He’s produced a worldie – Steven Schumacher hails Plymouth keeper Michael Cooper

Posted Sunday, August 28, 2022 by PA

Plymouth boss Steven Schumacher praised goalkeeper Michael Cooper as Argyle beat Bolton 2-0 to move up to fifth in League One.

Cooper made a fine save to turn Amadou Bakayoko’s close-range strike on to a post and away to safety when the hosts were 1-0 up.

And Ryan Hardie capitalised with a thumping late strike to add to Niall Ennis’ 34th-minute opener.

Schumacher said: “Every now and then you need your goalie and he’s produced a worldie today and that’s won us the game.

“It was a tough game but we knew it was going to be a hard game. Every time we play them it’s always difficult and they have been quite tight games.

“I think today for us that was the definition of winning ugly.

“We didn’t play particularly well with the ball, bit careless at times with it in possession.

“But the moments that we did create thankfully the two strikers have produced two moments of quality and won us the game.

“That was the difference in the game because the game was finely balanced and just before we got the second goal Michael’s produced an unbelievable worldie save.

“If that goes in that gets Bolton in the game and you’d fancy them to go on and win it then because they would have had the momentum.

“Bolton were probably forced into as many long passes as I’ve seen them play this season the way we pressed.

“I don’t think it was a great game of football between two good footballing teams.

“I think we cancelled each other out a little bit so sometimes you have to find a way of winning ugly and we’ve done that.”

Bolton boss Ian Evatt felt his team played well enough to take something from the game.

“I am trying to figure how we lost,” he said.

“I know how we lost, we lost the moments. Between boxes we controlled and dominated the game. We lost the battle and we lost the moments in both boxes.

“We have come here and completely dominated and dictated the game and just been sucker-punched twice and we have to be better.

“We fix it by defending our own box better and making sure we take our chances. We have had enough chances here to win three or four games.

“You can say the keeper has made good saves, he shouldn’t have had a chance to make those saves. It should be finished. Clinically. Job done.

“We can’t just blame the back three, four, five, whatever we play.

“Everyone has to take responsibility because I have been in changing rooms where defenders blame the attackers for not taking chances, attackers blame defenders for not keeping clean sheets. It is a vicious circle.

“The facts are that both need to be better. We need to take our chances and defend better, it’s as simple as that.

“If we play like that we will win more games than we lose.”