For the second season in a row, Yeovil Town fell at the first hurdle in the FA Cup to lower league opposition, this time at the hands of ten-man Hemel Hempstead.
Richard Dryden spoke to BBC Somerset’s Mark Stillman and said his side struggled to get going: “We didn’t start. We didn’t start at all. Rode our luck a little bit. The first 10-15, minutes, we didn’t play like we wanted to play. [We] went long, but they get a man sent off. And you think, right, let’s go and nail these to the post. But it never happened. We didn’t get going, didn’t defend well. We get done by a corner, which we should stop. We worked on them when they go short, some people have turned off. Is that down to us? Is it down to the whole group? It probably is, Yeah.”
Since taking over as manager until the end of the season, Dryden’s matches have featured a high-tempo, high energy Yeovil side but that just didn’t happen today, with Dryden saying the Glovers didn’t ‘turn up.’
“If you’re watching the game, you’re looking at them, how we’ve played the majority of the time, the last month or six weeks, where there’s been high tempo and we didn’t, I didn’t sense that today. This is a big day: FA Cup qualifying round for the first round, and we, as a group haven’t turned up,” Dryden said.
Harvey Greenslade and Byron Pendleton combined in the second half, with Greenslade drawing Yeovil level and Dryden said they tried to exploit Hemel, who were a man down from the 25th minute, on the wings.
“We identified the wide areas when people are down to ten men is a big area. And we did it with with passing, we did it with big diagonals, and we got in and created enough. But again, we get done with a sucker punch in the last 10 minutes.”
Dryden reiterated the support he’s received from the board, but that the search goes in for new signings.
He said: “The board has given us money to spend. And we’ve inquired [about] two or three, like I said earlier before the game, they haven’t come off. We’ve got to keep looking and keep looking and getting players in. With the injuries we need to get them in quite quick, but again, we’ve got to get the right ones, what suit us.”