Wednesday produced a woeful first half performance at the Club Doncaster Sports Village, falling two goals behind inside the opening 16 minutes. Their shambolic defending from set pieces allowed Rovers star man Owen Bailey to help himself to a quickfire double.
Although the visitors improved after the restart and created a number of opportunities, Pedersen’s side were unable to make them count as they slipped to a second consecutive defeat.
The travelling supporters made their feelings clear throughout the contest, chanting ‘sacked in the morning’ and ‘we want Pedersen out’, while boos greeted several passages of play.
But centre-back Cooper insists the responsibility for Wednesday’s alarming slump in form lies with the players. One win in their last six matches has seen Wednesday slip to to eighth in the table, seven points off table-topping Huddersfield Town.
“The manager doesn’t go on there and play,” he told the media. “We do all the analysis. The video we get is top. We’ve got to rally around.
“It’s us as lads who go out there and play. We do have to take more responsibility, especially when you go away from home in this league. You need to be men. You need to be at it every single moment and every single game. (Against Doncaster), I don’t think we had that, especially in that first 20 minutes.
“As bad as we were, we still had chances to get back in the game. I’m not saying we would have got back in the game, but we all know momentum in this league. You take one of them chances and Doncaster would have had a little wobble. I’ve been on the receiving end of that myself.”
Back-to-back away defeats without scoring has intensified the pressure on Pedersen. Their dreadful, disjointed displays against Notts County and Doncaster were in stark contrast to last weekend’s emphatic 5-0 victory over AFC Wimbledon.
“We weren’t good enough in both boxes (at Doncaster) and we paid the price.”
