The Leeds United captain is class on and off the field, like many of his team-mates.
Let’s face it, Leeds United’s Liam Cooper is a class act.
Not only is he an excellent centre-back for the Whites, but he epitomises the ‘side-before-self’ mantra that the club have been all about for decades.
Even when he wasn’t a first-team regular, when Kyle Bartley and Pontus Jansson were starting and finishing most Championship games, Cooper regularly interacted with Leeds fans on Twitter, apologising for poor team performances that he wasn’t part of, or praising wins that he watched from the bench.
The 28-year-old is a brilliant leader and completely deserves to wear the captain’s armband – and he has proven it again.
Leeds’ first-team squad deferred a chunk of their wages last month to ensure that non-playing staff were getting paid during a time when the club are hemorrhaging money through a lack of match-day revenue.
Head coach Marcelo Bielsa and his staff also did the same.
One Leeds fan tweeted Cooper to thank him and his Whites team-mates for their generosity, and the defender’s response simply summed him up.
Cooper could be the captain that leads the club back into the Premier League, and what an honour that would be given that the West Yorkshire side have been absent from it for 16 years.
Bielsa’s side are top of the Championship, with a seven-point cushion in the top two and nine games remaining.
Obviously there’s no football at the minute due to the ongoing health crisis, but if and when the 2019-20 resumes, Leeds and Cooper will know that they’ve come too far this season to let their hard work go to waste.
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