Five Conclusions – Rochdale 3 Yeovil Town 0

Have we all taken a breath and calmed down a little bit? Nope, Gloverscast Ben hasn’t either. It wasn’t Yeovil’s finest hour and a half of the season up at Spotland, Ben was on BBC duty, here are his Five Conclusions.

It was just too easy.

Not sure I need to say any more do I? It’s just not acceptable to allow the best team in the league to have the time and space we did on Saturday afternoon.

In too many key areas, too many of their key players had the freedom of Lancashire to pick their pass and dominate from start to finish. 

A couple of crunching tackles from the likes of Ferguson and FCD and a little hustle and bustle from Aaron Jarvis up front pretty much all the Glovers had going for them. You can’t stand off the best in the league, and expect anything other than a rout. 

I’m not entirely sure how much of a gulf in quality there is between the two sides – and I mean that – but the gulf in confidence, direction and plenty more intangible qualities was there for all to see. It could have been a cricket score. 

In a midfield muddle.

So, what are we doing in the middle of midfield then? FC-D, a central defender with all the effort and desire in the world. But he’s not a midfielder. I like FC-D, I think he’s way better than the universal square peg role. 

But he got pulled out of position by his far more dynamic opposite numbers, and that gave the likes of Devante Rodney so much space and time. It shouldn’t be on him to play that role, it’s not fair anymore.

Luke McCormick has probably got the most class and quality on the ball in the side, but his head looked to drop. He didn’t chase the play for the second goal, and was desperately looking for help around him. A free-to-roam McCormick is one of the best we have, we just cannot give him that security.

So, will Jacob Maddox fill that void? Probably not. It’s not worth rushing Brett McGavin back from a back problem that’s clearly causing more problems than first thought? Definitely not. Then there’s the Charlie Cooper shaped elephant in the room doesn’t seem to have an end point either.

We need a Matt Worthington/Charlie Lee/Dale Gorman/Paul Wotton [delete as appropriate]. A proper breaker upper that will allow those around him to be at their best. 

Confusing calls.

Anyone else surprised to see the new left back, George Nurse given the nod over Alex “79 YTFC Appearances and very, very few poor ones” Whittle? I was. 

“Welcome to Yeovil, mate, here are some of the finest attacking wing backs the league has to offer.” – For what it’s worth I thought he grew into the game and will be an asset for the next month or so, but give the guy a chance to get his feet in the door. 

I think Josh Sims has, overall, had a positive season, but on body language and early misplaced passes alone, I was surprised at the fact that he wasn’t sacrificed at the break as opposed to Oluwabori. 

I don’t know why Kyle Ferguson was the central defender sacrificed with 20 to go, I think he possibly thought similar as he begrudgingly sat down. He at least stuck his head in where it hurt a few times and clearly had his heart on his sleeve throughout.

Unused and unrequited?

We only used three subs again and I think we should note that in Junior Morias and Tahvon Campbell, two of the summer’s more ‘high profile’ signings didn’t get a look in. 

Would their relative experience have offered something a bit different in the front line? The ability to get within the same post code as Aaron Jarvis? Maybe, we don’t know – but like the Whittle thing, (who himself only got 12 minutes) – that’s a lot of ‘been there and done it’ not getting game time whilst new lads, young lads and out of position lads look a bit lost.

Surely time is up on Ben Wodskou too, nothing against him but since scoring against Brackley he’s played just about as many minutes for Birmingham Under 21s (170ish) than Yeovil (200ish). He’s taking up a loan spot and that’s something we need to use effectively with a thin squad. 

Which direction are we going?

I think the one thing that came out of it was I just didn’t understand what the idea is right now on the pitch. We look rudderless. I wasn’t sure of the game plan or even how we were looking to make an impact on the game after the goals. 

There were times that players even looked like the message wasn’t getting out there. When Whittle came on he passed on a word or two and both Luke McCormick and George Nurse looked a bit… “Who, me? Where? In there? Errr….okay“.

Byron Pendleton was our furthest man forward at points, and I couldn’t help but feel like it was all getting a bit too complicated.

I hate the fact that I’ve named names in these conclusions, because I actually don’t think we have a bad squad – in fact, I know we don’t – but something has to change to restore some confidence, belief and direction.

I think a return to some simple football, some simple tactics, (4-4-2, anyone?) is a way to resolve the current chaos.

We could be competitive with top six sides, but right now, simplicity is key. It might take some tough calls – three central defenders into two doesn’t go, for example – but we’re 6-0 down across the last two league games without really landing a punch and we’ve been dumped out the FA Cup by 10 part timers.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Plenty of the 107 fans at Spotland would be forgiven for thinking they’d gone insane on Saturday.