Five Conclusions: Forest Green Rovers 2 Yeovil Town 1

2025 didn’t quite kick off how Yeovil would have hoped with defeat at Forest Green Rovers. Here are my Five Conclusions from the 2-1 loss at The New Lawn.

I hate talking about the officials. At this point it feels like an inevitability that there will be contentious decisions at the heart of a Yeovil game. Interestingly, Steve Cotterill said after the match that Forest Green were due a penalty having had none all season, although I’m not sure that justifies it. Kofi Shaw’s first yellow card, a classic case of six of one, half a dozen of the other was harsh in my opinion. The penalty decision is a close call too, and it’s hard to say with the angles I’ve seen whether it’s inside the box or not. However, once again we’re left complaining about the officiating in a match and I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s bored of it. 

I thought we were excellent. The first half performance from the Glovers was what you’d have wanted away at one of the top sides in the division. Only once did the defence get really stretched and Yeovil stuck to their principles and moved the ball calmly and patiently. The opening goal from Kofi Shaw shows some real bravery from Ollie Wright to throw it out to Shaw over the Forest Green midfield and the 18-year-old took it from there. We had a couple of overloads where, on another day, we could have taken advantage of.

The nippy fellas are key. I thought Josh Sims had the best match of his time at Yeovil so far. There was a lot to do on our left both defensively and offensively and but for a couple of misplaced passes in the final third, he did really well. Kofi Shaw continued doing Kofi Shaw things – the kid’s a maverick and we should celebrate and encourage that in football. I was also impressed with Sean McGurk – nippy, technical and not afraid to shoot – it’s early days but he appears to be an upgrade on Dylan Morgan in that part of the pitch. We know we need to do more in the final third and with some help for Aaron Jarvis, I think we can find it.

We are so close. The first half performance showed me that this group are so close to being a team that flirting with the top end of the table. We’ve clearly got the quality in the team and when it clicks we look comfortable defensively and really assured on the ball. Forest Green were always going to be a bit more open than sides we’d play at home as they’re gunning to get out of the league straight away, but until they brought on two giants in Cardwell and Quigley we handled everything they threw at us. Once again though, it was the attacking moments that we didn’t take advantage of.

Reinforcements are much-needed. It was reassuring to hear Mark Cooper talk about freshening up the squad in the next ten days. With two youth players on the bench (and two goalkeepers) the depth is sorely lacking at the moment. I thought Aaron Jarvis had another tough task in the second half, especially after the red and substitution of McGurk. The energy that Sims and Worthington brought in the first half wasn’t there in the second, naturally. I actually thought the game could of have done with Frank Nouble from the bench, just to see if something stuck and took the pressure of the back line as Forest Green bombarded the Yeovil box.