Yeovil Town manager Billy Rowley was left reflecting on a mix of attacking brilliance and defensive frailties after his side secured a resounding 5-2 victory over Leatherhead in the FA Cup fourth qualifying round.
The emphatic win sealed the Glovers’ progression to the next round, setting up a mouth-watering fixture away at Chesterfield. However, despite finding the back of the net five times, Rowley admitted there remains plenty to work on as his squad prepares to test themselves against EFL opposition.
Rowley expressed his relief and delight at getting through the tie to BBC Radio Somerset’s Mark Stillman;
”First and foremost, really, really happy to get through,” Rowley said., “We’ve got a really interesting tie in the next round at Chesterfield away, which I’m hoping obviously a lot of our fans will will try and help us out with, and I’m sure they will.
So, really pleased to to get through. Thought the support again was was great today. To pick the bones out of the game, I’ll have to obviously rewatch it. I think you always do, but my initial feeling is I think there’s there’s parts that we should have been a lot better with, a lot cleaner. But, We scored five goals. The displeasing thing for me was just the the one or two attacks that Leatherhead had… we looked quite open and quite fragile, which is something we’re obviously going to have to to address.
The tie got off to a nightmare start for the Glovers when they fell behind inside the opening two minutes. Rowley did not hide his frustration over the early concession, which stemmed from a lost header and a subsequent strike from the edge of the box.
“That’s obviously something that really annoyed me and I’m sure the players at the time. I mean, the very first attack, I think I’ll have to watch it back. I think we lost a header and then it just dropped for them and they had a shot on the edge of the box, it went in. Really strange one for us. Something we’ll have to obviously review and and sometimes these things are random moments and we want to make sure that it doesn’t become a habit of ours or something that that’s a notable like weakness of ours. And I don’t think it is. It was just a real moment of kind of quality from them and poor defending from us.”
Slavi Spasov was among the standout names, bagging a brace. Rowley was full of praise for the forward’s relentless energy and infectious character.
”He’s a great, great lad,” Rowley said. “He’s a great great lad. I enjoy his energy towards training every day. He’s an infectious character. He really loves his football. He does a lot for the team. A lot of supporters maybe don’t see it because your number nine, your striker is just supposed to outscore everyone and when he’s not scoring, we still value everything he does. I think his out-of-possession stuff is is great. His touch, he brings people into play, his movement to hold up the ball is stuff that we really notice and we value a lot. So, yeah, really happy for him to top it off with with two goals.”
Substitutions proved pivotal, Charlie Lennon came off the bench to score twice and inject serious momentum into the attack. Rowley pointed out that Lennon has had fewer minutes than he would like due to the stellar early-season form of players like James Daly and Mason Obeng.
“Charlie’s come on the pitch today and done everything that was asked of him. Every time he got the ball, hedrove us forward, he pushed them back into the box, he created chances for us. He got in some really good balls, and then, gets two goals. [Liam] Nardiello as well, I just pulled him in the in the gym one-on-one and praised him again. He just came and stepped in because of a couple of injuries today, but everything that was asked of him in possession, he did great.”
Attention now turns to a blockbuster FA Cup clash against Chesterfield in a couple of weeks. Looking ahead to taking on an EFL side, Rowley acknowledged the magnitude of the test.
“We were just looking at some of the data in League Two earlier today actually with with some of the guys we work with and their underlying metrics across the board are basically telling me that they’re the best team in League Two, so it’s going to be a great test for us, you know, litmus test to see where we’re at and, very much looking forward to it and you know, hopefully we can we can go there and pull off an upset.”