Swindon Town

MARK Cooper is expecting a confident Peterborough side to arrive at SN1 tomorrow afternoon.

The Town boss added that it had been a difficult week of preparations with the squad further depleted with injuries and suspensions.

“They’ll be coming here full of confidence,” he told STFC PlayerHD. “You always adapt to the squad you inherit and he (Graham Westley) has inherited a squad of good footballers. They’re playing nice-on-the-eye kind of football. I watched a couple of games recently and it was enjoyable.”

“It’s been difficult to work with an XI. At the moment we don’t know what the line-up is going to be. We don’t know if Louis Thompson is going to be back in time or whether he’ll play on Friday night so it’s been difficult but somehow we’ll put together a team that’s going to go out and put in a big effort to get a result.”

Ahead of Saturday’s clash, Town have added Bristol City defender, Adam El-Abd on loan to bolster their defence. “He’s a no-nonsense defender,” said Cooper. “He’ll organise the young players and give us that bit of calmness.”

Finally, the manager declared that Town’s supporters would play a crucial role over the coming weeks.

“We need them more than ever,” he said. “It’s easy to turn against the players, the staff, the club – whatever. It’s going to be difficult now for the next few weeks because there is not really any sign of our frontline players coming back from injury so the boys that are in the team are probably in there ahead of schedule and they are going to need some help. The supporters can really help by getting behind them.”

To see the full interview, click here to go to STFC PlayerHD.