What a week to be a Glover.
A signing, a leader choosing to leave, a 3-0 defeat at home to the second-from-bottom side in the division, no let up from injuries and the 2nd placed team – owned by the fella who tried to takeover YTFC – coming to town this weekend. What on Earth is going to happen next?
Yeovil Town manager Mark Cooper spoke to BBC Somerset’s Jack Killah ahead National League action against York City on Saturday. Here’s every word of the manager’s press conference.
JK: Mark, it’s been a while since you and I have had a sit down. A lot’s happened in the last 10 days or so. First of all, just reflecting on Tuesday night, what do you feel you learned about your team from from the defeat on Tuesday?
MC: I didn’t really learn anything that I didn’t know. I think anybody can see the team is hugely different to the team that we had when we were having our really good spell. But that’s football. We’ve ended up with some really young players in the team that are trying to make their way in the game, and they need support. You know, it’s a really difficult environment for them to come into, and they need support now. They need support from us. They need support from everybody. And, so I didn’t really learn anything I didn’t know.
JK: Was it quite a tricky conversation to have with the players afterwards? Was much said at all?
MC: No, they just need support. It’s clear as to the situation. And this is what happens. You get into a situation where you lose a whole load of players, and you try and put a new group together, and it takes a little bit of time, but and they need support.
JK: As I touched upon a moment ago, the last few days, a lot with regards to players as well, in terms of incomings, outgoings, start off with an update on Frank. Obviously, got the news before the last game that the plan was for him to go to Gateshead. That then fell through. How did that all come about? And what’s the latest on that situation now?
MC: It came about like I spoke about last weekend, Frank spoke to me and said, ‘Look, I’ve had an offer from Gateshead I want to go’, which I completely understand, because it’s securing his family, and a better deal than we could probably offer. And then I asked him if he could play at the weekend, which he did. And then Sunday, Monday, we tried to contact Gateshead as of Frank’s wishes to get the deal done, but we didn’t get any response. As I mentioned, what’s happened in the end, is a person that’s trying to buy Gateshead has agreed a deal with Frank, but these people don’t yet own Gateshead and Gateshead can’t push the deal through with Frank, in case the deal doesn’t go through to take the club over. So it’s a mess, really. And I think when agents, or supposedly agents, get involved, it can become a mess. And the person that has been left is Frank.
JK: Will Frank be available for this Saturday. Is he involved with the squad? At the moment,
MC: I haven’t seen Frank yet, like I haven’t. I’m hoping that he’s in today. But, you know, it’s that’s that remains to be seen.
JK: We’ve touched on before, the amount of players that have gone out of the door, whether that buy it, be by it or out injured. At the moment, I think it’s eight in total. In the last few weeks, you had four come in. How happy Have you been with with the incomings this month, and they’re settling into the squad?
MC: Well, whenever you, and as a necessity you bring players in, it’s going to take a while for them to bed in. Now, people, of course, are going to say, why did you sign this player? Why did you sign that player? Why did you let this player go? Why did you let that player go? Sometimes we have to take into account the player in talking about their wishes. We can’t do anything about the injuries, but it’s just a moment in time. If you take Tottenham, for an example, looks as though they’re gonna have a really good season. They lost the core of their team straight through the middle. At our level it’s difficult to replace that. That isn’t an excuse. That’s just fact. So we have to then react by bringing bodies in. And you have to be honest that we’re not at the top of the food chain when it comes to recruiting players. So these players that we bring in are going to need a little bit of time. We’re hoping that at some point we get Wannell, Williams, Jarvis, Smith, Maddox, we get those kind of players back into the group.
JK: Are any of those players? I mean Jacob Maddox when we spoke previously, we’re hoping the short term injury. Are any of them any closer to being involved in first team action?
MC: I think the first one back will be probably maybe Michael Smith. There maybe Wannell, then maybe maybe Williams and Jarvis in that order.
JK: And we’re still talking weeks away in all those cases as well?
MC: They won’t be available for Saturday.
JK: With regards to York this season, obviously, having a very, very good season on the football side of it. What have you made of them and how difficult will they be on Saturday?
MC: Yeah, good football team. They’ve got good players. They’ve recruited heavily, and they’ve got money to burn, but they’ve recruited good players. The manager there, I think the recruitment that he’s done has been really good and tough team to play against. They’ll be disappointed that Barnet have got so far ahead of them, but they’ll want to cement their place in the top three to make sure if they are in the playoffs, they get a home tie.
JK: For some Yeovil fans, and I’d imagine other people involved in the game, there’ll be a bit of added spice, given that the former relationship between the now owner of York and Yeovil Town. Does that play into any anybody’s mind? Does that make any difference to what was going to happen on Saturday?
MC: Certainly not for me, it’s, I don’t have to explain that everyone knows what went on and listen people, people mature, people grow up. It is what it is. Seems to be the nature of football.
JK: And I know from our conversations over the course season, you’re always looking at individuals to bring into the club. We’re now chatting on Thursday. Are you optimistic there may be another name through the door before, before play begins on Saturday?
MC: Yeah, ideally, we’d like to sign a couple of experienced players to help the group, because, like I said, it’s difficult to replace the boys that we’ve lost. And that’s not to say that the players we’ve brought in are just makeweights in their own rights. They’re really good players, they’re finding the way in the game, and if you put yourself in a young player’s position coming into the other night, and the atmosphere and the negativity, it’s a really difficult place. Now, of course, we’d love to bring in two experienced players wit physicality that can help us, but that’s a tough, tough job to get those kind of players at this stage of the season to come to Yeovil at the moment. All I’d say is the players need support. That’s all we’re going to be focusing on is, is supporting the players.
JK: You talked about pressure on the players and supporting them. What about yourself? Do you feel the pressure at any times? How do you deal with pressure yourself?
MC: Of course, you feel, as a man, as a proud person, you feel pressure, and you don’t want to let people down, certainly the players. You just have to keep going. If you’d have said to us at the start of the season, if we could finish the top half, or near the top half or mid table, I think we’d have took that. Now we have to make sure that we do that, finish that off, and we put things in place next year, loads of things in place, and the infrastructure that make things better.
Mark Cooper spoke to BBC Radio Somerset’s Mark Stillman after the Glovers’ 3-0 defeat to strugglers Boston.
Mark Stillman: Mark, just your immediate thoughts to tonight’s defeat?
Mark Cooper : Disappointed, disappointed. We committed Harakiri. Gave three horrendous goals away. Obviously, when you’re 2-0 down from nothing, it then puts the pressure on the players, and it gets from bad to worse, really. There wasn’t a lot in the game, three mistakes, really, every time the ball went in our box it looked like they were going to score.
MS: Has there been a problem recently that changes you’ve been forced into making. It feels like, building up those relationships, partnerships on the pitch. It just hasn’t clicked because of all the changes you’ve had to make?
MC: No one’s really interested about injuries or people leaving the club or transfers. No one’s really bothered about that, they just want to see a performance. And I take responsibility. I sign the players, I take responsibility for the performance. We’d love to have Jake Wannell, Aaron Jarvis, Morgan Williams, Frank Nouble in the team, but they’re big chunks out of the team, and we’re relying on young boys like McGuckin, Wilson, McLean. We’re relying on them to try and get us through.
MS: Is it fair to say it’s not a lack of desire. It’s just not happening at the moment. You don’t see a lack of effort out there?
MC: We’re just immature. Another team, you know, like I said before, we’re trying to bring in the best players that we can to replace the injured players, but there’s only so much that we can pay, plus you’ve got, at this stage of the season, you’ve got to try and get players to come to Yeovil and it’s, it’s really, really tough. I mean, we spent days on the phone to try and replace the players that are missing, and it’s tough.
MS: You said about the manner of the goals conceded, we agreed with it on radio, is it saying you almost feel helpless as a manager when there’s individual to have mistakes?
MC: Yeah, the first goal, their centre forward runs straight through middle. The second one is a back pass, and the third one, a long throw bounces on our six yard box. So listen, it’s what it is. I take responsibility for it. Players tried. You can’t say they didn’t try. They worked really hard, but [there’s] been a lot going on in the last couple of days.
MS: It feels like the last week must be one of the most difficult you’ve had at the club?
MC: Yeah, like I say we lost the players that we’ve lost, and trying to replace them has been really tough, and we just have to give support to the boys that come in and are new. We have to try and get them through that. We have to try and resolve the situation with Frank Nouble and see what happens with that.
MS: Can you give us the latest on that, you were very open, and we’re grateful for that. Pre match. What’s been going on with Frank Nouble?
MC: So, Frank wanted to go to Gateshead. Somebody from Gateshead approached him that we’ve now found out, have got no influence or don’t own the football club. I think this person did a deal with Frank’s agent, which obviously then unsettled Frank, which it would do because he had a good deal going to Gateshead, and then it went quiet, and we then found out that there was no deal, and the person that was doing a deal with Frank’s agent, and Frank had no jurisdiction to do the deal, because as far as I’m aware, he doesn’t yet own Gateshead, so, really disappointing from Gateshead’s side of it, and feel sorry for Frank, really, but you know, he wanted to go.
Frank wanted to go, and he made it clear that he wanted to go and play for Gateshead. So, we granted that wish, but it’s fell through. So we wait to see now what happens. We’d have loved Frank to be in the team tonight, because he would have made a big difference for us,
MS: Do you think he’ll play for Yeovil again?
MC: I don’t know, I don’t know where it is. As far as we’re aware, we’ve been told that Frank’s deals off, so he’s still our player. So we’ll have to see what happens in the next couple of days.
Ben and Dave return from Halifax beach to tell Ian about their afternoon watching Yeovil’s narrow 1-0 defeat to FC Halifax Town.
Marcel Lavinier made his debut for Yeovil today in the 1-0 defeat at Halifax. The fullback signed until the end of the season from Forest Green Rovers told BBC Somerset’s Josh Perkins that he was happy join the club.
Asked how the move came about, Lavinier said: “I was away with Forest Green in York, because they’re playing York later today, and I was just in the hotel, and the gaffer [Steve Cotterill] said, we’ve had a chat with Yeovil about you. And I was happy and willing to come. It’s a big club, and, it’s good for me for the end of the season. So I’m happy to be here.”
Lavinier has barely kicked a ball in recent months and said his goals for the rest of the season were to ‘remain fit’. He added: “Keep performing and doing the best I can and trying to help the team. I strive high, and I want to push for playoffs if we can do it. So that’s how I will try and help the team.”
On the Yeovil performance in Yorkshire the right back said: “I thought the team done well in the first half – all game really. We dug, was on the front foot, w had chances in the first half, and the game’s different if you put those chances away. It was unlucky and unfortunate to concede an early goal and they just sat back for the rest of the first half and made it difficult for us. But, we still played around the box, still got a few chances, but on a different day we put them away and the game looks different.”
The Glovers head north today for National League action at FC Halifax. Dave caught up with The Halifax Courier’s Tom Scargill for this episode of A Foot In The Opposition Camp.
Another heavy defeat means another Gloverscast cap for Ed Turnbull. Ed was at The Beehive on Tuesday, so he shared his recollection of events with Ian and Dave.
The Glovers drew 2-2 with Southend United on Saturday, was it a point gained or two-dropped? Ian, Ben and Dave are back to discuss the result, performance and look ahead to Barnet too.
Yeovil were so close to picking up the three points against Southend United at Huish Park yesterday. Ian was at Huish Park for it and here are his conclusions.
It couldn’t have been a worse start. Folks were barely in their seats before Southend opened the scoring. A move down the left and a simple cross in the box found Charley Kendall who had freedom of Huish Park to pick his spot. The visitors continued to press forward and could have scored two or three in the opening 12 minutes and you’d have been forgiven for thinking you were in for a long afternoon and Huish Park.
We showed tremendous character to turn it around so quickly. Many would have been fearing the worst after conceding so early, but this isn’t the Yeovil Town of January, this is the Yeovil Town of late February. The first was a bit of a gift after a raking forward pass from Charlie Cooper wasn’t dealt with by the Shrimpers’ defence. Kyrell Wilson showed composure to beat the goalkeeper and bring Yeovil level. Not long after the game had turned on its head with Ciaran McGuckin setting up Frank Nouble with the easiest of finishes to make it 2-1. The Guvnor clearly enjoyed scoring against his former club’s Essex rivals.
Charlie Cooper earned his man of the match award. He marshalled the central defensive three for an entire half yesterday. To perform at that level in a position he’s unfamiliar with was impressive. Like him or not, he’s vital to this team on the pitch and since the departure of Worthington, he has to step in as a standard-setter in the heart of the midfield…and in defence?
We couldn’t hang on. We shifted to a back five before half time and spent the entire second half repelling Southend. For all Southend’s possession, they barely tested Aidan Stone in the Yeovil goal and that was down to the hard work of Yeovil’s outfield players. The body language of those players when the equaliser goes in painted the picture of devastation. For a depleted group to work so hard to hang on to three points to only get one with barely a kick left must have been a real kicker. Clearly there’s an argument that when you sit back for half of a game you get what you deserve, but…
Injuries are taking their toll. There’s no Wannell, Williams, Jarvis, Maddox available and Ciaran McGuckin hobbled off with “tight calves”, to the annoyance of Mark Cooper. Cooper said he needs two in before Tuesday’s visit to Barnet and if someone can get them in, it’s him. It’s clear how important depth in the National League, and I feel like we had more depth last season than this. Clearly it costs more to maintain a squad that is capable of the National League rigours than in National League South, but with a mid-table finish looking likely, the promise of building on that next season will require greater depth in the squad.
