Ian Perkins (Page 6)

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.”