Young defence is maturing, says Cooper

Steve Cooper praised Swansea City’s maturing defensive trio after they recorded a second consecutive clean sheet.

The Swans were held 0-0 by Birmingham City in a game that saw few chances in a closely-fought encounter at the Liberty Stadium.

Joe Rodon, Ben Cabango and loanee Marc Guehi – who have a combined centre-back partnership age of 62 – restricted the Blues attack, led by Lukas Jutkiewicz, to limited opportunities in front of goal.

And Cooper, who saw his side open the campaign with a 1-0 win at Preston on the opening day, was full of praise for his young defence.

“Jutciewicz is as good as it gets of his type – experienced,” said the Swans boss.

“Obviously Birmingham use him a lot, any free-kick, any balls from the back they’ll put onto him and he’s a constant threat, he’s good at it.

“Whether it’s hard to play against or not, he is good at playing that type of football. 

“He was a handful, so to think that we kept a clean sheet and minimised them to very few, if any, clear-cut chances then it’s a positive.

“I think the young players are growing - we are going to concede some goals at some stage and we are going to make a few mistakes and we are going to be unlucky and things like that.

“Whatever you do well or not so well you want to learn from, and that will always be our work, particularly with the younger players.

"If over the last two games that is the case then brilliant, but we look to build on it.”