On loan defender Ben Barclay‘s stay at Huish Park until the end of the season is expected to be completed today (Friday).
The Stockport County centre half is due to conclude his second month’s stay after tomorrow’s home match with Southend United.
Speaking to the Gloverscast’s Ben Barrett ahead of the fixture, Yeovil boss Darren Sarll confirmed the 25-year-old “should get authorised today.”
He added: “Ben should be staying until the end of the season. The class of Stockport has been unrivalled, their sporting director, Simon Wilson, has been unbelievable for us.
“We are very grateful to Stockport, both Dave Challinor and Simon, that we can keep Ben until the end of the season.”
A few hours after Sarll said his at his pre-match press conference on Friday, the club confirmed Barclay’s loan had been extended – see here. However, we’d expect any deal to prevent him from turn out against his parent club when they visit Huish Park on April 23.
The boss also confirmed that Max Hunt, whose absence through injury coincided with the arrival of Barclay, was back in training with the first-team coach but said he does not expect him back until the middle of April.
But, of loanees forward Sonny Blu Lo-Everton and defender Jack Robinson, Sarll said the pair would have to fight for their places in the squad.
Sonny’s last appearance came in the 2-0 defeat to Grimsby Town a fortnight ago whilst Middlesbrough loanee Robinson has not been seen since the loss at Wealdstone at the start of February.
The manager said: “Sonny has to compete and get himself back in. There’s no divine right to play, I’ve probably shown in three years I have left out a lot of bigger players.
“Reuben (Reid) had to fight, Adi (Yussuf) has had to fight, it’s a meritocracy. My duty is to the club and the changing room and I have to give them the best chance to win matches.
“It won’t be the first or last time in Sonny’s career he’s had to fight. I’m not sure there’s another teenager which has made 16 starts in the National League. The contribution he’s had will stand him in stead.
“Jack is in and out with injury with a reoccurrence of a couple of injuries. He should be back on the training pitch next week, but when he’s fit he will have to fight Morgan Williams for that shirt.”
Sarll has also defended his decision to bring in loan goalkeeper Ted Cann instead of throwing number two Max Evans in to National League action.
The boss said that if he had not been able to bring in a more experienced keeper following the injury to first choice Grant Smith he would have played the 19-year-old.
He said: “My duty is to the club and the dressing room to get the best available, if I didn’t think there was anything out there that was better and immediately available, I would have played Max.
“He knows his development plan, we’ve outlined that very clearly. He’s learning every week. Goalkeeping is a pressurised position and if you get it wrong at an early stage with a goalkeeper it’s curtains and I didn’t think it was the right time.
Max has a big future, I would love him to be here next year and continue his growth and he will be a very good goalkeeper.
To ask him to play away at Dover and at home to Bromley, who we assumed would have been a physical team, that would have been hard for Max.
“I would rather he got good experiences and built slowly than jump to the next bit and had to go back down.”
There was praise for striker Reuben Reid after he impressed with his performance in the midweek win over Bromley.
The game was only his third start of the season having suffered a hamstring tear in pre-season and he has got just one goal in his 15 appearances.
Sarll said: “His story is unfair on him, we started pre-season and building around Reuben and Joe (Quigley) being our two forwards, Mark Little in that back four and then between week four and five of pre-season you lose Reuben and Mark.
“So we had to change, went through the adaptation process and went to a 4-3-3, we go on a great run and come away with Reuben fit, but playing a system I did not think would suit Reuben.
“I have always played Reuben in a front two since he joined. I wanted Adi (Yussuf) against Dover because he’s chaotic and the work he does against defenders, but then at home I wanted to smooth us out.
“So you take two destructive players like Jordan (Barnett) and Adi and bring in Reuben and Lawson (D’Ath) and they were great, but that was the quality I expected of him when he signed.”
Josh Neufville went from “rusty” to “breath-taking” in his performances between last weekend’s win at Dover Athletic and Monday morning’s training session, according to Sarll.
The winger arrived for his second loan spell at Huish Park last Friday and played the last 15 minutes in Kent and then got a further 21 minutes on Tuesday night against Bromley.
Sarll said: “He’s a young man who’s had a career-threatening and is still finding his feet. When he was training on Friday and when he came on on Saturday he looked rusty which is inevitable, but he was breath-taking on Monday, so the shackles are coming off.
“Everyone was excited to have Josh back and the players who were here last year went through a hell of a time, so the bond that players who were here then is stronger than it is with other players.
“So, we were all pleased to see Josh and pleased to know he’d recovered and he was playing again, he did a lot for us last year and we did an awful amount for him.”