January 2026 (Page 5)

Yeovil Town manager Billy Rowley says the club have found a few players as he looks to add reinforcements to his squad.

Speaking to BBC Somerset’s Ian Randall following the Glovers’ 3-1 victory on penalties after a 0-0 draw with Alvechurch, Rowley said: “We’ve got a few things in the pipeline at the moment. I think all the fans will be seeing that in the next couple of days.

“I’ve given this group five or six weeks now, I’ve learned a lot about them, about some relationships that are building on the pitch and off the pitch. We’ve got a few boys coming in. It was it was a long process to find certain players and certain roles and positions that we wanted to find, and I think we found a few.”

Brett McGavin’s “soft” first half red card derailed Yeovil, who probably should have been 2-0 up before half time, but Rowley praised the visiting side who stood firm.

Rowley said: “I think naturally, when you when you play against 11 players with 10 for as long as we did, it’s going to be difficult no matter how high a division we play in versus them. But credit to Alvechurch, they obviously worked really, really hard off the ball to limit our spaces. Going down to ten men really, really hurt us from from a game plan perspective. We had to shuffle three or four lads into different positions, which we obviously didn’t plan for, so I felt the boys dealt with it well. We still created enough opportunities to probably score a few. They put their bodies on the line at moments, the goalie made a couple of saves. We got there in the end.”

For the second round in a row, the end came through a penalty shootout in front of the Thatchers Stand. Once again, Jed Ward was the hero, saving three penalties and Rowley waxed lyrical about the loanee stopper: “I can’t speak highly enough about him. Brilliant professional unbelievable goalkeeper. Temperament is excellent. He’s great in the changing room and I’m really pleased for him today.”

Yeovil handed a debut to Cardiff loanee Dakarai Mafico and the youngster was awarded sponsors man of the match before despatching a penalty into the top corner during the shootout. Rowley, who said pre-match that the club had been after Mafico for a while, said the midfielder had gone above his expectations.

“Brilliant. I thought he was probably the best player on the pitch, in my opinion. And I’ve asked him to play three or four different positions throughout the 90 minutes. I had a chat with Dak in the week on a Zoom call, and he was asking some some really mature, intelligent questions. And then I saw him in training for the first time, the only time with the lads yesterday for an hour, and I knew after speaking with him and seeing him, he was going to be a brilliant player. It’s probably gone above my expectations really with how good he is. Brilliant on the turn, can accept the ball in tight spaces. Naturally left-footers seem to look beautiful on the eye, which he does, so I thought his debut was pretty good and it was great for him to get a penalty as well.”

Rowley also confirmed that James Plant and Andrew Oluwabori returned to their parent clubs yesterday, but praised them for efforts in green and white.

“They headed back to their parent clubs yesterday. We just looked at some depth and some positions we need and I have to say, we did this privately in front of the lads, but I can’t speak highly enough about both of those lads. Brilliantly professionals, they train really well. So obviously wish them wish them the best.”