After an eight-hour round trip to Essex and back, Dave gives his thoughts on the Yeovil Town performance at Braintree Town yesterday. Now all eyes turn to Huish Park tomorrow…
We could still be there now and not score: There were opportunities and you cannot fault the attacking intent there was at times, but the finishing was abysmal. Aaron Jarvis, Tahvon Campbell, Josh Sims, Junior Morias, Ben Wodskou, Harvey Greenslade, they all tried and they all failed. 12 shots (five on target, seven off target) and some of those off target ones were woeful. “We have to be more clinical,” says Mark Cooper – but how many times have we heard that? Alex Fisher, Reo Griffiths, Jordan Young, Malachi Linton, Ollie Hulbert, Jake Scrimshaw, Louis Britton, Seb Palmer-Houlden, Jake Hyde, Rhys Murphy, Frank Nouble, Jahmari Clarke, Sonny Cox, Olly Thomas, Ciaran McGuckin, Harvey Greenslade, Aaron Jarvis. I think that’s all the strikers we have had under this manager and how many have got in to double figures? Murphy, Young, Nouble in the 2023-24 season in National League South, I think. Yes, some were loans. Yes, there has been injuries. Yes, there’s a couple of duffers in there. But can it ALL be down to the fact that they are ALL really not clinical? I have my doubts. I’ve not even mentioned quite a few others who could have been on the ‘someone who can get goals’ list.
It was an improvement: My frame of reference this is only small with the opening day draw against Hartlepool (via the DAZN stream) the only other match I have seen in full, but many on the terrace at Braintree assured me that was the best we have looked. The stats back up that it was a game we just about dominated, except the most important stat, of course. The first 13 minutes were great, I was wondering what all the complaining was about, but after that Braintree started to get a foothold in the game. We were definitely better in the first half, but we started lacking control towards the end of it and when the goal arrived, it had been coming. So, an improvement from a low base, for sure.
Plant and Sims a plus: For probably the first 20 minutes, James Plant looked electric and gave hope he can bring a much needed creative spark. He tired as the game wore on, not surprising for a player who’s played 30 minutes of competitive football all season. Monday will almost certainly be too soon to put him in from the start again, but there’s reasons to be hopeful there. And, a more than honourable mention to Josh Sims. Who had him coming in to form on their 2025-26 season bingo card? I certainly didn’t, but he looked like the player we saw in flashes last season. Let’s hope he carries on that way.
A big miss which piles the pressure on: Accepting the cliches of their being no easy games at this level, Braintree is a side we have to be getting points from if we have any hope of improving on last season. When you factor in the amount of chances we had to put this game beyond doubt – and, yes, they had plenty of chances as well – this was a big missed opportunity to build on that win against Brackley. That puts even greater emphasis on Monday’s home match against Gateshead – Frank Nouble and all.
An uncomfortable sleep: Wake me up when September ends, right? Mark Cooper doesn’t even give himself that long, he’s said ten games is the time to make an assessment. Mark up Tamworth away on September 20th on the calendar. I had a couple of conversations in the away end yesterday with people saying it was too soon to be talking about him being under pressure, but this is not about four matches this season. To borrow a phrase from the manager himself, I’ve been consistent. 2022/23 basket case relegation = write it off as too much to deal with. 2023/24 promotion = success. 2024/25 18th place finish = failure. This is the season that Mark Cooper has to show he can improve us and, four games in, I don’t see or hear anything different to last season. There’s time to turn it around, but I have dwindling confidence he can do it.
I personally don’t think we should write off 22/23 as a ‘basket case’. Yes there was stuff happening off the field, but the same is true of a lot of clubs and managers should shield players from that. Mark Cooper is the man who took us down, in spectacular fashion – with a record of 1 win in the last 20 games, we lost our last four home games without scoring a single goal. One of his first actions was to get rid of Gime Toure and he refused to play Malachi Linton, two of the only players we had in the squad who could score goals – he is too stubborn to field players he may not personally like, and we were warned about that from his record at other clubs. He plays defensive football with defences that can’t hold out for 90 minutes. The fact is that Mark Cooper cannot put together a team that can score at Conference level, and that pattern has been there right from the beginning.
The stats don’t lie. I think someone recently noted 6 wins in 25 games (2025) – one of those was on Wednesday. Yikes!!
Yes, many managers use the “how many times we entered the opposition third but not ruthless enough in front of goal” line, but this isn’t new at YTFC… it’s been repeated more times than Last of the Summer Wine!
Our strike rate to goal conversion in MCs tenure is probably quite poor? One for the stats people…but at NL level (not NLS) our goal scorers scorers are maybe 1-in-5 at best? But I don’t actually blame the players insomuch as they are told what to do and setup to play a certain way. Play to the system. No freewheeling or else!
If we can’t get a convincing result against Gateshead – they travelling one of their longest journeys of the season and over a bank holiday weekend, how many of the fence dwellers (which I’m still just about there) will rethink their ‘not sure if MC is (still) right for the job’?
I went to the Braintree match and for the first 20 minutes I was very impressed with Yeovil.
Braintree got into the game and could have scored 4 before the final whistle,
One of which I would have been embarassed to have put over the bar!
I agree with previous comments that we seemed to accept defeat up until the last 10 minutes when we started to realise that we needed to put in more effort and could have got an equaliser with the chances that we had.
One of my mates that came with me had watched the previous games on tv and said it was the best performance this season, so it’s not looking good for promotion again this year.
I have to give a shout out to Pendleton who ran his nads off for 90 minutes.