Leeds United skipper Liam Cooper admitted that his side are missing their fans as they fell to a fifth Elland Road defeat of the season. First-half goals from Gylfi Sigurdsson and Dominic Calvert-Lewin put Everton in command at half-time before Raphinha pulled one back three minutes after the break. Despite a spirited second-half showing from Marcelo Bielsa’s side, an equaliser did not come and the Toffees were able to leave West Yorkshire with a 2-1 victory. It has been 333 days since fans set foot in Elland Road, when they saw the Whites regain top spot in the Championship with a 2-0 win over Huddersfield last March and Cooper admits that Leeds’ passionate supporters are missed.
Liam Cooper said: “We’re missing our fans, I know we can’t have them at home but we are, we’re missing them a lot. This place is completely different when it’s full to the rafters. We’ve got to get a lot more consistency at home and we’ll look to do that. We’ve just got to dust ourselves down and go again.”
Despite the defeat, Cooper was proud of the way his team took the game to Carlo Ancelotti’s side.
Liam Cooper added: “The boys are disappointed in there, I thought we’d done enough second half to draw the game. We just didn’t that our chances when they came and we gave the ball away sloppily in the first half and against a team who are set up to counter you make it hard for yourselves if you do go behind. We did that, we brushed ourselves down and we had to go again. I just said to the lads there if we’re going to lose, that the way we’ve got to lose throwing everything at it and give everything you’ve got and the boys definitely did that tonight.”
Next up for Leeds is another home match against Crystal Palace on Monday night and Cooper is confident that Leeds will bounce back.
Liam Cooper said: “The games come thick and fast now and there’s always the next game to put that right. We’ve usually bounced back from defeats during the season so hopefully we can do that in the next game.”
