Cooper – you never give up, you keep on going

When you go into a game with your team on the back of two defeats in three games then you have to hope that the work you have put in between matches will pay dividends.

When you then see your team give away a goal inside the first ten minutes of the game there must be a moment where you wonder whether everything is conspiring against you.

So when you get to the end of a game where you have been awarded a last minute disputed penalty to win the game then it must be difficult to contain your sheer elation at the fact your team is just a point off the automatic promotion places with two games in hand.

Cooper though is slightly more refined than, shall we say, some other football managers and he was enjoying the moment whilst giving his side credit for their never give up attitude which is what he believes secured the vital win at Stoke and increased the intensity which seems to be developing in this promotion race.

“You always hope another opportunity comes to win the game, you never give up and you keep on going,” he said.

“That’s what happened, we got a chance right at the end with the penalty.

“If you think about how it is, we’ve passed our way up the pitch, we’ve got our wide centre-backs getting in the box to try and create.

“It’s not long balls going in and looking for second balls, or forcing the game. It’s us trying to do what we do and, in the end, we did it well.

“We played well tonight, even though we had a difficult start to the night.

“We conceded a goal that can sometimes happen with the way we play, but we put it behind us, we stuck at how we wanted to play and got back in the game with an excellent goal.

“We kept playing, there was an ebb and flow to the game in the second half, but in the last 20 minutes we were the team looking to go on and win it.”