It was an entertaining Tuesday night at Huish Park and Jonathan Hooper has delivered us with yet another stat pack to chew over.
We didn’t dominate possession
That stats show we were quite comfortable letting Ebbsfleet have the ball, especially in the first half. A lot of our chances came from ‘Fleet trying to play out from the back and us then catching them on the break. Over the course of the 90 minutes the visitors had 59% possession but did very little with it. Their xG was 0.44 and the two they did score were gifts. You can see on the momentum chart, Yeovil were in total control until around the hour mark, where that crazy spell saw Ebbsfleet take control and level it up. Fleet switched to wing backs, and really isolated Raphael Araoye, who lost 10 of his 15 ground duels and conceded possession six times. Sonny Blu Lo-Everton came into the game at left wing back in the 70th minute, to protect his teammate and nullify that threat which did halt that momentum.
We did dominate in attack
You can’t criticise the Glovers for not going for it. Yeovil had 14 shots at goal with 8 on target and an xG of 3.49. Mark Cousins goal was peppered with shots from inside the 18-yard-box and you can see from the average positions that the attacking midfielders had a lot more influence on the game. It was a similar pattern for Aaron Jarvis as on the opening day though. His one shot at goal was brilliantly saved – and led to Michael Smith scoring – but he didn’t get a lot of the ball. A lot of Jarvis’s work has been what he’s done off the ball, rather than on it, so far.
Brett McGavin Tuesdays
The centre midfielder enjoyed his night on Tuesday, bagging a wonderful goal from the edge of the box. McGavin had 46 touches of the ball, was accurate with 84% of 31 passes and made three key passes. What you get with McGavin is risk, however. He conceded possession 12 times against Braintree, 11 times against Ebbsfleet and 10 times against Hartlepool. Since the Hartlepool match, McGavin’s average position has been further forward than his partner, Matt Worthington, meaning he’s taking those risks in higher up the pitch rather than in his own half.