Ian Perkins (Page 3)

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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.

Close from Troy Perrett and he knows it.

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.

Jake Wannell
Pic c/o Gary Brown

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.

Ryan Jones tackles Kwaku Donkor. Picture courtesy of Debs Curtis.

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.

Billy Rowley
Pic C/O Gary Brown

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.

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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.”

James Daly celebrates his opening goal at Southport.

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.“

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How’s your heart rate today? Ian’s is still pretty high after another Rowley Rollercoaster. Here are his Five Conclusions from Huish Park…

That was a bonkers finish. When the seven minutes of additional time went up there was a roar of hope rather than expectation but what unfolded in that stoppage time was unlike anything I can remember at Huish Park. Jack Sims in the Sutton United goal had barely been tested in open play all evening and somehow we managed to find the reserves to not only equalise, but go on and win it. No doubt there are early leavers who woke up this morning knowing they could have witnessed a remarkable finish.

Brett McGavin celebrates a late, late winner in front of the Thatcher’s Stand.

James Daly was the fox in the box. It was a bit Dryden Experimental Experience seeing Daly through the middle but when it mattered most he was there. He was the sharpest to react to Sims’ spillage of Luke McCormick’s penalty spill and when Ryan Jones (who I thought worked tremendously hard all night) whipped a teasing cross in, Daly was there to lift the roof off Huish Park. The winger (…striker?) has boundless energy and may not score two more important goals this season.

It wasn’t a vintage performance. Plenty left Huish Park before 90 minutes last night and who could blame them? I thought struggled to create, looked like a team that hadn’t played a lot of football together and – in the second half in particular – were largely second best to Sutton. Passes were loose, Sutton disrupted us when they had to, and when they came down our left hand side it felt like there was something on every time.

But, a win is a win. You cant understate the importance of that result, no matter how it came about. Everything that needed to happen around us did, Braintree lost, Morecambe and Gateshead expended everything to draw 4-4 and we are now sitting pretty eight points clear of the bottom four, but who’s counting? It was not pretty by any stretch of the imagination but in terms of Huish Park moments, Brett McGavin’s penalty is up there. The relief, the joy, the trauma, all of it exploded in that moment and it was an unbelievable feeling. Who’d be a football fan eh?

I think it will be this way for the rest of the season. I’m not sure we’re going to see much identity shine through as the season draws to a close. As cliched as it is, each game will be it’s own cup final with varying levels of severity as we muddle through until the May. Until Billy Rowley has exactly what he needs to implement his vision of the team, In my opinion, we’re just seeing a patched up squad to get us through. This has undoubtedly been a baptism of fire for Rowley, and as he admitted last night he’s learnt a lot in his short time at the helm.