By Gareth James
Steve Cooper is facing a touchline ban for Leicester City’s Premier League fixture against Ipswich, having received his third yellow card of the season during the Foxes’ defeat to Manchester United.
The Welsh manager’s protests over a potential offside in the lead-up to United’s second goal in their 5-2 Carabao Cup win led referee Andrew Madley to show him a yellow card, a move Cooper later claimed the official “enjoyed” giving.
Three bookings mean that Cooper will almost certainly watch the match from the stands at Portman Road on Saturday.
Though Diogo Dalot appeared to be in an offside position during the build-up to Alejandro Garnacho’s goal, the absence of VAR made it difficult to confirm, so the goal was allowed.
Cooper’s frustration was evident from the touchline, and he was promptly shown a card.
Ruud van Nistelrooy definitely enjoyed his first game as Manchester United’s interim manager
His team registered a 5-2 win over Leicester City to progress in the Carabao Cup pic.twitter.com/xK1ACjGVs5
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) October 30, 2024
In his post-match press conference, when asked about the impending suspension, Cooper commented: “Cheers. Not to you, but to that. M
“Maybe there’s a bit of sympathy for the linesman. He’s a Premier League linesman and he’s used to the protection of VAR. But he can’t make a mistake like that.
“It was a big moment in the game. We score soon after and it should be 1-1. It’s 2-1. The referee’s enjoyed giving me a yellow card as well.
“He looked like he had a good time tonight. That was that. But I want to stand up for my team. You can’t just see an image on the bench and just accept it.”
Ruud van Nistelrooy enjoyed a winning start as interim United manager by beating Leicester to reach the quarter-finals and adding to Cooper’s frustrations after an indifferent start to Leicester’s league campaign.
But Cooper reflected: “Anybody that wasn’t here tonight will see the scoreline and think it was a dominant, straightforward, comfortable result for United. But it was everything but that. Okay, it was 5-2, and we conceded five goals, but there were circumstances around each goal.
“It was a brilliant strike from Casemiro, a really poor linesman’s decision for the second goal. The third and fourth were ricochets that haven’t gone where we wanted them to go, and we have to take responsibility that we could have done better on that as well. And then a giveaway for the fifth goal.
“In terms of how the game went… it was typified by the start of the second half to the fifth goal. We were completely dominant. I don’t think United entered our half and then we give away a goal like we did.
“It wasn’t quite the atmosphere we were expecting. We did talk about how there might be something different in the air tonight, but it wasn’t an absolutely fully-blown atmosphere. It was quite calm. That was a lot on the possession and the territory we had. But what we’ve done is hand United too many moments to cause damage. That’s something we have to take responsibility for.
“It’s strange to analyse. We’ll own the result and some of the goals. But in terms of the general game, I looked at some of the guys in the dressing room and thought: ‘You’ve done alright tonight.’ It’s turned into frustration and anger really but we need to turn it into motivation for the weekend.”
