Midfielder Charlie Cooper will be available for selection for this weekend’s trip to Torquay United in the FA Trophy, according to Yeovil Town boss Mark Cooper.
The midfielder has not featured since since the 2-0 FA Cup win over Didcot Town at the end of September and is not involved for tonight’s National League South fixture with Farnborough.
But, with top scorer Rhys Murphy, forward Jordan Young, and midfielders Charlie Cooper and Matt Worthington all on booking away from a suspension going in to tonight’s game, the boss knows the importance of getting players back in to the squad.
He said: “Charlie Cooper is back now and pain free and will be back involved at the weekend and hopefully we can get him some minutes.
“We are going to have to try and be tactical with the players who are on bookings, but it’s all good fun.”
The manager confirmed defender Jamie Sendles-White was “still a way off” since suffering an Achilles injury, but club captain Josh Staunton returns on the bench against Farnborough.
Picture courtesy of Iain Morland.
One player who has already picked up five bookings is left-back Alex Whittle who sits out tonight’s match and is replaced by Will Dawes.
Cooper said: “Alex Whittle has been incredible but when you are an aggressive full-back you are going to pick up bookings in today’s game. Will Dawes is going to play left-back, he has played there before, we have done some work with him defensively, so he should be fine.
“It is very rare you get your strongest eleven on the pitch all season without suspensions and injuries, so players have to be adaptable and Dawesy will be fine there.”
The other changes see Murphy and strike partner Frank Nouble come back in to the starting XI with Jake Hyde, who started last weekend’s 2-0 home win over Dover Athletic. The two-goal hero in that match, on loan Exeter City striker Sonny Cox, starts out on the left with Jordan Young on the right.
The manager added: “Hydey gave us a good 65 minutes on Saturday. We have another game this Saturday (at Torquay United in the FA Trophy) and then another game next Tuesday (at Chippenham Town) so it is important that we have a really fresh front four.
“We have got to be relentless in our pursuit of our goals and we know what that is. We will have to start really well, start quick and ask some questions of them.
“There’s going to be all types of adversity in our games and we are going to have to be prepared to be patient. I said to the players at half-time on Saturday that it might take us 90 minutes, but we will get really good chances because of the way we were playing and the way Dover retreated and defended the box, we were always going to get chances.
“If you look at the data we could have scored ten on Saturday, but you still get three points.
“We can’t take our eye off the ball for one minute for every minute of every game because the tiniest detail could derail us or could keep us going on the run and we want the latter.”
Ahem! The FA what?? ?