MARK Cooper accepted that Swindon Town’s fans had a point after hearing a selection of sarcastic chants emanating from the away end during the Robins’ 1-0 defeat at Sheffield United on Saturday.

With Town struggling for forward momentum during a miserable second half at Bramall Lane, the 551 travelling supporters turned to entertaining themselves in the bottom tier of the Jessica Ennis Stand, with songs such as ‘let’s pretend we’ve had a shot’ and ‘all we want is another ****ing shot’ ringing out.

Cooper felt the chants were “a little disrespectful” but he admitted that the Swindon faithful who had travelled all the way up the M1 deserved better than what they were served up by their side on the day.

“It’s a little bit disrespectful at times but they’ve been brilliant all season and I’m not going to criticise the fans.

“I feel frustrated when we don’t give them what they want,” the Town boss told the Advertiser.

“We’re trying to play football a different way because of the players we’ve got and sometimes it takes longer to get the ball near the opposition goal than it normally would.

“I’ve not got a problem with (their gripes) but I’ll make no excuses because of the number of times we’ve been on the road and been beaten badly by squeezing too high up the pitch.”

Meanwhile, Cooper is struggling to identify just why his side have produced such poor second-half displays in recent weeks.

Against the Blades, just as it was in the recent clashes with Carlisle and Stevenage, an encouraging opening 45 minutes was followed by a lacklustre second half at Bramall Lane.

“It’s something we have to address,” said Cooper.

“The half-time talk was purely and simply about starting the second half brightly and from the kick-off we’ve tried to get Massimo (Luongo) to run with it and get on the front foot.

“In the first three or four minutes we gave the ball away six times without any real threat and without people being closed down in possession. When that happens you lose momentum.

“I don’t think they’re intimidated.

“We want to find that balance between attacking and defending because it’s been shown too many times that we can’t squeeze too high up the pitch because that’s a weakness of ours.

“If you take the goal out of it you come away saying that’s a good point.

“But when you concede a goal you’ve got to do better. We just changed to 4-3-3 when they scored so we never got to see how they coped with the score being 0-0.

“We’re frustrated but we go again next Saturday.”