Yeovil Town caretaker Manager Richard Dryden has said that he could not fault the effort of his side, despite going down 3-1 at home to York City.

The Glovers clawed their way back into the game in the second half, but a late Jake Wannell own goal proved to be decisive. Speaking to the BBC’s Jake Killah after the game he said;

“We worked hard.  We worked hard. First half, we didn’t get into the game at all. We couldn’t find our tens or our nines and it was a battle. It was a battle.

Sometimes you’ve got to hold your hands up and they’re a good side, but when we got amongst them and pressed, and I mean the players done so well, pressing high, leaving one v ones at the back, you get one. It felt like we were going to get the fourth goal to make it 2-2.

Their third goal just knocked the sales out of everybody, the time runs out, etc.  We  can’t knock any of the players for hard work and determination.  We’ve learned a lot again that we can defend in one v one situations pretty well, the majority of the time. 

You can see our  two midfielders tracking back  and running down Joe Felix  in the one v one situation.

So there’s a lot of determination and will to get results here. So  we’ve got to try and take the positives. I hate losing. I hate losing.

And  like I say, when they got to two-one,I thought we were going to get something out of the game.”

The Glovers have played three games in seven days, whilst their visitors have had a break, combined with injuries and fatigue, the difference in squads was on show.

“You can see how it was in the last 20 minutes. They’re all on the haunches when the ball goes out.  And  we’re fit. We’re a fit team. you can see how much hard work they put into it to try and win a game.  

Finn can play anywhere.  You can stick him in anywhere and  he’ll do a job, and that’s what we’ve got at the moment. Obviously,  we made the four subs in three, in three goes and you can’t bring anybody else on.  We’ve got to try bring one or two in. I think we’re having chats with the people above us. Obviously, it’s still unknown what’s going to happen with the manager, so  we’ve got to be quite delicate on that. But we can try and bring one or two in  to bolster up the squad.”

On the own goal, Dryden said he felt for his captain who had to try and intervene on the cross, but that shouldn’t take away from the positives he saw in the performance.

“You see them when you watch any highlights if there’s six or seven games on there. There’s always goals like that. I scored about eight of them, unfortunately,  when I was playing. You know, it’s a turn, it’s a cross,  and it’s one of them things you’ve to make decisions. You can’t leave it, you can’t leave it unless you get a call. oh It’s a hard one to deal with for Jake, but it’s part of our job.”

“I’ve learnt a lot, especially in the second half where they don’t need to worry about anything apart from one v one defending. They don’t need two v ones sometimes. So they should take that. There’s a lot of positives, but we have conceded three goals. so we’ve got to still work hard defensively in the final third, stopping crosses, etc. But there’s a lot of positives on there, like I say, a good side who will be there or thereabouts and talking to the players after, they feel a little bit disappointed they haven’t got anything out of the game.”

“Yeah, I mean, [the third goal] just deflated everybody. You’ve seen on the pitch, you’ve seen in the stands, it just deflated everybody.”

Looking ahead, with changes afoot, Dryden said it was nice to have a break to rest some legs and build up to the home game against Woking.

“it’s nice to have a little bit of a breather with no game Tuesday with the amount of players we’ve got. We’ve got the schedule written out for the week anyway, so we’re not doing Monday. We’ll have a good day Tuesday, working a bit harder. Thursday we start the prep for the game.

Hopefully not too long, I’m not sure what how long Wits will be.  He pulled out of  training yesterday with a bit of a  calf issue,  so I’m not sure on that. Charlie’s  getting there, he’s getting a lot of treatment on his achilles, but like we said earlier, it’s…  If he plays at 80%, he comes off the pitch back to 60%, so we need him 100 % on his Achilles. Jacob’s come back from St George’s, he’s got his boot off, so he’s been doing the walking bit by bit, so hopefully he’ll be back. within a few weeks, maybe a bit longer. And James is going to be sometime next month coming back with his knee.”

For the first time this season, the Glovers have some Team of the (mid)Week representation.

Luke McCormick makes the mythical team from official league sponsors Enterprise.

Shout out to Tom ‘DFILWF’ Knowles for also making the side.

Also, credit must got to ‘Ryan’ Nash of Aldershot Town, who despite not being called Ryan at all, still got noticed enough by the admin… but not enough to check that his actual name is Pat. 

Yeovil Town return to Huish Park after a triumphant midweek in the midlands and it’s big spending York City who come to town.

We need an official for the game and it’s Mr Lewis Sandoe who will take charge.

It’s his first appointment in the middle this season, but he’s been a busy official over the last couple of seasons in the National League South.

20 matches in the league below saw him dish out 96 yellow cards, 3 reds and a few penalties for good measure.

Roll the clock back another year and there’s a 1-1 draw with Maidstone at Huish Park we can look back on.

He was happy with the cards then too, eight dished out in total, including ones for Alex Whittle, Matt Worthington and Rhys Murphy.

He’ll be assisted by Ivan Stankovic and Stuart Kane (Kane is something of a regular appointment at HP) and Steven Swan will be monitor the dugouts.

Yeovil Town FC (First Team) v YORK CITY (First Team)
National League – Premier   
Referee: Sandoe, Lewis
Assistant Referee: Stankovic, Ivan
Assistant Referee: Kane, Stuart
Fourth Official: Swan, Steven