Manager Mark Cooper is looking to bring some experience in to his Yeovil Town side after they were beaten by an injury time goal from Rochdale on Bank Holiday Monday.
A strike from winger Connor McBride in the first minute of second half stoppage time meant the Glovers finished the long weekend with no points from their two National League Premier Division fixtures.
They travel to Boston United this weekend with the Lincolnshire outfit buoyed by an impressive win away at big-spending York City, a result which has left Cooper convinced that it will be “an open league” this season.
Speaking after the game, he said: “We need to do a bit of work in the transfer market. I have had a good luck at things now and we need to bring a couple in with a little bit of experience and we need to move a couple along, the lads who have not been playing much. We need to bring some real characters in.”
The Glovers, who were already without left-back Alex Whittle, saw defenders Morgan Williams and Michael Smith both go off in the second half on Monday.
Cooper said Williams had “a sore face after a whack off the ball“, but said Smith “just ran out of steam” when he was replaced after 69 minutes having played 72 minutes up at Gateshead just 48 hours earlier.
Asked whether the punishing schedule had contributed to the performance, the boss said: “The EFL and Premier League spend so much money on sports science and focus on recovery and the boys who do not have so much access to that get asked to play twice in 48 hours. It seems crazy to me, but that is the National League.”
Overall, Cooper said he felt his side made a contest of the match for the first hour and did not deserve to finish the match empty handed – but they were undone by an individual error.
He said: “For 60 minutes we played really well, controlled the opposition and we should have been comfortably ahead, but when you do not do that you have to be completely faultless in your defending.
“We did that except for one action when one of our lads has run out of a great position and their lad gets a free shot from 20 yards out and we get punished for it. No way did we deserve to lose.”
Mr Cooper says that he needs to bring in some experience and move on those that are not featuring. I may be wrong but isn’t the vast majority of the current squad, including JMD, All players he signed or retained!!!! So something is wrong, very wrong.
He’s basically saying his signings aren’t good enough!
Or maybe they just can’t or don’t want to play the style of football Cooper keeps pushing?
Any attack is stifled either by Cooper Jnr sitting so deep he’s got no-one in front of him to pass to, or our wingbacks not knowing if it’s 5-3-2 or 4-4-2.
I wonder who Mark Cooper will be moving along. Of the less-experienced and not-getting-much-game-time players … Jordan Thomas and Finn Cousin-Dawson? And maybe Raph?