New signings Frankie Terry and Marcel Lavinier are in the Yeovil Town starting line-up for today’s trip at FC Halifax Town (3pm kick-off).
The pair are in among the starting XI alongside Ryan McLean, signed on loan ahead of the 5-0 defeat Tuesday night, who makes up the three changes to the starting XI.
Yeovil play their second away game of the week as they travel to Yorkshire to take on FC Halifax Town.
Halifax have been in solid form over the last five games, with some big wins. The Shaymen have had two wins, two draws and a loss, with that defeat coming to Southend United.
Last time out the Yorkshire team picked up a good three points against promotion rivals York City. Sitting in sixth was enough to warrant some fear for Yeovil fans but after that last result, it could be a long night for travelling supporters.
Yeovil have had been in good form, if you take into account the teams they have faced. Over their last five games there has been two wins, two losses and a draw. The two wins, although against teams the Glovers should be beating, were much needed. The draw was, should’ve and could’ve been a win against a decent Southend side and our first loss, well the less said about that the better.
Last time out for Yeovil was a heavy defeat, to top of the league Barnet. Although it should not be ignored completely, the Bees are champions elect so the result should probably be taken with a pinch of salt.
Yeovil – Charlie Cooper
A polarising figure within the fans base, Cooper has stepped up since the departure of long time fan favourite and captain Matt Worthington.
The midfielder has blossomed into the hole left by the “Ginger Pirlo”. With Brett McGavin and Sonny Blu Lo-Everton alongside him the centre of the park looks settled for Mark Cooper. Cooper Jnr, has helped, with leadership and performances that have been beneficial to the team.
FC Halifax Town – Jamie Cooke
It’s unusual for a team in the playoffs not to have a prolific goalscorer of note, but The Shaymen are that team. However, it clearly hasn’t mattered to Halifax as they have such a strong team, with the foundation of team being centre-midfielder Jamie Cooke.
Cooke has played 32 games this season, totalling 2,360 minutes for his side. At 23 years old it’s fair to say he has the legs to play that role. But it’s not just the consistency his manager, Chris Millington, can count on, as Cooke is the top scorer as well, with seven goals. The all-rounder will look to control the game against the Glovers, so it should be an interesting battle in midfield.
Halifax boss, Chris Millington spoke to press about the upcoming fixture. He said: “When we played them down there, we won the game but maybe didn’t deserve to, it was a very good performance late on from them. They dominated the second half , so we have got to prepare really well for them.”
Yeovil manager Mark Cooper had made no comments regarding the game.
There haven’t been many games between the sides throughout history with just 10 games being played. The head to head is even, with four wins for Yeovil and four wins for Halifax, with the two other games being draws.
The last time the two teams met was in November when The Shaymen beat the Glovers 0-1 at Huish Park, with the only goal of the game coming from Florent Hoti.
There is no one. No one who has even played a single minute for Yeovil in the FC Halifax squad, what a rarity.
No one is suspended for the game.
The Gloverscast is a volunteer run website which costs money to maintain. If ever you feel like supporting with our running costs, which include our website hosting, Zoom subscription, The Daily Glove, we’d be extremely grateful for your donations.
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.
Right back Marcel Lavinier has become Yeovil Town’s second signing of the day following his release by National League Premier Division rivals Forest Green Rovers earlier today.
The former Swindon Town player has signed until the end of the season.
The 24-year-old has appeared 11 times for the promotion-chasing Gloucestershire outfit, all off the substitutes bench, and his departure from the New Lawn was announced on Friday afternoon.
He will join the Glovers’ squad alongside young Colchester United defender Frankie Terry, who signed on loan for the rest of the season just a couple of hours earlier.
Lavinier began his career in the footballing career in the academy set-ups at Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur and made his first-team debut for Spurs when he appeared off the bench in a Europa League fixture in February 2022.
He joined Swindon Town in September 2022 and lasted a little over a year, arriving at Forest Green in August 2023 and played 15 times as they dropped out of the Football League.
Lavinier is expected to link up with the team travelling to FC Halifax Town with right back Michael Smith expected to miss out with a hamstring injury picked up in Tuesday night’s 5-0 mauling at league leaders Barnet.
Welcome to Huish Park, Marcel.
Colchester United central defender Frankie Terry has bolstered Yeovil Town’s injury-hit back line ahead of the long trip to promotion-chasing FC Halifax Town this weekend.
The 21-year-old, the son of former Glovers’ midfielder and coach, Paul, and nephew of ex-England captain, John, has joined on loan until the end of the season.
Terry played against the Glovers for Braintree Town, where he spent four months on loan earlier this season. He was part of the Iron side which lost 3-1 at Huish Park in mid-December.
He has made one league start for the League Two side this season with two substitute appearances in the Vertu Football League Trophy this season.
His father, Paul, was part of the League Two title-winning side of 2004-05 and was part of Darren Way’s coaching staff during the ill-fated 2018-19 season which saw the club drop out of the Football League. He is now assistant manager at Leyton Orient.
Terry seems certain to be involved in the squad which takes on sixth-placed Halifax at The Shay this weekend with injuries to centre halves Morgan Williams and Jake Wannell.
He is the Glovers’ fifth loanee alongside forwards Ciaran McGuckin (Rotherham United), Sean McGurk (Swindon Town), Ryan McLean (AFC Wimbledon) and Kyrell Wilson (Swansea City), with only five loanees able to be named in a matchday squad.
Welcome to Somerset, Frankie.
It was a car crash of an evening for Yeovil on Tuesday night, as they lost 5-0 at Barnet. Let’s see what happened across the rest of the league.
We begin in the Midlands , where Tamworth climbed up the table with a convincing 4-1 win over Wealdstone, Nathan Tshikuna scoring a double as they left their visitors sitting in the bottom four. A chaotic 90 minutes went down at York Road, as Maidenhead United and Braintree Town shared the points in a 3-3 draw, both sides having led the game at one point in the game. Another exciting result came at Roots Hall, where Southend United and Woking played out a 2-2 draw to keep their respective playoff and survival ambitions alive.
There were huge implications in the title race on Tuesday, with not only Barnet winning, but other title contenders losing; FC Halifax Town defeated Forest Green Rovers 2-1 at home, while Altrincham won on their travels to York City, leaving the Bees with a 9 point lead at the top. At the other end of the table, AFC Fylde came from behind in the first half to win 2-1 at home against Hartlepool United to boost their hopes of avoiding the drop.
Eastleigh continued their push for the playoffs with a steady 2-0 win at home against Ebbsfleet United, while it was a point apiece for Solihull Moors and Sutton United. There was a big result at Deepdale, as Rochdale defeated Gateshead 1-0 to keep their playoff ambitions alive, while there were 0-0 draws for Boston United and Oldham Athletic, and Aldershot Town and Dagenham & Redbridge.
National League results – in full
AFC Fylde 2-1 Hartlepool United
Aldershot Town 0-0 Dagenham & Redbridge
Barnet 5-0 Yeovil Town
Boston United 0-0 Oldham Athletic
Eastleigh 2-0 Ebbsfleet United
FC Halifax Town 2-1 Forest Green Rovers
Maidenhead United 3-3 Braintree Town
Rochdale 1-0 Gateshead
Solihull Moors 1-1 Sutton United
Southend United 2-2 Woking
Tamworth 4-1 Wealdstone
York City 1-2 Altrincham
Yeovil Town head to Halifax on Saturday and joining the Glovers in West Yorkshire will be referee, Dean Watson.
Mr Watson hasn’t been used in the National League Premier so far this season, but he has been mainly the National League North.
In seven games so far, he’s dished out 33 yellow cards (… and one of those games saw none!) and two red cards.
We’ve seen him once before, also in Yorkshire (or Derbyshire, depending on who you ask) when we drew 1-1 with Chesterfield a couple of years ago.
He booked Josh Staunton and gave the Spirites a penalty in a game where a Ryan Law header secured the visitors a point.
He has officiated three Halifax games, a win, a loss and a draw for the Shaymen.
Mr Watson’s assistants are Ivan Stankovic, Simon Clayton and Johnathan Maskrey is standing by, just in case.
FC Halifax Town (First Team) v Yeovil Town FC (First Team)
National League – Premier
Referee: Watson, Dean
Assistant Referee: Clayton, Simon
Assistant Referee: Stankovic, Ivan
Fourth Official: Maskrey, Jonathan
Frank Nouble spoke to BBC Radio Somerset’s Josh Perkins following the Glovers’ 5-0 defeat to Barnet on Tuesday.
Josh Perkins: Frank, just like I said to Mark [Cooper], it was never going to be easy tonight.
Frank Nouble: No, but you have to give credit to the team we played tonight, I thought they were outstanding, we’ve come with a game plan, but that goes out the window when you concede, on our part, softish goals, it’s difficult to recover from there.
JP: You did a lot of running out there, it’s difficult out there when you do go two, three, four goals down to continue to lead the line and chase things down.
FN: It’s our job, it’s what we’re paid to do, the score line, obviously, looks terrible, and it’s a bad night for all of us. The supporters have come down and we really appreciate that, we know they do that every week for us, they spend their money and all we want to do is give back a good performance and tonight we didn’t do that overall. We have to hold our hands up, and go back to training and work hard again. And give credit to Barnet, they’re top of the league for a reason, last year we knew what that felt like, being top of the league, you can just win games by just turning up sometimes, and it felt like that for them today. We give credit to them, there’s some good players out there and we found it tough.
JP: You came up against such a tough opposition today, they are a future League Two side.
FN: They’re a good team, a really good team and they’re strong at home, give them their credit, but we could have done better, we’ll look back at the goals, and just take responsibility. In life, you can’t dwell over spilt milk, just keep going. At the end of the day, if they go on to win the league it’ll be well deserved, because they’re probably the best team we’ve played this season.
I think we’ve been really competitive most games, but tonight, we weren’t, obviously the score line tell that. We’ve just got to go again, we’ve got another game on Saturday, we’ve got to really apologise to the supporters for our performance overall, it wasn’t good enough.
But we’ve got a game on Saturday, we’re lucky in football, we’ve got another opportunity, to go out there and prove yourself again, you’re only as good as your last game, we heard that again tonight in the changing room, we’ve got to move on and be better.
JP: What is it that you can do now ahead of Saturday, is it a mental thing or physical training?
FN: We’ve got to recover, we couldn’t fill the bench today, the players that are out there have just got to give it everything, simple as that. If we defended a bit better as a team, we might not have conceded as early today, there’s no-one to blame, it’s all of us, we’re all in it together, there will be no blame game, the supporters will go home upset, the people that watched it online will be upset as well, but we’ve got a game Saturday and we have to react.
Mark Cooper spoke to BBC Radio Somerset’s Josh Perkins following the Glovers 5-0 loss to Barnet on Tuesday night.
Josh Perkins: “Mark, it was never going to be easy was it?”
Mark Cooper: “You kind of know what’s coming with the squad as it is at the minute, when you look back at home, who is sat back at home and then we lose another one after so many minutes, Michael Smith – he said he was alright to play, we lose that, then we have to play a right winger, who has probably never played as a right back, at full back.
You can’t come to places like this, where they’ve got a team full of men, and be as depleted as we are. We have to put that one out the way, we’ve had a good little run, we have to put that one away now and we have to try and get two or three players in before Saturday.
We’re relying on the same three or four players every week to be a nine-out-of-ten and scrap and fight and tonight that was men against boys, some of ours need to look at that… men against boys.
JP: 3-0 down at the break, against a team top of the league, it’s always going to be difficult to gee your players up, but what were the words to the boys at half time?
MC: Let’s try and get a goal, let’s try and get an early goal, we changed the shape a little bit, but we’re scrambling, because we haven’t got a dominant centre-back, we didn’t have a right back and we’ve probably got half of our team sat at home watching Love Island or whatever they’re watching.
But, like I say, we can talk about it until the cows come home, it was men against boys tonight, but we kind of knew what was going to happen. [They’re] physical, big, they can play, they can be direct, and that’s a yard stick for us next year and learn about how we go about our recruitment, what kind of player we need to sign to try and compete at the top end of the league, all it’s done for me is make things more and more clear.
Dust that one down, great support, great turnout on a Tuesday night, coming to London, backing the team, thank you to them, we’re going to strive again, non stop to try and get some players in.
JP: When you say ‘It makes your job more clear’ what exactly do you mean by that?
MC: What do you think I mean? In terms of recruitment, it makes it clear in terms of what type of player we need to sign.
JP: In terms of signings, and getting players back ahead of Saturday, Michael Smith went off, I don’t imagine you’ll have him back, a word on Jake Wannell potentially and Ciaran McGuckin.
MC: We wont have any of those players, the only one who might have an outside chance is Ciaran McGuckin, if he maybe drinks a little bit of Holy Water he might have half a chance.
Listen, the boys in the last three games have had a right tear up, some of them have run themselves into the ground, to show what it means for them to play for the club and we need three or four more like that to add to the squad and that it the key to try and attract those kind of players to Yeovil.
