Yeovil Town skipper Josh Staunton has said that Tuesday night’s game at Dorking Wanderers is a “must win” following the Glovers’ 1-0 defeat to Southend United.
A clearly emotional and almost angry skipper spoke to BBC Somerset’s Sheridan Robins following the game.
“We can’t keep making excuses and feeling sorry for ourselves, it’s times like this we have to earn your stripes as a Yeovil player. Anyone who was here to day can tell those on the pitch gave their all for the club, but we have to everything right to get it right by Tuesday.
“There’s no point dressing over it, we need a win, we needed a win today, we need a win even more now because the games are ticking by. We need an ugly win, it doesn’t matter how we get it really, performances have been okay, but they don’t bring us results.”
When asked if the team had discussed if the midweek trip to Dorking represented a ‘must win‘, the response was clear: “Absolutely.”
“Anyone who doesn’t know that in is kidding themselves a bit. We know today was a big go for us and this was an important week for us. We gave ourselves a mountain to climb, shot ourselves in the foot (with the dismissal of striker Gime Toure after 17 minutes) and we can’t let it be a hangover for Tuesday and an excuse for Tuesday. It’s a case of brushing this off and getting right for Tuesday whatever way we have to do it.
“We have got to start turning performances into results, it’s as simple as that. We’ve had some good home performances and they’ve come to one point. We’ve got to start – I don’t know, I’m a bit emotionally driven at the moment – I’m struggling to find excuses for it, we need to go and get a win.”
Staunton had a goal ruled out shortly after his side had been reduced to ten men, something which he says he hasn’t had an explanation about.
“As is the way these days, the goalkeeper tried catching… well, I don’t know what the goalie was trying to do. I just jumped up and headed it, he came flying into the back of me, I was pretty stationary, my arms were down and no explanation given, just ‘it’s a foul’.
“When things are against you, it seems things really are against you, those things swing matches. It would have been a real positive swing on going down to ten, but as seems to be the way the goalies are protected.”
The captain was happy to express he fr****tion (we’ve banned that word) at both the incident which saw Gime Toure sent off and the Southend goal, calling them both key moment which cost the side a better result.
“We were under the cosh a bit, they were committing men and the bloke had an unopposed header in the box, as seems to be the way at the moment. He’s headed it into the far corner, it was a decent header to be fair to him, but again it’s a momentary lapse in concentration which has cost us all three today.”
The second half of the game, saw a rise in effort to make up for the one man, and one goal deficit, but it was not enough.
“One thing you’ll never question with this group is the resiliance, the application and the attitude, everyone had a go today and those boys are on their absolute last legs out there… when you go down to ten against a decent footballing team, you are doing a hell of a lot of running, at the back we were leaving ourselves man-v-man an awful lot to try and get the goal.”
Yeovil Town’s “must win” game on Tuesday kicks off at 7:45pm at Dorking Wanderers.