Coops nicks it for Blades

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By STEVE JUDGE at the Den

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JAKE COOPER continued his incredible scoring record against Sheffield United with a thumping second-half header.

No current Championship player has more goals against the Blades than the Millwall centre-back, who notched his fifth in six games.

With Paul Heckingbottom’s visitors on an miserly run of five games without conceding, it was inevitable that Cooper (top) would be the man to decide this tight clash of few chances.

He hit a scorching 25-yard winner in the Lions’ 2-1 win at Bramall Lane in October.

And Cooper made it four wins on the bounce for the first time in the Gary Rowett era when he rose unmarked at the far post to power in Jed Wallace’s 61st-minute free-kick.

It was the first goal the Blades had conceded in nine hours.

Lions boss Rowett (inset) said: “Coops certainly enjoys playing against Sheffield United.

“He scored a 25-yarder earlier in the season to win us the game and today he scored a towering header.

“When he gets up around the back of defenders there are not many players who head it the way Coops does with his size.

“It was a brilliant, brilliant header.

“It is a tough league and to win any game is hard so to win four on the spin is a brilliant achievement for the players, especially with players going down injured every single game.”

The Lions are now just five points of the play-offs and four behind United, who dropped down to seventh.

But they are losing players quicker than they are accumulating points.

They lost skipper Mason Bennett after just 15 minutes in the only notable moment of the first half, while skipper Shaun

Hutchinson hobbled off after picking up an injury from the free-kick Cooper scored from.

Heckingbottom, who had made four changes to the side which beat Blackburn in midweek, admitted his side lacked the zip which had carried them to nine games unbeaten.

He said: “There was not much in the game. We would have taken a 0-0 the way we played.

“It was a soft free-kick to give away against a team who play for set-pieces.

“Our only gripe is that to get Cooper free, Hutchinson and Murray Wallace ran at John Egan and moved him out of the way. Sometimes you get the free-kick. Today we didn’t.”