Cooper left frustrated as leads let slip

STEVE Cooper admits he’s hugely frustrated after his Swansea City side twice surrendered leads in their draw with Nottingham Forest at the City Ground.

Sammy Ameobi struck in each half of the game to cancel out efforts from Rhian Brewster and Andre Ayew as the Swans had to settle for a point.

And Cooper could not hide his disappointment with his side’s failure to capitalise on their flying start in Nottingham.

“We’ve come into what is one of the toughest away games of the season, and to lead twice and not win is frustrating,” said Cooper.

“I thought we started the game really well and I thought we were good for 1-0. If anything I thought we could get two and really take the initiative.

“The first time they’ve had any sort of passes, they’ve scored. We got back in front by getting into areas where we thought we could hurt them, and we looked dangerous.

“I’m not sure whether it was a penalty or not, I’ve not seen it back. But we’ve gone 2-1 up and we wanted the game to carry on as it was.

“We knew it was going to be tough. I think Forest have scored 87% of their goals through [Lewis] Grabban or through shots from the outside of the box. To see them score from two outside the box is frustrating.”

The Swans were reduced to 10 men late on as Kyle Naughton was shown a straight red card by referee Oliver Langford for a cynical foul on Forest substitute Alex Mighten.

But Cooper was less than impressed with the performance of the West Midlands official during the contest.

“Without sitting on the fence, and I haven’t seen it back, but the fact it was in front of their dugout and the performance of the referee overall, it was only ever going to be one decision,” he added.

“How he hasn’t sent off their rightsided centre-back, one maybe for a tackle in the first half but certainly for a second yellow in the second half.

“But he knew he was having that type of performance, the ref. I don’t think he wanted to make it worse for himself.”