Rowley “a few days” away from picking captain
Manager Billy Rowley has said he expects to make a decision on who will replace Jake Wannell as Yeovil Town’s captain in “the next few days.”
The armband is vacant following the defender’s departure to National League South joining Torquay United and the boss said he has a “senior leadership group” to draw from.
The Glovers get their pre-season friendlies underway with a trip to Southern League Division One South Melksham Town on Saturday having with many of their 13 summer signings on display for the first time.
Speaking to BBC Somerset reporter Jack Killah, Rowley said: “(Jake) was brilliant for us last year. He’s 32, he’s got a young child on the way and he had a chance to join Torquay on a two-year contract, so it makes sense for him from a personal perspective. Nothing but praise from me on that and, obviously, well wishes.
“We’ve got Joe Gubbins in, who’s a left-footed defender who is 6’0″ and we’ve got Jordan Norville-Williams as well, another left-footed defender that can play centrally or out on the outside. We’ve got decent cover, it was just one of those things where Jake felt it was a good time to move on and we obviously wish him well.
“I think we’ve narrowed (the captaincy) down. We’re pretty certain on how the squad and the kind of hierarchy and the senior leadership group should look. But we’ve been so focused on getting back to training and getting fit and trying to embed some ideas, but I think in the next few days, we’ll be having those type of meetings. On the inside, we know how we’re looking with all that stuff, but nothing’s been announced just yet.”
On player who will not be featuring in pre-season is new signing Joe Haigh with the club confirming that the 23-year-old has had undergone surgery for “a minor ankle injury” which it had known about when the player signed last month.
Rowley said he does not expect to see the former Chelsea academy product on the pitch for the first couple of the months of the 2026/27 campaign.
He said: “Joe had his operation around two weeks ago and he was told it was going to be a best-case scenario of eight weeks, and a worst-case scenario of 12 weeks. I’ll always go worst case because you don’t want to get your hopes up. So he’s probably six to eight weeks away from training with the lads and then he’s going to be missing out on a whole load of pre-season and fitness stuff.
“He’s a really fit lad, he takes football really seriously and there’s not an ounce of fat on him, so in terms of getting him in shape, that won’t be a problem. It’ll be more just getting him a decent training programme to get himself confident and back ready to play.
“I could probably rule out August and probably most of September, then hopefully he’ll be available for definitely the winter months and it’ll feel like a new signing.“
The boss also revealed that Haigh had interest from the Football League when Yeovil were on the verge of completing his signing from Dagenham & Redbridge, saying: “We were due to sign him, I think it was on a Monday, and on the Sunday evening he had a personal phone call from a League One manager trying to persuade him to join them—and he still decided to join us. We’ve got a top-level talent, he’s 23, he’s hungry and I think if we can get Joe back fit, firing and confident, he’ll be one of the most exciting players that we watch.“
On the players who are expected to take the pitch against Melksham in the opening friendly, striker Slavi Spasov, who became Yeovil’s 13th new arrival having joined from Southend United, is a player who Rowley expects to be a solid addition.
He said: “He’s a very, very nice footballer. He’s another lad who’s like 6’0″, he can move well, he has got a great touch, he can drop down and link, but he also has got speed to run in behind. I think he had a really good goals-per-minute ratio at Southend and I think, given a good run along with Ste (Walker, the Glovers’ other striker signing) , we can expect really exciting things from him. He’s still very young and he’s got a lot of football that he wants to play, and he’s really hungry.“
With a busy summer of transfer business, Rowley has said he he is happy with the squad he has, but has not ruled out bringing in further players on loan if the right quality comes available. To date, the Glovers’ only loan is defender Loick Ayina, who has joined from League Two side Salford City.
The boss added: “We’ve got roughly two players in every position at the moment and we’ve got some players like Hayden Muller who can play probably three positions which helps. I don’t think we’ll do much more, but you never say never.
“Sometimes you get some incredible talents pop up late in the loan window where Premier League clubs are looking to get lads out to League One and then that doesn’t happen, and they call you up in the last week of the window and say they have got an England Under-21 striker available or something. I don’t want to say that’s going to happen, but it can happen. We’ve still got loan slots, so we won’t be ruling anything out like that. But, at the moment, really happy with the permanent boys we’ve got in the door.”
