Venue: Huish Park
Tuesday 7th March, 7.45pm kick-off
Pitch: Mostly green
Conditions: Cold – very cold
Attendance: 2,961 (165 away supporters)
Scorers: Matt Worthington 64
Bookings:
Yeovil Town: Jordan Stevens 33, Edwin Agbaje 53,
Eastleigh: Ousseynou Cisse 59, Alfie Lloyd 90+4
Referee: Gary Parsons
Yeovil Town (5-3-2)
Substitutes: Edwin Agbaje (for Morgan Williams, 3), Alex Fisher (for Jordan Maguire-Drew, 73), Lawson D’Ath (for Stevens, 88), Andrew Oluwabori (not used), Reo Griffiths (not used).
Eastleigh: McDonnell, Kelly, Martin, Langston, Cisse, Whitehall, McKiernan (for Maghoma, 75), Rutherford, Lloyd, Scrimshaw (for Atanga, 86). Substitutes (not used):
Match Report
A second half goal from Matt Worthington earned Yeovil Town a huge win over play-off side Eastleigh in front of a bumper crowd at Huish Park on Tuesday night.
It was a performance to warm a bitterly cold night in Somerset with a unusually pulsating first half shooting towards the away end, but the winning goal came after 64 minutes when Worthington rose at the back post to head home a Jordan Stevens cross.
Eastleigh, who constantly looked a threat at the opposite end, were reduced to ten men when midfielder Ousseynou Cisse got a second booking for bringing down a non-stop Jordan Young and the Glovers held out for a deserved three points.
First half
It was a nightmare start for Yeovil as Morgan Williams stretched for a ball and looked to pull his hamstring. The result was he had to be replaced by Edwin Agbaje after just three minutes.
On the pitch, Michael Kelly (one of the ex-Glovers in the visitors’ line-up along with strikers Alfie Lloyd and Jake Scrimshaw) found Danny Whitehall whose speculative effort from long range lifted over the bar.
There was some good pressure from the home side in the opening ten minutes with some confident play in the middle of the park, but not a great deal going in to the box.
For Eastleigh, great forward run from Lloyd – who has certainly ‘filled out’ since he was in the youth set-up at Huish Park – made a powerful run down the right and his ball found its way to Ousseynou Cisse, who dragged his shot wide. Warning sign, that.
On 15 minutes, Yeovil gave the visitors their own warning sign as a great cross from Matt Worthington almost found Jordan Young in the middle. He couldn’t get a decent connection on the ball, echoes of his opportunity against Woking last weekend.
Five minutes later it was a bursting run forward by Jordan Stevens who unlocked the visiting defence and prodded the ball to Jordan who just could not get his shot away surrounded by a host of Eastleigh defenders. The ball broke to Worthington who went down looking for a penalty. Not for me, Matty.
But if you wanted to see what a stonewall penalty is, you only had to wait two minutes. Young rounded keeper Joe McDonnell and was unceremoniously pulled to the ground. Referee Gary Parsons neither gave the penalty or book Young for diving. Rule 1 of the Gloverscast prevents us from saying what an absolute joke of a decision that was anything on this decision.
Yeovil did not allow this blatant piece of terrible refereeing piece of bad luck put them off and Jordan Maguire-Drew was next in the action with a bending effort from the edge of the box which McDonnell had to touch over the box.
The next chance fell to Eastleigh after 35 minutes. A low free-kick inside the box landed to the feet of Charlie Carter charging in to the box with Josh Staunton and Jamie Reckord charging back at him, and the midfielder fired wide of Grant Smith’s right-hand post.
This is some game! On 39 minutes, McDonnell was in action again as Maguire-Drew was found from a corner, did superbly to take the ball down and bent it towards the bottom corner, but the keeper did superbly to turn it wide. Don’t you just hate it when keepers have worldies against us?
Wow. If that was the first half, I can’t wait for the second.
Half time: Yeovil Town 0 Eastleigh 0
Second half
The first chance fell to Yeovil as they broke in from the right with first Law having a go, it broke to Reckord who looked certain to bundle it home before Worthington’s header was cleared off the line by George Langston. God, what do we have to do to score?
At the other end another rapid break from Eastleigh saw Danny Whitehall find half-a-yard of space and got a shot in which Smith dropped on quickly.
On the hour mark, Eastleigh broke on the counter attack and it was Whitehall again whose header was cleared off the line by Matt Worthington. For all our pressure, there’s still that threat at the other end.
From one end to the other and two minutes later, a great ball in from the right by Maguire-Drew and it was Jordan Young putting himself in where it hurt (see Mark Cooper’s comments after the game against Woking) but he could not quite turn it in to a real effort to test McDonnell.
The breakthrough that Yeovil’s performance had deserved came on 66 minutes. A superb ball in from the left by Stevens found WORTHINGTON rising like a salmon (not Pollock, he’s injured) at the back post to head the ball home. Thank goodness the useless referee did not see the push for Worthy.
But, this game was far from over and three minutes after taking the lead, Lloyd threatened to be the party pooper for his old employers, but his effort was deflected wide on 68 minutes.
On 73 minutes, Maguire-Drew (he might have been off the boil in recent games, but he was on it tonight) was replaced by Fisher.
Nine minutes later the visitors were reduced to ten after great play by Staunton set the tireless Young, who collided with Cisse. It was the midfielder’s second booking – his first had come for dissent earlier in the half – and he was given his marching orders by this useless referee.
There were plenty of heart in mouth moments as Eastleigh were given free-kicks in dangerous positions as the game ticked in to injury time. How is your blood pressure? When Carter put an effort wide three minutes in to five minutes of injury time mine was……not great.
But Yeovil hung on for the win and put three points between themselves and Gateshead, who occupy the National League’s final relegation place.
A great team performance