Yeovil fell victim to a professional performance against Scunthorpe United. Here are Tom’s Five Conclusions from Huish Park.
We definitely weren’t bad! This sounds like I’m scrabbling for positives, but genuinely we performed really well in the first half. We looked like a team hunting for a win, not just accepting a 0-0 like we may have in previous years. Sure, things unravelled towards the end of the 90 minutes for us, but I don’t think I could sit there and say we didn’t give it a damn good go, we just need that final finish… speaking of which…
Goodness me, we need a striker. The majority of Yeovil fans can see that Billy Rowley is having to make do with the sum of the parts available to him, but one glaringly obvious gap in the recruitment this season has been the lack of a competent striker.
Aaron Jarvis looked better today, but I don’t think it’s hard to look better than he has in recent performances (looking at you Rochdale…), meanwhile Tahvon Campbell continued to look lackadaisical at best, and lazy at worst. Both players have had opportunities across their last few performances to take the striker spot as their own, but neither have done so. Put it this way, if we had someone like Danny Whitehall in our side today, I think we’d have stood an even better chance…
The lads looked tired. It’s easy to say something like that considering the scoreline and the run of fixtures in recent weeks, but it’s unfortunately true. Right from the off, even in our better periods during the game, we looked somewhat leggy, unable to get that extra yard of space we may have found with rested legs.
The second goal completely sucked the life out of the squad, which was telling for the third goal, so hopefully this week of rest will help us come back against Boston all guns blazing.
Let’s not panic. Yes, we’re still eight points above the drop, and yes the team’s behind are picking up points. But, teams are also sinking; look at Sutton and Braintree from just today as an example. We’ve proven we’re capable of picking up points too. Looking at the table with the glass half full, if results go our way next weekend, we’re 12th again. Suddenly, we can look up again, rather than behind.
Today will hurt, but let’s stay calm, back the squad and the staff, and they’ll get us over the line, one way or another.
Pic c/o Gary Brown
Roll on the summer. As mentioned above with the striker situation, we need to get some holes filled in this squad in the summer. A heavy reliance on the loan market has had mixed results, and while a lot of the recruitment has been alright, we’ve built a squad for FOUR different managers.
We can see the foundations being laid for the next season, but we’ve just got to get through these last 11 games and look forward to next season; some strikers, some proper wing-backs, and a replenishment of contracted (and preferably good) midfielders, and then we can really begin to judge the Billy Rowley era. Up the Yeo, and all that!
Well done Tom, great summary! As an extension of your final comment and plan for next season, may I add: “have a bigger squad!”. Mostly our own, supplemented by loans. I know we can only field 7 subs but for the sake of creating some squad competition, not having to ‘square peg – round hole’ it more often or not, and in the same frustration, having players who can actually make a difference when they come off the bench. Surely it makes it easier for the opposition to prepare, almost knowing tona man who they’ll be facing. Finally, we haven’t really replaced players who have left (Frank, Junior and Efete to name three) so choices are so limited or few options to change/freshen things up. That said, first 50 we looked good but ran out of ideas, drive and options.
Point about strikers is bang on. We did not score whilst on top but Scunthorpe did. Also another half time kick about for our subs while theirs did a proper coached routine. It really is not a good look for a professional football club.
Billy Rowley mentions they were tired again is becoming quite tiresome. It correlates with fitness and lack of squad depth. Just look at our subs bench from yesterday. Doesn’t exactly fulfil you with confidence or of players who can make a positive impact. Without becoming a stuck record we desperately need a striker. January was arguably the time to address this issue but that comes with risk as well. Let this sink in Junior Morias is our top scoring striker with a massive 4 goals and he left the club at the beginning of December.
The half time kick about from subs rather than coaching drills is very valid point from Andy C. Aren’t we supposed to be professional club?
On the game itself yesterday thought we played well for 60 mins. Subs didn’t improve us and it became very disjointed with errors/sloppiness creeping in at the back.
Thats the game I saw.
There has been discussion on here about discontent manifesting in booing. Not clever.
But a more withering and troubling response was how large portions of Huish silently emptied when goal 3 went in.
After the energetic support in the first half it was a resigned recognition that we had fallen again for the lack of Striker………and it doesnt look we are going to get one.
We all know that we need someone to get in the box and put it in the net .
One other thing I think we need is a leader , or leaders , on the pitch .
After each of the goals yesterday you could see the shoulders go down , but there wasn’t anyone to try and get them back up again .
We have huddles before the start of play , so why not when we have conceded a goal so that everyone gets back together ?
One wish is that Sims would actually look to go forward more often .
The number of the times the ball was passed out to him , but he then looked to go back rather than forward , so frustrating …..
Also would like to see Perrett make more of an impact , as a player of his potential should be looking to be positive every time he gets the ball .
Also frustrating is the way we play it around our back four , if you include the keeper , and then just launch it upfield to no-one in particular , Ward did this a number of times .
Having said all that , it didn’t feel like other 3 nil home defeats I have seen , it was more positive than those .
Have suggested this before, try one of our centre half’s up front. Darren Ferguson being the obvious choice
Yep. Worth a try
I believe you mean Kyle Ferguson. Darren Ferguson is the 54 year old former Peterborough manager and son of Sir Alex. Having said that he probably wouldn’t do any worse than our front line!
Or even Sarah
Another defeat with no striker, no leadership in the team, it’s not rocket science that we have been crying out for a striker and a holding midfield player, for seasons, they’re is something wrong behind the scene.