April 2023 (Page 8)

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The Footbal Association’s Disciplinary website has updated to show Miguel Freckleton’s one-match ban following the defenders red card against Southend.

Freckleton, on loan from Sheffield United, was show two yellow cards in the live TV game on Saturday evening, the second of which was certainly on the ‘soft’ side.

Nevertheless, the red card stands, as does the one match ban.

As such, he will be missing for the trip to Gateshead bur will be available for the Aldershot-Dorking Easter double header.

 

 

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This is getting harder by the episode…Ian, Ben and Dave dissect the defeat by Southend and try to channel some belief ahead of Gateshead.

Thank you for your continued support of the Gloverscast. Remember to add Gloverscast.co.uk to your favourites and check the website daily for the latest news and views from Huish Park.

Follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Leave us a review and share the pod with a pal.

We’d love to welcome some local businesses into the Gloverscast family through advertising. If you’re a business that would like to speak to a dedicated audience of more than 1000 monthly listeners, please get in touch. Find out more about advertising with us here.

If you have an idea for the website, want to contribute or just want to send us a message, feel free to email ian@gloverscast.co.uk.

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Yeovil Town striker Alex Fisher has thanked the club’s medical staff and supporters for their messages of support after he suffered a season-ending injury.

The frontman was stretchered off just 12 minutes after arriving as a half-time substitute in Saturday’s 2-0 home defeat to Southend United with a suspected broken ankle.

He was taken to hospital following the incident which occurred after a collision with goalkeeper Collin Andeng-Ndi at Huish Park and posted on his Twitter account on Sunday that he hoped to be out “in the next couple of days.”

Fisher said: “I am truly humbled by everyone who has reached out in the last 24 hours! Your messages of warmth and support have kept me going through a difficult time. I hope to be out of hospital in the next couple days with my focus turning to supporting the team and my recovery.

“I must also say a massive thank you to all the medical staff that looked after me during this whole process, from all involved at @YTFC to the staff at Yeovil hospital and everyone in-between.”

We are sure we echo the thoughts of all Glovers’ supporters when we wish Fish a speedy recovery.

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Yeovil Town (still) owner-in-waiting Matt Uggla has said that relegation from the National League will not see his SU Glovers consortium walk away from the club.

In his latest Twitter post, he described suggestions that the ongoing delay in the deal being finalised was down to the group waiting to see which division they were in next season was ridiculous.

He said: “I wish everyone would understand how complicated a transaction this really is. However no matter what division Yeovil find themselves in we are 100% behind them.

“The budget remains the same. We will be full time and in my head all a relegation does is set us back a year. This is a long, long journey and we love everything about Yeovil. We are down for the cause and always will be. However not having complete control has meant certain decisions haven’t been allowed to be made by us.”

In response (albeit not directly) to criticism levelled at his group by manager Mark Cooper after yesterday’s 2-0 home defeat to Southend United, which keeps the Glovers in the relegation zone and staring relegation to National League South in the face, he admitted it was “hard” to “justify spending 150K on a certain striker when at any moment the deal at that point could collapse and therefore we lose a huge amount on a single transfer.”

Uggla added: “We have had to have restraint in aspects like this and other areas. We have massive plans for the club but until the reins are off and there’s no issue with ownership it’s incredibly hard to sanction these things. We inherited bare bones.”

There is little doubt that the repeated timescales for completing the deal to purchase a majority shareholding in Yeovil Football & Athletic Club from (still) chairman Scott Priestnall has understandably stoked fears around the group’s commitment.

On Thursday, March 23, Uggla said the deal would be completed “within 48 hours“, and 48 hours later he said it would be completed the following Monday – all the deadlines came and went without any sign of it completing.

Now he says the deal is “very close“. We don’t blame you if you choose to believe that and we’re certainly not saying it is correct; even Uggla has told supporters not to trust his judgement on giving dates.

Add whatever level of salt you want to here, but he adds: “We did not expect the deal to take this long. But once those reins are removed, which is very close, we will begin laying the foundations for success both on and off the pitch. Until then we have one arm tied behind our back and can’t make all the decisions we feel should be made in the best interest of the club and laying these foundations.

“We are here to stay and love the club, this season also isn’t over. Yesterday was a tough result and in my opinion not a fair one. Their keeper made some incredible saves and fair play to him. But the leadership I saw from people such a (captain, Josh) Staunton shows me that this fight isn’t over just yet.

“We go until the end and if the end comes. So be it. We will come back stronger and with foundations and strategies in place to take this club back to where it belongs. We are a family and we will get up when we get knocked down. But we fight till the end and as our motto says – Achieve by Unity.”

The immediate responses on Twitter to the latest ‘Sunday Sermon’ – there was a similarly lengthy thread of posts the day after last weekend’s 1-0 home defeat to Bromley – suggest that at least some Yeovil Town supporters are grateful for the communication – and hopeful that this time “very close” comes to fruition.

As ever, we would invite you to leave your own thoughts – whether positive or negative – in the comments section at the bottom of this post.

https://twitter.com/hyeovilfc/status/1642555802824187905?s=20

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How long was March? Let us know your views in our regular pulse survey below. 

Here’s a reminder of the results on the pitch.

4th March – Yeovil Town 0 – 1 Woking
7th March – Yeovil Town 1 – 0 Eastleigh
11th March – Chesterfield 1 – 1 Yeovil Town
14th March – Barnet 2 – 1 Yeovil Town
18th March – Halifax 1 – 1 Yeovil Town
25th March – Yeovil Town 0 – 1 Bromley

 

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Yeovil Town suffered a damaging defeat at the hands of Southend United on the telly last night and find themselves in huge trouble in the relegation battle in the National League. Here are Ian’s Five Conclusions (although there could have been more!) from Huish Park…

It couldn’t have gone much worse. A devastating injury to Alex Fisher will inevitably see him out of action for a long time. It was horrible to see the reaction of players and supporters in the immediate aftermath of the incident and I hope he makes a strong recovery. Miguel Freckleton picked up a red card, albeit a harsh one, which put to bed any hope of a comeback. It feels like a damaging defeat mentally as much as anything. Social media is sapped of belief, Huish Park was sapped of belief and rebuilding that belief will not be easy.

I thought we started well. We came out quickly and Scott Pollock should have put us ahead in the first five minutes. If he scores there it totally changes the complexion of the evening. As it was, Southend handled pressure and as we’ve seen so many times this season, they kept our attackers at arms length. Jake Hyde took the Shrimpers first chance when it came to them and once they were ahead it Southend could be confident that they were heading back to Essex with three points. So many times this season we’ve talked about how we’ve played well in spells, or for a half, but rarely for the full 90 minutes. Is it any wonder that we are where we are?

Scott Pollock in action for Yeovil Town. Picture courtesy of Mike Kunz.

How we miss Matt Worthington. The yellow card at Halifax looks absolutely pivotal now. We tried Freckleton in there last week and it didn’t work and yesterday with Pollock in there it didn’t work either. Pollock is still finding match fitness and it showed. The energy Worthy gives us in midfield is irreplaceable. Charlie Cooper tried to take on some of that role but it’s clear how much Worthington’s energy is missed in the team. 

We never looked like scoring, whereas Southend had two chances and took them both. [Insert story of the season line]. We look a better team with Jordan Young in the side but we could have been there until next week and Southend’s keeper would have claimed everything comfortably. The injury to Fisher scuppered our plans to change anything. The tactical response was to bring on Max Hunt, which I understand. Knock it long and bring others into it, but no one got near him and we struggled to get the ball to him in good areas. Malachi Linton came on after but there was no pattern to rhythm to our attacking play for him to make a difference. The script was written for Rhys Murphy to settle matters with a typical poachers effort on his return.

I don’t know how we get out of this. It’s hard not to be defeatist in this position were in, so I apologise for that. The next three matches are huge and right now it feels an impossibility that we come away with anything from Gateshead, Aldershot or Dorking. The inquest of this season will come (probably on this website) but my overriding feeling yesterday was that we’re facing the abyss. Conspicuous by their absences yesterday were the players we’ve signed to get us out of this predicament, it’s clear they are either unfit or not good enough. When the time came to make signings that could help us, we’ve got it absolutely wrong. Mark Cooper cut a dejected figure yesterday after the match and I’m not sure even he can save us.

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While the first team’s struggles in front of goal continued, there was one team at Huish Park on Saturday who could not stop finding the net.

Yeovil Town Under-18s romped to a 6-1 home win over Wimborne Town in the South West Counties Youth League fixtured played on the 3G surface at the club due to the wet weather.

With Tiverton Town’s fixture being postponed, striker Charlie Bateson was in the starting XI and opened the scoring after just seven minutes before adding a second after 18 minutes.

The visitors pulled one back two minutes later before goals from Under-16s’ striker Bobby Hilton, a third for Bateson and Aidan Skiverton saw the young Glovers lead 5-1 at half-time.

Substitute Joey Beckey, who along with Hilton is a product of the Yeovil Town Community Sports Trust youth teams, added a sixth with six minutes remaining to complete the rout which keeps them in third place behind Bridgwater United and leaders Torquay United.

Yeovil Town Under-18s: Hollard, Archibald, Dyer, Nowak, Skiverton, Foster, Alden, Bareham, Bateson, Beale, Hilton. Substitutes: Hodges, Evans, Johnson, Beckey, Westlake.

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In yet another highly passionate post-match chat, Yeovil Town captain Josh Staunton has promised that he’ll not give in as the Glovers stare relegation to the National League South in the face.

We at the Gloverscast would encourage anyone to listen to the full eight minutes from the skipper, we’ll post the full YouTube clip below.

On the match itself, Josh was clearly frustrated at conceding two and scoring none: “At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it’s two really soft goals at one end and not putting it in the goal at the other end, to be honest, there’s not really a lot I can say, it was the story of the game and the story of the season, it’s disappointing.”

On the horrible injury suffered by Alex Fisher, Staunton sent the striker his best: “At the end of the day, forget football, that’s not a nice thing to see regardless of whether you’re living your day to day life, when you go down and one of your players is in agony, his leg is clearly in a very, very bad way, it’s rocks you a bit psychologically, it wasn’t ideal as we had players around it, which leaves you in a curious position to try and focus on a game when you’ve just seen your mate and I don’t know if that puts a bit of fear in you. It was important we rallied the troops after and it gave us an extra incentive to try and go and do it. We send our well wishes to Fishy and we’ll be with him every step of the way.”

Now, here’s where Gloverscast Ben wants to use some editorial licence, listen to the skipper talk about the situation and the upcoming seven games, listen to his voice, listen to how every single word means something. Sorry for the long quotes below, but every word was worth reading, typing and understanding.

“Look, I don’t need to sit here and try and save myself for the club, but what can we do? We can either give everything we’ve got – the players that are available, and give everything we’ve got for seven games and see where it takes us and start finding excuses and pointing fingers at everyone else but ourselves, but that’s not what we need to do.”

“I’m not a silly man, this is Yeovil Football Club, we are a massive club at this level and the situation we are in in ludicrous really, it hurts, it hurts me every day, I wake up and come into this place it seems to be a glaring reflection of what we’ve put ourselves into and they (the fans) are well within their rights to (show their frustrations) the fall that this club has had, look I’m part of it, unfortunately, I’m a guilty party, but they turn up, they turn up and support us and when we actually look like we can attack they support us. 

“I think, as soon as the second one went in, I don’t blame them for their dejection and turning their back on us. It’s our job to try and get them onside, and I thought we had periods of the game where we played good.”

“To be honest, we don’t actually have to play well at the moment, it’s just that we have to try and find a way to do whatever we can to get a result.

In the last few games we just don’t look like we are capable of that.”

“But this isn’t me resigning to defeat, Jesus, I’ll go down swinging, I’ll take every punch someone has got to give me, there were times I thought we were going to get back in the game, we are just falling on the wrong side of lady luck at the moment, and we are definitely not helping ourselves with our decision making,” 

“I said to the boys in the week, as a footballer, regardless of what level you play at or what level you go to play at, you probably wont face a bigger week in your life as a footballer, in terms of, they can make or break your season, and they are pivotal.”

“It hurts me saying it, because we really shouldn’t be in this situation, it really does, I feel like a punchbag, I’ve been smashed to pieces today, to be honest, but we have got a big week, you can either sit there and cry about it, or you can get yourself up for Tuesday and give it everything you’ve got again and show yourself as a character and as a man”

“We’ve got to understand pressure, I said to the boys, two years ago we lost our captain nearly to the day and myself personally, I had a very close friend who we lost three years ago, and they’re real pressures in life, and it’s important that you can’t take the weight of the world onto the football pitch, there’s no need, and I’m trying to relay that message to the boys, you’ll face bigger pressures than this in life, so you have to stand up and show yourself in situations like this, it’s not a time to wilter, it’s a time stand up as a character, to feel the shirt with pride and display what Yeovil is about.”

“You should thrive under pressure, if you want to be a professional footballer, you want to strive to play at the best level you can, you need to learn to strive and to play under pressure – and it brings the best out of you, because if it doesn’t, we all know how that ends.

We can’t hide it forever, there is pressure, players are playing under pressure, it’s not proper pressure – there’s proper pressure in everyday life and you need to open your eyes and realise that.

I understand, but this is 90 minutes of your life where you can express yourself and you have to have the freedom, you have to have the,… urm… balls… to express yourself or the game will leave you behind and we have to find that for seven games, it’s my duty to the football club to find something and I’ll die trying,”

OUR. CAPTAIN.

 

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Look, we are all a bit miffed after the Southend game, let’s just rattle through this weekend’s loan watch.

Ben Richards-Everton played the full 90 minutes and was booked as Scunthorpe lost 1-0 in their relegation six pointer against Torquay in the National League.

Ollie Hulbert started and completed an hour for Leamington who lost 2-0 to Alfreton.

Benjani Jr was in the starting line up for Sherborne who lost 3-0 against Clevedon Town.

Jake Graziano was an unused sub for Dorchester in their 2-2 with Salisbury.

Ollie Haste was an unused sub for Truro who lost 3-2 away at Beaconsfield

Plymouth Parkway, Gillingham Town and Tiverton Town all had their games called off with waterlogged pitches – Sam Hodges and Charlie Bateson were in action for the Glovers’ Under 18s instead.

Woking didn’t play, so a free weekend for Charlie Wakefield.

That’s yer lot, rubbish Saturday all round, really…

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Manager Mark Cooper highlighted Yeovil Town’s failure to strengthen their forward line in the transfer market as he was dealt another both with the loss of striker Alex Fisher through injury.

The frontman, who is the club’s joint top scorer with five goals, suffered a suspected broken ankle in an innocuous looking collision with goalkeeper Collin Andeng-Ndi in the 2-0 home defeat to Southend United at Huish Park in Saturday’s late kick-off.

That leaves only Malachi Linton, who also has five goals to his name this season, and on loan Doncaster Rovers man Reo Griffiths, who was not in the squad, as the only recognised strikers in the squad.

Asked about Fisher’s injury by BBC Somerset’s Sheridan Robins, Cooper said: “I am being told it is a break, but until that is confirmed I am not going to speculate. He is on the gas and air and it is more about Fish again than anything else.”

He then added: “You look at all the other clubs down (at the bottom of the National League), they have all strengthened in that area and we haven’t.”

Cooper has not hidden his displeasure at the involvement of the club’s owners-in-waiting SU Glovers who have been public in talking about how they are getting involved in bringing players in. Recent arrivals Callum Harriott, who had a thigh injury, Zanda Siziba and Griffiths were not involved in the squad against Southend.

Asked directly about whether he was unhappy with the off-the-field interference in recruitment, Cooper said: “We have spoken about it before, we have to be better in all aspects, recruitment-wise, whatever it is, we have to be better. That was clearly shown today.”

The manager explained his decision to put defender Max Hunt on up front following the departure of Fisher on a stretcher, saying: “I didn’t think we were going to score by playing and cutting them open, I thought it was just going to come from a knock down in the box, try and create a bit of pressure in the box.”

If you were looking for anything to lift your spirits, you will not find it in this post-match interview but the manager did say he would not question the desire of his players.

He said: “The fight is the one thing I can’t question (about the players) and it’s one thing I can’t question. If you see the effort, the distance and sprints they have put in, we can’t question their fight. Can we question their quality? Possibly.”

The next game takes Yeovil on the long trip to Gateshead on Tuesday night. The Tyneside club booked their place in the FA Trophy final with a penalty shoot-out win over Barnet today and have now won their last three matches.

Asked about that, Cooper added: “They got to Wembley today so they will be cock-a-hoop and looking forward to playing for us knowing we are depleted but there is no feeling sorry for yourselves, you have to roll your sleeves up and get on with it.“