Manager Mark Cooper has said it is “time to be ruthless” with his Yeovil Town squad after they crashed out of the FA Trophy at the hands of local rivals W*ymouth.
The final whistle of the 2-1 defeat was met by a chorus of boos from the home supporters in the Huish Park crowd after a brace from former Glovers’ striker Brandon Goodship secured a famous win for the visitors.
Speaking to BBC Somerset’s Mark Stillman after the match, the boss said: “We have to change some players. There are some now who have had lots of chances and are not producing, so the attacking players have to produce. They have had lots of chances and they have not taken them, so I have to try and solve that.
“This year I have been really loyal to the boys, I love them to bits, but I have a job to do for the football club. That is to try and make us more efficient in front goal, from tee to green our play is really good, we get in the opposition box a lot really calmly and then the last little bit we need a bit of quality and it is not there.”
He added: “It is a really tough one to take, I am really angry with that and I have to be ruthless because that (performance) is a slight on me. We let the fans down tonight, they were brilliant and got behind the players. I always look at myself first, I tried every combination at the top of the pitch but it is time to be ruthless.”
Goodship gave W*ymouth the lead with a sumptuous curling strike after just 12 minutes and despite pulling one back when Aaron Jarvis put his head in where it hurts to get an equaliser ten minutes before half-time, Goodship restored the advantage early in the second half.
Cooper brought on a number of attacking players in the form of Kofi Shaw and Dylan Morgan as Yeovil looked for an equaliser, but they never troubled visiting goalkeeper Joey Casa-Grande.
The manager said: “We should score eight goals, but that has been the story of our season, we are not ruthless enough in the final third of the pitch. We gave away two goals, but we still did enough in and around their penalty area to win three or four games but we are not ruthless enough. If we keep going like that we will win one, lose one, draw one because cannot to put teams to bed.
“We are hitting people up the backside with the ball when we should be putting it on someone’s head, we are trying to have a touch inside the six-yard box when we just need to side foot it in to the goal and we are not brave enough. Jarv was brave to get his goal tonight but he should have two or three, but we should win the game tonight on territory and chances created.
“Both goals we conceded were individual errors and a lack of professionalism, but that is why we are at this level because we make mistakes, me included. Fair play to W*ymouth, they set their stall out and they dug in and defended their box, but I think me, Toddy (assistant manager, Chris Todd), Weso (Head of Football Operations, Ian Weston) and the goalie coach (Matt Gould) could have played in the W*ymouth defence and kept a clean sheet tonight.”
The goal tonight was Jarvis’ sixth of the season which makes him the club’s top-scorer ahead of midfielder Brett McGavin who has five. The club’s only other recognised frontman, Harvey Greenslade, joined National League South side Weston-super-Mare on loan ahead of the match.
Asked whether Jarvis needed more support up front, Cooper said: “I don’t know much more help we can give him, we had five up front for the second half with lots of balls going in to the box. He scored a great goal, he was very brave, but I will say there were opportunities (for him to score more) there.“
Get behind the teem
Jarvis worked his butt off but got no service to speak about, when he did it was usually a high ball. He was always trying to make runs but received nout. But I expect he will feel the brunt of Mr Cooper’s “changes”. As for big Frank then I think the only game he was playing was “statues” he even seemed laboured WALKING and that’s all he did
Since when did Nouble stop being a ‘recognised frontman’? The club list him as a ‘powerful striker’.
Reality is, he’s been to 20+ clubs in his 15 years as a pro and has barely troubled the net at any of them.
He’s scored 20 goals in his last 165 games. Ah, I see now why he’s no longer recognised as a forward!