Plenty of positives for Steve Cooper

Steve Cooper was able to take a number of positives as his Swansea City side came from behind to beat Derby and return to winning ways at the Liberty Stadium.

A first home win since beating Middlesbrough in SA1 on March 6 was secured as Morgan Whittaker and Connor Roberts scored in the space of three second-half minutes to cancel out Tom Lawrence’s opener.

Cooper’s much-changed side – showing five changes from the draw at Reading – showed the character to recover, while youngsters Ollie Cooper, Liam Cullen and Brandon Cooper also got more game time under their belt.

Whittaker nodded in his first league goal for the Swans from Ben Cabango’s knockdown, before Roberts volleyed in from a fantastic cross-field pass by Matt Grimes.

It leaves the Swans fourth in the table with 80 points on the board, and Cooper was a happy man.

“I don’t think it was a great game, until they went 1-0 up,” said the Swans boss.

“We understand and respect the situation they are in, and the approach they took with a bit of slow play and balls coming into the box.

“But when that happens the game can lack intensity and rhythm, which it did, and we could have done better with our tactical play.

“We did not start the second half well, conceding a poor goal, but the reaction was good and we played better.

“We have come back from one down, and we have won at home, which was important as we have dropped too many points here, and conceded late goals.

“So it was good to see out the win, we also had young players coming on and getting good minutes under their belts like Morgan - who scored - Ollie Cooper, Liam Cullen and Brandon Cooper at the end.

“There were loads of good returns for us from that.”