Rowley: McCormick is Yeovil’s Lampard

Yeovil Town boss Billy Rowley hailed captain Luke McCormick as the club’s equivalent to goal-scoring midfielder Frank Lampard after his two goals sealed a first win of the season at Huish Park.

The midfielder, who idolised the legendary Chelsea player when he was coming up in the Stamford Bridge academy, struck twice in the final ten minutes to seal a 3-0 win over Gateshead on Saturday.

The Glovers had taken an early lead through striker Ste Walker after just two minutes and could have added to their tally before the half-time break as they dominated the game.

Speaking about McCormick to BBC Somerset’s Jack Killah after the game, Rowley said: “That is what he does, he plays like a second striker for us. When we talk to opposition managers after games they single him out as being a real threat because of his movement. He is constantly looking to find gaps in the opposition back line and no matter what game you are planning, he has a real knack for it. I know his favourite player is Frank Lampard and he is Yeovil’s Frank Lampard, the way he breaks the lines and gets shots away. It was another really good performance for him.”

Having seen late equalisers at Scunthorpe United on the opening day and in last weekend’s 1-1 draw with Carlisle United deny his side at the death, the boss admitted that he was still on the edge of his seat as the game pushed in to the closing stages.

He said: “Because of the events of the past couple of weeks, I was on edge just before we scored our second because I have seen it before in football. We’ve been really dominated, we should be scoring three or four goals but because you don’t, the opposition get one chance and score and your fans are sucking the wind out of you. Luckily it didn’t happen that way, we were really clinical and it finished 3-0 so I was over the moon with the lads. They trained so well during the week, it was something that Macca (captain Luke McCormick) said before the game, it was the best he has seen in training and I agree. The boys are hungry, playing well and deserved three goals.”

The boss added: “Everything was on point for us, in possession we were good, out of possession we were decent as well, set pieces we were really good and both sides of the transition we were decent. My only criticism of the boys at half-time was there are times when we feel games are slightly easy that edge comes out of us in the defensive transitions and two or three players think ‘we will be alright.’ I reminded them of that and we finished on our backs today, worked really hard and overall it was a really good performance all round.

“I am so pleased with all of them as a squad and a group of lads. Even though he is on the bench, Ste Walker was stood up on the bench towards the end there, screaming like a third coach for people to get back in and I love that, it shows a real togetherness and a passion for what we are trying to do.”

In defence, centre half Joe Gubbins was missing through suspension after his red card against Carlisle, with Joy Mukena coming back in to the starting line-up alongside loanee Ben Radcliffe, who has a spell on loan at Gateshead last season. Rowley said he was pleased with his defensive unit as they limited Gateshead to only a handful of opportunities throughout the 90 minutes.

The manager said: “Radders (Ben Radcliffe) has helped with a lot of communication, we missed Gubbs (the suspended Joe Gubbins) today. I would not say any of the guys back there are overly vocal, Joy (Mukena) is probably the best, but their understanding of football is really good. They are working in sync, they move together, so it does not look like they have only played a couple of times together, their personalities and what they have brought to this team has been exceptional.”

He confirmed that Radcliffe had “rolled his ankle” in the first half and needed to come off for Loick Ayina after 66 minutes.

The Glovers will assess the Crawley Town player’s fitness as they prepare for an August Bank Holiday weekend double header which sees them travel to Barrow next Friday followed by a home match with Tamworth just 72 hours later.

Rowley said: “It is going to be a really tricky game for us on Friday (at Barrow) and then we travel back here on Monday (to face Tamworth) which is going to be a quick turnaround. So Glen (Shephard, the Head of Sports Science) and the staff are going to have to be really on point with our recovery and team selection. We are going to have treat both games as one and have an eye on recovery times and that kind of thing. We feel a bit of relief having won a game after the last couple of weeks, so we will start planning for Barrow tomorrow and see how we go.“