Masked Marvel

FOLLOWING his injury at Mansfield, George Cooper has been given a mask to wear whilst he’s playing, to avoid further injury.

Argyle’s on-loan star emerged from the substitutes bench on Saturday to create Joel Grant’s equaliser in a solid 1-1 draw at Swindon Town for the Pilgrims.

While the new facial decoration may not be ideal, Coops clearly displayed it has no impact on his football instincts and intelligence.

“It wasn’t the easiest for a few days,” he said. “At the time, I didn’t think I had done anything too bad, and then about half an hour later my face swelled right up.

“I went to the hospital and had a scan and they said, ‘you’ve cracked your cheek and fractured your nose’.

“It’s just one of those things - luckily it was only two weeks out, I’m back playing now, I got out on the pitch [at Swindon] and made an impact, so hopefully I can get a start next week.”

There was the option for George to not return to training and first-team action so quickly, as he could have gone down the route of being operated on, but the mask seemed the better option all round.

“I didn’t want to waste any time,” he said. “I’d just come here, and I wanted to make an impression straight away, so I didn’t want to waste any time having operations, I just wanted to kick-on.

“I just wanted to play; me and the Gaffer had a chat straight away and said I wasn’t going to have the operation and wanted to get back playing as soon as I could.

“I trained [Friday] for the first time since I broke my nose, so hopefully I’ll get a full week next week and then be ready for the next game.

“I’ve got to get used to [the mask], it’s doing the job. I got whacked on the nose as soon as I’d come on [against Swindon] and it started bleeding straight away but I think the mask saved me.

“I don’t think about the injury, these things happen, I just need to get a run of games and show why the Gaffer tried to get me to the club.”