Five Conclusions: Hornchurch 1 Yeovil Town 2

I cannot remember the last time I went to a ground where neither team had “an end”. We turned out well, but it felt like football at an athletics track with VERY bright lights. We’ve been to a lot of athletic tracks over the years, we’ve also been on a lot of “new” away days, Bridge Avenue might not be the best we will visit this season. What I will say is, they’ve certainly know how to make that ground and more importantly surface work for them. The fact we were only the third team to score a goal there in this season, only the second to win there and we doubled the amount of goals they conceded at home in their previous six matches in just six minutes shows what an important three points this was.

Two home substitutions in the first 22 mins, three injuries and nine minutes of time added on, that is a lot of start-stop (then start again). After Saturday’s home defeat to Altrincham it felt like the squad needed a shake up and six changes to the starting XI certainly did that, but between the changes and the stoppages we didn’t really get going. Despite this, first half possession felt strong and going in at the break we were the dominant of the two. We also got a little insight into what’s to come with Seb Naylor and there’s likely to be 267 excited travelling fans this morning – plus plenty who watched in on the DAZN stream.

Hornchurch were all over us at the start of the second half and by that point we had already seen it was going to take something special to get through their defence – but boy did Billy time his substitutions to perfection. You will struggle to find a stronger bench than that this season and yet again, last night was proof that when we ask this team for a response, they do not let us down. The arrivals of first Ryan Jones, Mason Obeng and Slavi Spasov and then James Daly changed the game and bought out the best in the lads left on the pitch. I’ve said it countless times, but this team understand what it is to deliver, grind out a result and the subs made all the difference just when we needed them. As the away end serenaded at the final whistle: “Daly, Yeovil can’t play without you“.

If there’s any Yeovil player with a point to prove last night, it’s our determined and hungry keeper. Jos has been dividing opinions of late, there’s been some “important” mistakes over the last 15 games, but this wasn’t one of them. Was it a 7/7 performance? No, but did he make important saves and command his area, absolutely, as he has all season. A goalkeeper I am not, but if I was, I wouldn’t want to follow in Jed Ward and at 22, with the step up he’s made, his future in green and white looks bright to me and we’ve got to stick with him. In his first few months, Jos ranks third out of 35 goalkeepers in our division for goals prevented this season for a reason.

50 goals in all competitions, beating previous season goal tallies weekly, golden boot chats, countless names on the score sheet, pinging them in from all over the park, scoring in every game this season, who is this Yeovil town team!? Well, let me tell you, it’s a Yeovil Town team that is a third of the way through the season and sits in fourth in the table. I’m trying not to get too excited given the Christmas lights are still in the loft, but the smell of it, is getting stronger. Can you smell it?