Chris Fox and Former Gloverscast Quiz Champion Rob Manley join Ben to chat through Saturday 3-0 defeat against Scunthorpe.
Thanks to Stoney, Andrew Foot and Tim Hubble for their voice notes.
Billy Rowley cut a frustrated figure following his side’s 3-0 defeat against Scunthorpe United at Huish Park.
The Yeovil boss told BBC Somerset once he took the emotion out of the game by Monday, he will probably notice some good spells of play (which there was!)
Rowley said: “I guess there’s two sides to this really. Like you look at the score, you’re fuming and really frustrated and annoyed, but when I probably watch the game back on Monday morning [and] take emotion out of it, there’s probably a lot of good bits to our play. So the performance wasn’t dreadful, but I just think when you concede three goals at home, it’s just not good. It’s just not good.”
Yeovil’s domination of the first half never turned into anything and Rowley bemoaned his sides wastefulness in attack.
He said: “So, I feel like our build-up was good. We spoke a little bit at halftime about just slowing your heart rate down a little bit in the final third. I just thought we were so wasteful in the final third. We got there, we built the game well, we’d have a chance to cross it, it would end up in the goalie’s hands, or we’d try and slip someone down the side and then we’d over-hit it, or we’d hit the first defender.
“And I’m there on the bench sort of fuming at the lads and they’re probably looking over thinking, “Cor, why’s he going so mad?” because when you play against good teams, then they’ll come out swinging second half and you’re going to rue those chances, which is just exactly what’s happened.”
Yeovil fell behind to a penalty, which the manager said was offside, and were never able to regain momentum. He said: “I never really felt like Scunthorpe were dominating the game, but they’ve scored a penalty. [I’ve] just looked in the office and it was maybe half a yard offside, but it is what it is. So you go 1-0 down and then because of our lack of teeth in the final third, probably the lads are thinking, “Well, how are we going to score?” And then they’re [Scunthorpe] a good team, they’ve got some top players, and then they score a second and it’s arguably game over. So look, some decent bits of the performance, some nice bits of control, but that means just absolutely nothing when you lose 3-0.”
The struggle in front of goal continued and Rowley said they only solution was hard work: “Work hard, review, and keep trying. That’s all you can do. Anything we say about that now is just not going to be helpful. So it’s about letting the lads rest for 24 hours, 48 hours, make sure we’ve got a lot of detail and clarity of what we need to see more of, and then it’s down to them to show us they can do it. And that’s it.”
Yeovil have a rare week with no midweek match and the manager was happy to get more time on the training pitch, but said not to expect any drastic change: “I think with 12, 10 games to go, I’m not sure we’re going to see drastic change. And look, I’m not going to say that this was a terrible performance because it wasn’t, there was loads of good spells in the game. If JD’s [James Daly] chance goes in that just skims the bar, you’re 1-0 up at halftime and it’s like a flawless performance really. But I think when you don’t score when you’re on top and then you get sucker-punched, it’s deflating for everyone: supporters, me, everybody connected with the club.”
Brett McGavin told BBC Somerset he was ‘very disappointed’ to not get anything in the Glovers clash with Scunthorpe this afternoon.
Yeovil dominated the first half and should have gone in ahead at half time, but a Danny Whitehall penalty changed the game and the Glovers never recovered.
The midfielder told Jack Killah: “[I’m] Very disappointed. At halftime we obviously felt comfortable. I thought we played really well, but yeah, to come away with nothing is really poor. It’s a really sloppy penalty to give away, that probably killed our momentum, even though it shouldn’t have.
McGavin added: “I feel like we looked tired, everyone’s had a busy schedule, so no excuses, but I think that’s probably where the game changed today in that second half. Look, everyone’s tired, but it’s not an excuse. It’s a classic case of not taking our chances and getting punished for it, that’s probably why they’re in the playoffs and we are where we are. I hate the fact that we’re that team that plays well but doesn’t come away with any points. But look, [we have a] week off now in terms of no midweek game, so we’ve just got to make sure we’re ready for Saturday.”
It was a familiar tale for Yeovil as Billy Rowley’s side created openings and should have scored and McGavin didn’t want to point the finger.
“It’s probably been a problem all season for us. That’s not a dig at the front players. We probably have the least touches in the final third out of a lot of teams, so it’s all of us. It’s not anyone’s fault, we’ll just have to work as a group to see if we can score goals at Boston and the remaining games.
“We know that it’s tight everywhere, so we’ve got one eye behind us. Hopefully, most of our focus is in front and see how high we can climb. But look, it’s important we get as many points as we can and where we end up is where we end up.”
Despite the result, the Glovers play well in the first half and McGavin, who enjoyed a brilliant evening against Tamworth heaped praise on his midfield partner Dakarai Mafico.
“I’ll give a lot of credit to Dax, because I think he’s brilliant. I love playing with him in there. I think our job is to give us a lot of control and I feel as if we can do that for the team. I know what the gaffer wants from me, he’s made that clear since he came in [and] when I play with Dax in there, I feel as if we can do that.”
It’s match day! The Glovers look to make it three league wins in a row against Scunthorpe today and Dave caught up with Barra from The Iron Hour about the visitor’s season.
Back to back league wins at Huish Park! Chris Fox joins Ian and Dave to chat about the comfortable 2-0 victory over Tamworth and we take your GCQs.
A great performance from the Glovers saw them coast past Tamworth last night. Here are Ian’s Five Conclusions from Huish Park.
How comfortable was that? From the first ball being kicked, Yeovil felt in total control across the pitch last night. How Tamworth are 10th in the division I have no idea. They kept things condensed centrally, but as soon as we were able to get the ball into wide areas they didn’t really know how to contend with us. We should probably have created more in the first half for our dominance but in a team that’s rebuilding confidence and trying to find a rhythm after a dismal Cup exit, it’s understandable.
We were defensively sound. You can only contend with what you’re up against, and Tamworth had nothing other than route one for the majority of the match, but the back three of Jake Wannell, Declan Skura and Joy Mukena dealt with everything they had to with relative ease. They handled the Tamworth big lads well and in the latter stages when the visitors started working crosses into the box, they dealt with that too.
Ryan Jones is coming good. He’s been in and out because of being cup-tied and postponements but after last week’s decent performance, Jones stepped it up again. He was a constant threat on the left hand side and really thrives when he’s carrying the ball. I don’t want to be hyperbolic, and I’m not going to be, but the way he moves with the ball and runs reminds me of Michael McIndoe. Clearly it’s too early to say he’s the second coming, but clearly there’s magic in those boots. His wonderful first touch, his fleet footed dribble through defenders and drilled shot into the bottom corner was superb.
It was the reaction we needed. After a terrible weekend everyone had to follow up. Did the Sutton win paper over the cracks? What’s going to happen to the teams around us? Well, pleasingly we really built on last Wednesday – albeit against very different opposition – and managed to get ourselves up to 14th and eight points clear of the bottom four. The nervousness of last week has dissipated and we can go into another home match on Saturday with confidence.
We need to build on it again. The lack of consistency has been the story of our season. The elation of Sutton to the despair of Southport and then the uncomfortably comfortable win last night is our season in a microcosm. We’ve got an opportunity to step up against Scunthorpe – who are without a win in six matches – and show that we really are coming good. It’s not going to be perfect, but back to back wins at home gives us enough reason to be positive.
This month’s Glovers Past is part two of our chat with Gary Johnson.
This time, Dave and Ben asked Gary all about the second act, which saw Yeovil achieve promotion to the Championship.
Yeovil exited the FA Trophy on Saturday after finally succumbing to a penalty shootout. We’ll discuss that and take your GCQs.
Thanks to Alex ‘Distant Glover’ Russell for his voice note!
Manager Billy Rowley described his side’s second half performance in their FA Trophy quarter-final exit to lower league Southport as “unbelievably poor.”
The Glovers started the second half with a 1-0 advantage after James Daly’s strike three minutes before the break, but spurned opportunities to add to their advantage.
A late strike from the hosts’ Ted Lavelle following intense pressure from the National League North side sent the game to a penalty shoot-out which Yeovil lost 4-2 with striker Aaron Jarvis and captain Jake Wannell missing from the spot.
Speaking after the match in Merseyside, Rowley said: “Credit to Southport. The crowd played a part today, I thought the pitch was difficult to play on, but it’s no excuse for how bad we were in the second half. We were unbelievably poor.
“The idea when you’re 1-0 up is to make runs at the right time in behind, play in behind with a bit of quality, when they go long, try and smooth out the second balls and show some ability in tight spaces.
“We did nothing, we were just waiting to die, sinking deeper and then when we got the ball back, we’d turn it over in two passes. We got what we deserved and sadly Jed (Ward) couldn’t save the day in another penalty shootout. In the first half we were the better team, second half they were miles, miles better.”
The Glovers’ boss brought on Jarvis, who had made the journey separately having suffered with food poisoning, at the start of the second half and introduced forward Harvey Greenslade, loan midfielder Troy Perrett and defender Dan Ellison, recalled from Weston-super-Mare to boost the squad missing several cup-tied players who featured in Wednesday’s 3-2 league win over Sutton United.
Rowley said: “Some of the boys are tired, they’ve had to go for another 90 minutes and I felt like the subs today didn’t necessarily help us. It’s basic principles oof putting pressure on the ball is like understanding that there’s support around you and you can’t go, so stay in your slot. We looked really bad in the second half, really bad. We can come up with excuses of the pitch and we’re tired, but bottom line is we did not show enough quality, not enough to get on the ball. We got what we deserved.”
With the dream of a Wembley final now extinguished, the Glovers have just the National League Premier Division to focus on and a 3-2 win for Braintree Town, the team occupying the top of the division’s relegation places, at fellow strugglers Truro City means the gap to the dotted line has shrunk to five points.
Yeovil do have games in hand over all the teams below them, except Gateshead who have also played 33 times, and host Tamworth at Huish Park on Tuesday night looking for league points to extend that gap.
Rowley said: “In these times you look across the team and it’s never really one or two people’s fault in a in a loss, it’s usually multiple people, including myself. The worst thing we can do in this moment is like point fingers we need to stick together, we need to recover and we need to go and play Tuesday and and run our socks off.“
