Yeovil Town manager Mark Cooper is hoping to get a solution to his side’s scoring problems in the coming months – either from the training pitch of the transfer market.
The boss said his side created enough chances created to have comfortably won last weekend’s FA Trophy tie with Dorking Wanderers, which was goalless after 90 minutes before they went out 4-1 on penalties.
The result means the Glovers have scored just three times in 450 minutes of football with two of them coming in the Somerset Men’s Premier Cup win over Taunton Town.
Cooper said: “We put an unbelievable number of crosses in the box and had some really good chances.
“I’m not sure in a game of football you will get as many as that, so it comes down to the quality of the (attacking) player to score the goal. As long as we are still getting in those positions I think we’ll be alright, I think we just need to relax, we’re snatching at things a bit too much.
“We put the players in the right areas of the pitch and in the right positions. Either we will start scoring goals really quickly or ideally you bring in people who can do it.”
Asked by Three Valleys Radio’s Adi Hopper whether he had the budget to be able to dip in to the transfer market, he added said: “It’s not possible at the moment, but we are hoping going forwards that we will be in a position where we can.
“There’s no point bringing in players who are the same as you have got, if we are going to do it we need to bring people in who have a history and a record of doing it. It’s not always a centre forward, it’s sometimes the people who play that ball in.”
New signing Jordan Maguire-Drew, who arrived on a one-month loan from League Two Grimsby Town ahead of last weekend’s Trophy tie, is one player who will be looked to to create those chances – and score some of them.
That was the winger’s first action since October 22, when he came on for the final two minutes of Grimsby’s 0-0 draw with Bradford City, and Cooper admits he needs more minutes.
He said: “He is probably not 100% fit, but we will only get that fitness by playing games. The more he plays, the sharper he will get and that’s what his game is about, he makes intricate passes and crosses and finishes, so he’s not a worry about what he can produce when we get him in the right area of the pitch.”
Defender Owen Bevan, who is on loan from Premier League AFC Bournemouth, trained on Thursday having come off in the 41st minute against Dorking following a clash of heads with team-mate Morgan Williams. The boss said he was “very hopeful” the 19-year-old would be available for the Boxing Day visit to Torquay United.
Cooper said he was expecting an exciting match against Gary Johnson’s Gulls – who have scored 27 goals but conceded 46, compared to the Glovers’ 17 goals scored and 21 conceded.
He said: “They try and gamble a lot of players forward and try and score at every opportunity, take risks, so they leave defenders one-v-one at the back.
“We know we are going to have to be defensively sound. It is a team which can score a lot of goals against a team which defends really well – so it will be a classic 0-0.”
In a brief pre-match press conference, Cooper was asked his target for the remainder of the season.
He said: “The ultimate aim is to make sure we stay in this league first and foremost, hopefully we can attract a couple more quality players to the group which should help us. If we can remain defensively sound and keep working on the other end of the pitch, we will be okay.”