Head Coach’s Notes
STEVE COOPER G
ood evening to all Swansea City fans as we look ahead to tonight’s Championship clash with Stoke City. After two consecutive games on the road, it’s great to be back at the Liberty. We c a m e t h r o u g h t wo ve r y different challenges last week i n w h i c h we p i c ke d u p t wo points against Coventry City and B ristol City – the same scorelines, but very different feelings after the game. Our intention is always to win games, but we were happy to come away from St Andrew’s with a share of the spoils as I don’t think we played to the level we are capable of.
Then we travelled to Ashton Gate and again picked up a point in a 1-1 draw, but we came away feeling we really should have won the game.
The boys had worked very hard throughout the game, and it was an excellent finish by Jamal Lowe for our goal. We were delighted for Jamal as he’s a great lad and works so hard for the team. But the penalty decision against Connor Roberts was something we c ouldn’ t understand. It was a bad decision, and that ’s putting it extremely lightly, so we felt harshly done by to get back to Swansea with just a point. You have to battle very hard for everything you get in this l e a g u e, a n d o u r e ff o r t a n d application certainly deserved three points, and that ’s the frustrating thing.
That means there hasn’t been a great amount of time in terms of preparation and recovery, but the lads have been excellent in the last few days. We host a Stoke side that has started the season well, and they go into the game on the back of a good home win over Brentford, so we’re expecting a tough encounter. B u t , a s e v e r, t h e f o c u s i s always on what we do and how we can influence the result. We’re unbeaten on our travels so far, which is a nice record to have, but we really want to improve on our home form. We’ll do everything we can to give you the result you deserve.
It was disappointing, but we had no time to dwell with another game in front of us.
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