Back in August the Glovers confirmed the signing of Bournemouth striker Jake Scrimshaw. The 21-year-old signed for Yeovil from the Cherries on a two-year-deal and there was a fair amount of excitement around the signing.
He scored four goals in 19 appearances for Scunthorpe last season and had fleeting spells at Newport County and Walsall in the previous season. He had a prolific record for Bournemouth’s academy sides and came with a promising pedigree.
At the announcement of his signing, Chris Hargreaves said: “I’m really pleased to welcome Jake to the club. He’s a versatile forward who can offer us flexibility in the way we play and utilise him.
“Jake is the sort of player who will work his socks off for the team. He’s desperate to be a success here at Yeovil Town.
Since his signing, Scrimshaw has made five appearances in the National League for Yeovil from the bench spending just over 13 minutes on the pitch on average. His last appearance was 8 minutes against Oldham Athletic in Chris Hargreaves’ penultimate match in charge.
Towards the end of September, Hargreaves did give an insight into ‘Scrimmy’s’ first months at the club: “It has been a tough position for him coming from Bournemouth to us, the National League has different elements to under-21s at Bournemouth. He’s fighting for his spot and there’s competition for places with Gime Toure who has scored and Malachi Linton, but Scrimmy certainly working hard to get that start.”
That start never came and since Mark Cooper took over from Hargreaves at the end of October Scrimshaw hasn’t been in a match day squad, although he was seen with the players at Woking.
It seems a safe assumption that all is not well there. Scrimshaw has largely been overlooked by two managers since his signing and in a side that has struggled to stick the ball in the net, he’s never been seen as the answer to the Glovers’ goal scoring woes. In truth, we don’t really have any idea what sort of player he is. When he joined Scunthorpe last season, then manager Neil Cox said: “He’s a centre forward who wants to play on the shoulder and run in behind, and wants to be in the penalty box to score goals. We’ll be patient with him and encourage him but I’m sure he’ll be an excellent signing for us.”
Cooper quickly recruited Anthony Georgiou, Andrew ‘the right winger’ Oluwabori and Louis Britton and gave Alex Fisher a clearly defined role in order to make Yeovil more productive in the final third. He has since let Hargreaves’ signings Ollie Hulbert and Will Dawes go out on loan.
The departure of Georgiou back to Leyton Orient to ‘balance the books’ raised eyebrows in the aftermath of Saturday’s 0-0 with Scunthorpe and if the scales still aren’t right, surely Scrimshaw will be high on the list of potential outgoings. The question is, with a two-year deal and just 67 minutes on the pitch this season, how on earth are Yeovil going to move Scrimshaw along if that’s the desire?
This isn’t the first (and won’t be the last) curious case at Yeovil Town, earlier this year we wrote about Alex Bradley…