Well, that was… a bit rubbish, wasn’t it?
Ben dialled up his DAZN stream and took in the Glovers’ 2-1 defeat to Aldershot. Here are his five conclusions.
A result that undid all the good work vs Rochdale.
Actually a performance that undid all the good work vs Rochdale
The harsh truth is that Aldershot wanted it more, the Aldershot players also played with 10 men on Saturday (for longer than we did) but they came with a plan to come out of the boxes quickly, stun us and then just never relented.
The honest thought is that, instead of fighting fire with fire, we went into damage limitation mode and couldnt get a foot into the game at all. And if I had a quid for every time we gave the ball away, by yearly DAZN subscription would have been covered twice over.
That’s about Aldershot deciding to live and die by their positive actions and they well and truly deserved every bit of it.
Pic c/o Gary Brown
For the love of Phil Jevons will someone find a striker.
Twice in the game, we had set pieces in attacking areas which Jake Wannell won in the air, twice the ball fell into the six yard box and twice, not a soul in green and white was to be seen.
Wannell’s arms went up in exasperation twice. Where is the striker who snaffles five or six a season by sticking their foot through one from 4 yards, who wants to be in the mix, where push comes to shove, where youve got to get a kick, where you’ve got to do anything and everything to get that ball over the line? Aldershot had someone like that. He won them the game.
Pic c/o Gary Brown
Ward and Works worth their weight.
We’ve said it a million times, here’s 1,000,001. Without Jed Ward we’d be well and truly stuffed wouldn’t we?
By his standards, he actually had a below par game, some sloppy distribution and a couple of little fumbles. But we were in the game because of him, he’s saved us so many points this season.
And a word for Works, who is diminutive in stature, but when he flashes into gear, my word there’s a player there. The sort of player we’ll see doing great things in the future and we’ll say “remember that belter he scored vs Aldershot that time?”.
Worried without Wannell
Jake Wannell’s tenth yellow of the season means he’ll miss the next two (vs Carlisle and Sutton)
Our defence has chopped and changed a fair bit this season, but we’re going to have FCD and two relative newbies against Carlisle and that’s got me a little nervous.
But, it does offer a chance for FCD, or perhaps Kyle Ferguson to hear the call for leadership from the gaffer and really step up. Just like they did vs Rochdale.
We’re still paying the price for early season chaos.
Its mid February and we’re having to manage the minutes of players who have come in after time out of other sides and we’re still asking a lot of a young side, packed full of exciting, but raw talent.
Four managers, four ideas, four plans, four plan As, four plan Bs and its clear we didnt start the season fit enough – I’d love to compare Aldershot’s heat maps and distance covered – and with games coming thick and fast it isn’t getting any easier. But the Rowley era has, overall, been a positive one, we’re still on a road to Wembley, we’re still closer to 11th (4pts) than we are to 21st (5pts).
It’s a massive summer ahead, get there unscathed in the league (and maybe a Trophy in the back pocket) and this defeat will be long forgotten.
Pic c/o Gary Brown
I can’t understand how you can say the Rowley era has been a positive one. Yes, we’re still in the FA Trophy but the draw’s been very kind to us & we’ve still made a meal of it.
Earlier in the season I thought we were comparing points from the playoffs & relegation, I see it’s now 11th & relegation which seems rather subjective.
Could you please name the exciting, but raw talent that’s actually under contract with us?
Some of these performances are on a par with the worst of Mark Cooper & Richard Dryden. Look at the turnaround of the two Aldershot games.
If Billy Rowley has a plan of how he wants Yeovil to play, perhaps he’d be kind enough to tell us what it is, as I can’t discern any pattern of play at all. At least with Aldershot, you knew they were playing football. What were we playing?
Is your surname ‘Cooper’ by chance?
I couldn’t stand Mark Coopers negative football, just as I knew Richard Dryden would be a Cooper clone.
I was positive when Billy Rowley took over, but it’s been a disappointing start & I can’t see any sign of improvement.
I thought this squad had to be one of the four worst teams in the league & I still believe it. I think we’ll be very lucky to avoid relegation.
I started watching Yeovil in the 1970s & I’ve never watched football as bad as this.
Of the current contracted squad, who would you keep?
If you disagree with what I’ve written perhaps you could offer some constructive criticism.
My main constructive criticism, seeing as you asked so nicely, is that you seemingly expect a manager to work miracles overnight. As you said, our squad is one of the worst in the league. I don’t entirely understand what you think Billy Rowley can do with the tools at his disposal, given that we’re now mid February, perhaps you think you’d be better at recruiting players to this level of football, convincing them to sign permanent deals?
You said ‘If Billy Rowley has a plan of how he wants Yeovil to play, perhaps he’d be kind enough to tell us what it is’; You obviously ignored what I think was his very first interview, and several others after that where he said exactly that.
I’m not sure how you can ‘make a meal’ of a cup run when you’re at the quarter final stage, I don’t think Telford or Maidstone were particularly ‘kind’ draws, neither is a long away trip to Southport.
If the blame lies with anyone for this season, it’s solely on your namesake, as he was the one who wanted to put a ‘small but quality’ squad together, but obviously just plain forgot about the latter. Ever since the start of the season, we’ve been patching round holes with square pegs. You need to realise where we are in the pyramid, managers can’t rebuild squads in the middle of a season, even Forrest Green are proving that it’s not as simple as just throwing money at the problem.
I’m sorry you think you’ve never seen football as bad as this from the 1970’s, but you almost definitely have, and worse.
Maybe you have a list of managers you’d rather have in charge?
Stay positive as always.
Crikey, anyone who was subjected to 1994-95 season saw way worse than this season. This has so far been the weirdest of weird seasons, all started by Cooper-ball. Anyone who saw the Exmouth (yes Exmouth) PSF would probably have had doubts we’d be anything special. BR has done a lot of good things, given the state of things he walked into! If we get past Southport it’s one step from Wembley…is that really the worst season since the 70s?
I never said it was the worst season since the 70s.
I agree we need to see more before we start lauding Rowley too strongly, but disagree that he hasn’t set out a clear plan. He deserves to be judged after having a full pre-season (hopefully for another National League campaign). I’ve only been watching Yeovil since the late 90s, and I have seen a lot worse football than this. Indeed perhaps you forget three years ago? Hard to take your comments seriously when you make such ridiculously broad overstatements!
Firstly, apologies for the lateness of this reply. I’d intended to reply 5 days ago but wanted to check Billy Rowley’s comments on taking over (before commenting myself) & couldn’t find them. Then my inherent laziness took over.
This is a reply to the comments made by Benji, CullomptonGreen & Glover_Rich.
Although I’ve been watching Yeovil since the late seventies, I haven’t always gone out every season to watch. I’ve had part seasons & seasons that I haven’t watched at all.
I don’t follow Premiership football, so this new garbage football (to me) was first noticed by me when we were in the Conference South.
I saw Yeovil playing the ball endlessly between the goalkeeper, defence & the odd midfielder without achieving anything, except time wasting.
I also noticed the desire to waste free kicks by passing them 3 yards sideways or backwards unless you were in direct shooting range, this usually results in losing the ball or, playing it back to the goalkeeper.
Fortunately, Mark Cooper eventually ditched this when we played Sutton away last season, but unfortunately Richard Dryden & Billy Rowley have brought it back.
I’ve never understood it, as I’ve never seen it work for Yeovil in a positive way & nobody has ever explained what the purpose of it is.
The reason I mention this is because it explains why this is some of the worst football I’ve ever witnessed.
I’ve seen lots of bad Yeovil teams in the past, many that finished in the relegation zone, but I haven’t witnessed them committing football suicide they way I’ve seen in games this season.
I haven’t watched Yeovil regularly since relegation from the Football League.
These days, I watch matches on the tv, so I don’t see every game. There may have been games under Billy Rowley where Yeovil have played well & it may have been obvious what he is/was trying to do.
Unfortunately for me, I haven’t witnessed it.
The Rowley games I’ve watched so far are Forest Green, Truro, Eastleigh, Boreham Wood & Aldershot.
Yeovil were extremely poor in all of them.
The Boreham Wood game was an absolute joke, against a team that had lost four on the trot. The performance was as bad as the later Aldershot match but was compounded by the awful individual errors littered throughout the game. It was hard to believe what you were watching. It was one of the worst Yeovil games I’ve ever witnessed & we were massively flattered to lose by only one goal.
To Benji, you seem to agree with me that we have one of the worst squads in the league but the manager doesn’t think so:
Billy Rowley’s comments:
“The aim is to get back in the Football League and both the owners and I believe this group of players are almost capable of that.”
“I want football to be played in the opposition’s half, I am a massive advocate of build-up play and controlling the game, but fans want to see goals, people shooting and running in to the box. One thing I really want to do is excite this tremendous group of fans and get some goals.”
“I just want the next few weeks to get the fans proud of watching the team play, play with a lot of energy and I want teams to come here and fear to play us for a few different reasons, what we do with and without the ball.”
“…the aim is to give these boys a real blueprint of how I want us to play, press and score and I look forward to getting out with them and helping to get us on an upward trajectory.”
(all taken from the 25/11/25)
The point I’m making, is we’re now 15 games in to his reign & I’m not seeing any evidence of what he’s talking about above.
I watched the Aldershot game last night and found the Yeovil performance disappointing .I think the Manager is going to do a good job in helping moving the Club forward . Not easy taking over mid season . However having watched his post match interview he was critical of his players performance.
My Critism would be that the set up of the play with long balls constantly being kicked forward was more a reflection on the tactics than the players .
The big issue for me? Balance. Proper, old-fashioned football balance.
Not vibes. Not “projects”. Not promise. Balance.
Because when you strip it back, that’s what we’re missing.
The squad depth isn’t disastrous now — we’ve patched a few gaps — but let’s not kid ourselves: we still haven’t fixed the biggest problem from last season. Goals. We didn’t score enough then, and we haven’t properly addressed it now.
And while we were at it, we let leadership walk out the door.
Call them leaders, call them experienced pros — whatever label you prefer — but Smith, Nouble, Murphy, Day, Williams… those lads brought presence. Game management. A bit of edge. A bit of calm. A bit of “I’ve seen this before, don’t panic.”
In National League South, the balance was just right. Experience spine. Prime-age runners. A bit of youth around it. It worked.
Yes, players age. Legs go. That’s football. But the golden rule is simple: when they move on, you replace what they gave you. Not just the shirt number — the substance.
Wannel seems a decent bloke. Honest pro. But is he a leader? And more importantly — who around him is helping him lead? Because at the moment it feels like he’s being asked to captain a ship without a senior crew.
Rowley, by the way, had more coaches and support staff in a job three divisions lower than this one. That alone should raise eyebrows.
Football isn’t rocket science — although it’s never as simple as fans think either. Recruitment is hard. Budgets are tight. Deals fall through. I get it.
But you have to ask questions.
Did we try for Jamie Grimes before he went to Boston on loan? A 35-year-old centre-half with miles in the tank and experience pouring out of him. That’s not sentiment — that’s adding ballast.
What about Rogalski from one of Rowley’s old clubs? Twenty-nine. Scoring for fun in the lower leagues. Could we have explored a loan with an option to buy? He might not be the messiah — but he’s a goalscorer. And goalscorers win you games at this level.
Danilo Orsi? Proven. Physical. Knows the league.
Maybe we tried. Maybe we didn’t. But the profile is obvious.
What you need at this level is balance across the pitch:
We’ve got some of that right. But the bits we haven’t? They’re the bits that decide seasons.
A reliable goalscorer. Real experience. Leadership — on the pitch and in football operations.
Ignore those and it costs you. Not dramatically at first. Quietly. One-nil defeats. Draws you should win. Late goals conceded because no one manages the moment. And that’s the risk.
I’m not pretending it’s easy. I’m not inside the boardroom. It’s always simpler from the stands. But whatever promises are made about this season, it feels like we’re putting plasters over structural cracks still.
You can survive like that for a while. But not for long. Over the course of a season, you can see the cracks get wider…
A very well balanced summary. My only addition would be not hungry young loans but hungry young players on 1 or 2 year contracts. AKA, alongside what you listed, the Gary Johnson formula.