MARK Cooper has come out in defence of his counterpart in the opposition dugout today, Gary Johnson.

Recently Yeovil Town fans have been calling for the head of Johnson, with the Glovers’ poor form finding them in the relegation places, having lost their last three games.

It does seem rather gold fish-brained to be asking for the dismissal of a manager who little under 18 months ago had guided Yeovil to Championship on a miniscule budget, especially as Johnson has had to oversee a lot of changes in his squad after their relegation last season.

That was the point made by Cooper when asked about the issue, he said: “You never used to see a manager getting sacked, it was either his contract finished or he wanted to move to a different part of the country.

“I think now it’s more of a trend thing, more of a fad, let’s have a go at the manager and let’s get the manager out.

“I think Gary’s had to do a bit of surgery on his squad, which takes time to gel and it’s not going to happen overnight for them. He’s brought some good players and I’m sure somewhere along the line they’re going to get it going. He’s an experienced manager, he knows that he’s doing and he’s had a lot of success “When you look at the surgery they’ve had to on the squad it takes time. You can’t expect to sign that many new players and everything be ok after 10 games. He’s going to need a little bit of time.

“That’s the society we live in. With social media, you lose a couple of games and someone puts it on the internet that a manager should be sacked somebody else does and it snowballs. Before you know it there’s a campaign to get the manager out, it’s ridiculous.”