It was a stormy afternoon at Huish Park, on and off the pitch, as the Glovers fine run came to an end at the hands of Altrincham. Here are Ian’s Five Conclusions.
The conditions were dreadful. We’ve had some rotten matches played in dire weather and this one was up (down?) there with Wealdstone last season, or the infamous match against Leeds in the Championship. As it was, I thought both teams handled the conditions quite well in the first half, but in the second half Yeovil probably deal with the weather as well at Altrincham did in the first and the visitors definitely utilised it more than we did when they had the wind with them.
It was another good day for Johl Powell. Powell has been so impressive in recent weeks and he earned himself yet another goal. His desire to chase down lost causes and beat his opponents to the ball are the reason everything’s going so well at the moment. He had a duel with Otis Khan all afternoon and he outmuscled Khan to calmly slot home the opener. I felt Yeovil lost a bit of his directness when he was replaced in the second half and that says a lot about the form Powell has got himself into.
Mistakes were costly. We know there are fine margins at the top end of the National League and the mistakes are where it cost Yeovil yesterday. Their equaliser comes from uncharacteristic sloppiness from Ben Radcliffe who doesn’t put enough on his pass which allows Altrincham to break and Jos Barker will have had nightmares about the winner last night. Better keepers than Jos have struggled in the wind at that end of Huish Park and I’m sure there will be clips of keepers having weather-assisted clangers across the country all weekend, but it’s a big error that’s cost Yeovil a point.
The wingers were nullified. The recent impressive form of Ryan Jones and James Daly came to an abrupt halt at the hands of Altrincham’s wingbacks too. You can probably count the amount of times Jones and Daly got into dangerous areas on one hand. Neither of them were given the time or space to get going and has a key part of how the Glovers have taken teams apart, Yeovil willl need to find a way to step it up and impose themselves against the top teams they want to compete with.
S**t ref again, ole ole. As officiating goes, that has to be one of the worst I’ve seen in recent memory. I know we’ve shattered rule #1 (don’t moan about the ref) of the Gloverscast plenty of times but when have such an impact on a fixtures as Michael Scholes did it’s inevitable. From the 2nd minute when he didn’t book someone for a late tackle on Radcliffe you felt something was up. Slavi Spasov could have had two penalties that he just gave nothing for. James Daly was booked for his first tackle on anyone. It was inconsistent, indecisive and he lost control of the pitch and the benches. Yet again, another example of National League refereeing which didn’t match the professionals on the pitch.
Spot on Ian. Going to be interesting to see what ‘learning’ Billy takes from that one. He has shown he can be decisive. I reckon we have developed quicker than he expected. Nice, but also brings challenges for managers.
A good breakdown of a strange game.
Said at the start of the match, it might come down to who comes out better on the freak weather-related mistakes. Their keeper just about claws a save after his slip, yet unfortunately our keepers mistake goes in (and maybe Radcliffes pass for the first).
Thought Altrincham were a more fluent side than us, but in terms of chances made it was fairly equal and we had chances to get a winning goal.
All that being said, my anger at the referee will take a while to go away. All his focus was on prancing around and being seen enforcing 5 second rules and making sure subs ran off instead of walking, then completely bottled in terms of controlling the actual match.
There’s a lot to criticise, but the biggest example is two late, chopping tackles in the game. Farrell doesn’t even get a talking to let alone a card, and our player he gives a quick red
The defence, which had been so strong recently, seems to have reverted to some poor decision making and sloppiness which they got away with against Leatherhead but as proved yesterday a decent National League side will exploit. Weather and referee dire which didn’t help so hopefully back on track Tuesday.
I’m concerned that we are in a false position. Our wins have been predominantly against lower grade opposition, and when we have played top six sides, for example Southend, Fylde and now Altrincham, we have tripped up.
Don’t worry about it Chris – long-long way to go. We are where we are on merit (6-0 and 6-0 etc etc..). Contrary to any PTSD, other teams do not conspire to only beat Yeovil.
Only B-Wood has been consistent so far and that’ll be a good benchmark game in our true progress.
Relax – enjoy the ride. It’s so much better than the crap endured for the last 10-years plus.