to National League South side Chesham United.

Speaking to BBC Somerset’s Chris Spittles, Cooper bemoaned his side’s attacking play on the day and in previous weeks. It was another game of keep-ball from the Glovers, but no cutting-edge.

Cooper said: “Full credit Chesham, they hung in there, didn’t they? We had all the play – dominated the game. We had loads of play around the edge of their box, but we didn’t get opportunities to kill it off.  We were really sloppy at the top of the pitch today. We didn’t take care in and around the penalty area. We should be scoring at least two or three today.”

Expanding on his side’s woes in front of goal, he added: “We haven’t scored enough goals for our play. That’s another game where we haven’t [scored]. We scored one last week and we dominated the game, we had loads of chances – we scored one. We scored one the week before, scored none the week before that, we scored none today, you know. So we can only do so much.

“We get the ball safely from the our goalkeeper, and we play nice, and we get the ball to the edge of their box and it breaks down, or we pick the wrong option, or we miss the target, or we smash it straight at the keeper. I think there’s one great bit of play where Josh Sims has got an open goal from five yards, and he hits it straight at the goalie, just roll it in the corner with a bit of composure. So, really frustrating. 

“we are really nice to watch from tee to green, but once we get on the dance floor, not quite enough”

Yeovil started the day with Ciaran McGuckin, Josh Sims, Frank Nouble and Jordan Young as the attacking quartet, and were able to introduce Sonny Blu Lo-Everton and Sam Pearson in the second half, but still couldn’t find a way through. Expanding yet further on his side’s woes in front of goals, Cooper really mixed his metaphors…

“If you look at our forward line, we’ve got Josh, Sims, who played 20-odd games on the Premier League, got Frank [Nouble], who’s played in the Premier League. We’ve got Ciaran McGuckin, who’s a young lad, scored two in two for us, and got we’ve Jordan Young, who was player of the year last year. So, you know, we expect. It’s not just the forwards, because we have set pieces, we had free kicks, shots from the edge of the box, but the forward boys have got to start scoring.  I’ve said to them in there, I can’t keep defending you if we keep missing chances and keep taking the wrong shot or finding the goalkeeper. Your job in the team is to score great goals. And we are really nice to watch from tee to green, but once we get on the dance floor, not quite enough.”

The set piece winner came deep into stoppage time through Jack Cawley’s header after the Chesham man rose highest above Raphael Araoye to break Yeovil hearts.

THE MOMENT that Jack Cawley's back post header gave us a spot in the @EmiratesFACup 1st Round

Your Generals are waiting for the big boys, bring them on 💜💙 https://t.co/lHNZtyYEqI pic.twitter.com/wwdjzSkvSq

— Chesham United FC (@cheshamutdfc) October 12, 2024

“We give them a free header. Our centre-half young Raph [Araoye], he’s coming out of U21s football, you have to learn that you have to head that ball. You can’t let your man jump above you, because that one action means that we’re out the FA Cup and not going back to a replay. So it’s great for Raph, because he has to learn that that can’t happen. And I’m sure Bristol City will be delighted, because that’s part of his learning. But, it doesn’t help us at the moment.

“[I’ve got] no qualms about the overall performance. We looked comfortable, just not ruthless enough in front of goal, and that’s been the case all season,” he added.

When asked what the next steps are to find the goals and if he needs to find the ‘devilment’ in them, Cooper said: “We either do that, or we say to the chairman, right, we need to bring some more attacking players in, because the ones we’re not we’re not quite firing. But I’ve said to them, I’ll stick with them, we keep working with them and try and make them better. And that’s your job as a coach.”

On a positive, Cooper said he expected to have Aaron Jarvis back next weekend, but that he could have been back for today: “We missed out on the protocol by 12 hours. You know, [I’m] not sure we did everything properly. We should be having Jarv coming off the bench today and winning us the game, but we didn’t, and we’ll have to wait until next week.”

Cooper finished off by setting the bar for the next few games, and promised a hard week of training for his team.

“Now it’s going to be a tough week for the boys. They’ll be in all week, and we have three games now, Wealdstone, Tamworth and Maidenhead that I want to go and take a real big points haul to propel us up the table.”