We had chance to nick a goal, says Cooper

The summer signing, told yesterday morning by head coach Neil Redfearn that he would be leading a much-changed United side, was within inches of netting an equaliser with a point-blank header from Luke Murphy’s late cross, but his effort agonisingly hit a post.

Soon after, the final whistle meant Leeds went down to a fifth defeat in six matches.

Cooper said: “I thought my header was in. It is just one of those things; their goal hit the post and went in and ours hits the post and comes out.

“But this good performance will certainly put us on track. We made a good account of ourselves. I think the lads felt we had enough chances to maybe nick a goal.

“They didn’t manage to go in, but hopefully we can take a lot into our next league game, which is very important because it was a good performance to build on.”

Having netted an unfortunate own goal in the Boxing Day loss to Wigan, the festive season has largely been one to forget for Cooper, but the honour of being captain at the Stadium of Light represented one of the proudest moments of his career.

He added: “It’s a dream come true to captain a club like Leeds United. It’s brilliant and good to be thought of in high regard like that. When the teamsheet went up in the morning, I saw the C next to my name and I will always go and give 100 per cent and hopefully it will rub off on a few other players as well.”