Swindon Town

MARK Cooper expects another difficult game for his side when they take on Petersfield on Saturday afternoon.

“You know they’ll have a go,” he explained. “They’ll try and kick you, they’ll try and keep tight to you. It’s probably more of a realistic tempo to the game than when you play a Premier League team.

“We have to face different kinds of adversities throughout the season so we go and play and hopefully the pitch is ok and we have a game. We have only got so many players so we have to take everyone or else we won’t be able to field a team.”

The manager also gave swindontownfc.co.uk an injury update after Jermaine Hylton and Yaser Kasim both missed Tuesday’s defeat at Solihull Moors. “They should be fine for the weekend,” he said. “Will (Randall) is training today and there are no other injuries.”

Cooper then reflected on the midweek loss and urged supporters not to read anything into Town's pre-season results so far.

“I was disappointed in the manner of the goals,” he admitted. “Once we do give the ball away, we need to react a bit quicker to get back and stop them scoring but it’s all about the fitness side at the minute than performances.”

He continued: “People tipped us to get relegated and we didn’t win lots of pre-season games last year. It’s all about 8th August. We knew with the way we are, it’s not going to be all singing and all dancing on the first day of pre-season. We have to be patient and wait for the right players to become available before we can put a team together.

“We’ve had one or two extra trialists in with us this week. We’ll start making decisions on them after the weekend.”