Five Conclusions: St Albans City 1 Yeovil Town 1

A 1-1 draw against a decent St Albans City extended Yeovil Town’s unbeaten run to nine matches and keeps them top of the National League South table by ten points with games in hand over many promotion rivals.

But, they also lost defender Michael Smith to injury and we learned strikers Rhys Murphy and Jake Hyde are out for “the foreseeable future.” Here’s what Dave made of it all.

A great advert for National League South: Before the game, we’d heard about two sides on good runs of form who were capable of playing exciting, attacking football.In the first half, it was Yeovil who were in the ascendency and really should have gone in at the break with more than a 1-0 advantage. Second half, it was St Albans’ game and they showed excellent spirit to cause us more problems than any team I have seen us play this season. Their interim manager said they should have taken all three points, but I thought a draw was a fair reflection of the game. How many times this season have we heard opposition managers say they should have beaten us when they haven’t?Add John Meakes to the list.

Put yer laces through it, Jordan: I mentioned on the podcast the other week that Jordan Young needs to be more clinical. It sounds ridiculous to say about a player with 12 goals this season, but he had two glorious opportunities to either score of set up a team mate at 1-0 and another in the second half. Take one of those and we’re talking about three points rather than one. He does so well to get in to those positions, if he could find a more clinical edge he could be running away in the scoring stakes.

Super Joe Day’s in goal: It’s been a season where Joe Day has often not had a lot to do between the posts, but in the second half he showed exactly what he’s about. On a number of occasions he had to be on his game to keep St Albans out and was unflappable even in the nervy moments when the ball was pinging around inside our box. Sign him on!

Injuries starting to bite: If there were three players that were poster boys for Mark Cooper’s minute management, they would be Michael Smith, Rhys Murphy and Jake Hyde. Two players only at this level because of their injury records (Murphy and Hyde) and one who is 35 years young. In reality, we have done well not to lose them for longer. Smith will be the biggest loss, he’s been beyond exceptional this season, but hopefully he is not out for too long. Up front, we definitely missed the bit of devilment that either Murphy or Hyde give us off the bench at St Albans, but we have options. Hopefully the new arrival on Monday offers a focal point a’la Nouble for the links of Young, Pearson and hopefully Jordan Stevens to revolve around.