Captain Liam Cooper admitted that "silly mistakes" cost United in Saturday’s 3-2 defeat against Watford, but now has his sights set on making amends against Ipswich Town on Wednesday night (7.45pm).

Neil Redfearn’s side had raced into a two-goal lead thanks to strikes from Billy Sharp and Rodolph Austin inside the opening 20 minutes, but Watford soon hit back through Troy Deeney and a second-half Matej Vydra double.

Asked to sum up the mood in the dressing room post-match, Cooper replied: "Devastated, it’s never nice to lose a game, especially when you were 2-0 up and had a good, firm hold on the game.

"Silly mistakes cost us, you could say. We’ve just got to take it on the chin, man up and change it on Wednesday night.

"We were up against three very good front players, probably the best we’ve played against this season I’d say.

"They’re very good and work very well together. They know where to be and what runs to make, it was hard work out there on Saturday."

Cooper was also quick to reject any suggestions of tiredness or fatigue catching up with the squad and says the hard work must continue in order to return to winning ways.

"We work hard every day in training," said the defender. "There are only 37 games gone, we can’t put it down to tiredness.

"It’s nothing to do with that. We’ll just keep working hard and we’ve got a good chance to change it on Wednesday."

United now welcome sixth-placed Ipswich to Elland Road on Wednesday evening, looking to exact revenge for the 4-1 defeat at Portman Road in early December and bounce back from two consecutive league defeats.

Cooper said: "We’ve come off the back of a great run and then lost the last two so everyone is disappointed, but it’s up to us to turn it around.

"No-one else is going to do that for us.

"We know what we’ve got to do, we know we’ve got to apply ourselves and hopefully we’ll do that on Wednesday."

On wearing the captain’s armband, which he was handed at the start of 2015, Cooper added: "It’s a great honour to captain this club, it’s the biggest club I’ve ever played for.

"I’m really enjoying it and hopefully I can take us to the highest place we can be.

"The lads are great. Obviously a lot of the young lads have been here a while but then there are the likes of Murphy, Scott Wootton and Sharpy – the lads get amongst each other

"It’s a real good dressing room, we just need to switch on now and, come Wednesday, hopefully get three points.

"It won’t be easy at all, they’ll play completely different to how Watford did on Saturday.

"I know the fans will get behind us and we’ll a full house and hopefully get a big three points."