Five Conclusions: Morecambe 0 Yeovil Town 0

Yeovil Town either ended their run of three straight defeats or extended their run without a win to eight matches with a goalless draw at fellow strugglers Morecambe on Saturday. Regardless of your perspective, the Glovers created enough chances to have come away from the gloomy Lancashire coast with three points and instead had to settle for just one. Dave was among the 110 supporters in the away end and here are his conclusions.

What’s the definition of insanity again? Turns out it wasn’t Albert Einstein who said “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result“, but Yeovil Town fans were left wondering if it was an accurate description having seen the starting line-up. The same eleven which failed to get a single shot on target against Southend United seven days earlier were starting again with strikers Tahvon Campbell, Harvey Greenslade and the forward-thinking Andrew Oluwabori left on the bench. Now, I may not have the coaching badges of Richard Dryden or Jerry Gill, but I have seen enough football to know James Daly is not a number nine. Yet he was expected to play it and, guess what? It was not until a change of shape and the introduction of Greenslade and Campbell that we really started to press Morecambe.

The first half was utterly forgettable. Those supporters in the away end who paid for the privilege climbed aboard a coach at 6.45am on Saturday morning must have been questioning their own sanity when the half-time whistle sounded. That said, I ‘only’ travelled 45 minutes each way and I began to question my own. It was the answer to the question we raised on Friday’s podcast of what would happen when a team which can’t score meets a team that concedes a lot. The result? Not very much.

The second half was better – just. I have to add some kind of a positive (yes, this is the positive one), we did create more in the second half. The introduction of Greenslade in particular and Campbell to an extent had an impact and we created opportunities, but could not take them. That said, I could not believe I was seeing us pick up two yellow cards for wasting time over throw-ins when we were going for three points against a team below us in the table which had only kept two clean sheets all season before this match. Ah, I ended the positive one with a negative. Sorry.

Relying on a lottery. Tahvon Campbell will make the headlines for his second half penalty miss, but it is unfair to put the blame solely on this moment. Junior Morias, Luke McCormick and Josh Sims all had great opportunities to test Morecambe keeper Jamal Blackman with efforts and were off target with every one. It was difficult to judge whether it was a poor penalty or a good save from the angle the away fans were in at the Mazuma Arena on Saturday but, having seen it back on a replay, I’m going to give the credit to the keeper. 

If not now, then when?: This feels like we are sleep walking in to a real problem. Listening to Richard Dryden speak after the game and saying that “it’s not the end of the world” if we don’t get three points at home to Boston United next weekend, I feel very nervous. Is he doing what he can to take the pressure off his players or is he really naive enough to not realise the seriousness of our situation. Yes, it is only November, but if we don’t wake up to the problems we are seeing, we could do it in March and wonder why we didn’t act sooner. I have said on the podcast before that I am sure Dryden is a great coach but for me he is not a manager. Owner Prabhu Srinivasan was at Morecambe and at the home game against Southend United and if he is not starting to wonder if something needs to be done, I have to ask, when is he going to think that? If this is “all part of the blueprint“, I think we need a new plan!