Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
JOELY GOOD SHOW
SUMMER signing Joel Cooper is loving life at Linfield and relishing the challenge of making a name for himself in South Belfast.
Windsor Park has been a graveyard for growing reputations in past years, but not for the tricky winger who joined the club from Glenavon in May.
Cooper has hit the ground running and made it four goals in seven appearances thanks to Saturday’s double salvo against Dungannon Swifts.
Asked about his blistering start at a club renowned for being a difficult hunting ground for young players, he said: “That’s what people said to me before I signed for Linfield.
“But I was happy to come here and try and make a statement, just go and show what I can do. I came here to show I can do it at a big club.
“The gaffer has given me licence to express myself and I’m relishing that. I’m allowed to come inside, mix it up a bit and get into goal scoring areas.
“In training, we’ve worked on runs to get into areas where I can score and it’s working. I need to keep working on that and keep improving.”
Cooper opened the scoring with a deflected effort on 27 minutes and added a clinical second just two minutes later from 16 yards out.
Paul Mcelroy rattled the woodwork for the visitors, before Blues substitute Andy Waterworth added gloss to the result with a close range third seven minutes from time.
Victory eased the Blues four points clear of Glenavon, who have a game in hand, at the summit and five clear of Coleraine who were held 0-0 at Ards.
“It’s obviously good for us (Coleraine dropping points), but it’s early doors in the season and we can only concentrate on ourselves,” said Cooper.
“We started really well, piled the pressure on and when we scored it settled us down. We maybe slowed after the second goal, but scored a third and saw it out.”
Dungannon, who said farewell to new Coleraine boss Rodney Mcaree on Friday, tumbled to the foot of the table thanks to Warrenpoint’s late win over Cliftonville.
Interim boss Terry Fitzpatrick said: “I feel we are too good to go down. With a bit of luck we could be sitting on seven points now, but at the moment we’re missing that slice of luck.
“By no stretch of the imagination were we under the cosh for 90 minutes, but lapses in concentration cost us and Linfield punish you.”