Five Conclusions: Yeovil Town 3 Maidenhead United 1

A solid performance saw Yeovil run out 3-1 winners against Maidenhead United at Huish Park. I was in the Press Box, and here are my five conclusions from a lovely afternoon in the sunshine.

That was a proper strikers’ performance. Aaron Jarvis has been working hard since the first minute of the season. He’s spent much if his time in green and white wrestling with his opposing defenders, bringing his teammates into the game and trying to on the end of things. The Maidenhead game had all of that and the chances and goals on top of it. His first was all about his quick feet and composure inside the box. His second was anticipation, quick thinking and being in the right place at the right time. He was unfortunate to not get a hat trick, but after all the hard work and battling up front, Yeovil’s #9 has hit some form.

The McGavin – Cooper axis is working. We’ve been fairly spoiled for combinations in centre midfield over the past season and a half, but there’s something about McCooper that just works. Cooper is playing as well as he ever has in a Yeovil Town shirt, in my opinion. He’s controlling the tempo nicely and his recent performance deserved a goal – and what a great goal it was. McGavin has been a superb acquisition, and the kind of midfielder we’ve not had for a while. He’s always looking forward, plays the progressive passes rather than the sideways ones when he can and is calm and composed on the ball. The two’s contrasting styles complement one another and I thought they were dominant against Maidenhead.

We have a talent in Kofi Shaw. 17. He’s 17! What a confident, fearless player Shaw is. He was pulling strings in the forward areas, getting stuck into battles and showed off some of his trickery. His back heel for Wannell’s overlap that led to Jarvis’s second was the kind of synchronisation you expect from a player who’s been at the club for months, not days. He’s clearly an intelligent player and we know he is thought very highly of at Bristol Rovers and, based on his performance yesterday, has all the tools in his toolbox. He’s young, though, and with us to learn and get accustomed to men’s football so it might not be like that every week, and that’s okay.

We looked sound defensively again. There’s been very few times this season where we’ve looked stretched or overrun defensively and, despite the absentees yesterday we looked assured, controlled and dominant again. Finn Cousin-Dawson, who’s been the ‘break glass in an emergency’ defender played that stopper role well and with Wannell and Bernard (who gets better every week) they took control of the passing out from the back. When an influential player like Morgan Williams is missing its okay to be concerned what the impact will be, but that defensive unit looked as solid as ever.

Up to 7th – don’t say the P word. At Gloverscast we’re never far off being accused of being too negative, or too positive ironically, which means we’re probably somewhere in the middle. But, pick your poison here. The recent performances, and the clicking in the final third has seen us bag 6 goals in our last 3 matches. Mark Cooper wanted a reaction from his team after the FA Cup defeat at Chesham and he’s had it. As we saw last season, momentum counts for a lot in football and the performances have been steadily improving. If we can keep up the pace with those around us, we’ll land well above mid-table. The next three are Southend (A), Halifax (H)  and York (A), which on paper are trickier than the last three, but I don’t go into any games worrying about what the opposition have up their sleeve anymore, because when we’re on song, I fancy our chances.