Stand Tall ; and Deal with the Long Ball, Says Cooper: We Must Deal with the Long Ball - Cooper

Summary

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COLIN Cooper today demanded that Boro finally get to grips with the long ball game. Saturday's visitors Hull City play a similar percentage game to the team's previous two opponents Stoke and Bolton - both of whom beat Boro.

Now Boro coach Cooper is determined to see the recent trend reversed in the must-win match at the Riverside Stadium. He said: "The stats don't lie and they show that Stoke, Bolton and Hull are the three Premier League teams with the lowest pass rate. They get the ball forward quickly. "We dealt with this type of football reasonably well at Stoke and deserved better, while we were still in the game at Bolton last week before letting ourselves down in the final 15 minutes. "Now we have to make sure that we get on top of it this time by defending much better than we did last week. "We know what we are dealing with.

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Extract

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Stand Tall ; and Deal with the Long Ball, Says Cooper: We Must Deal with the Long Ball - Cooper

Now we have to see a reaction. A clean sheet is the start and then we need to put our chances away at...

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