Alex Bradley

Alex Bradley. Picture courtesy of Mike Kunz.

Former Glovers defender/midfielder/yellow card collector Alex Bradley has signed for Southern Premier League side Tamworth.

Dropping down a few levels, Bradley will be playing against the likes of Needham Market.

Originally joining on loan from Harrogate before making the switch to Huish Park permanent in January 2021.

Bradley played just over 50 games for the Glovers across all competitions, scoring just one league goal in a 1-1 draw against Notts County.

All the best at Tamworth, Alex

Alex Bradley in conversation with manager Darren Sarll.

Yeovil Town midfielder Alex Bradley spoke to the BBC after the Glovers’ 1-1 draw away at Maidenhead and he said it was disappointing not to get the win on his return to the side.

The former Finland youth international was making his first league start of the season and played 87 minutes before being replaced by Adi Yussuf.

“I really enjoyed being back playing with the lads, just disappointed we haven’t come away with all three points”

“I’ll play wherever I’m told to play, when the manager wants me to play… I feel fit, I feel really fit, the gaffer has got me doing extra running and extra training so yeah, I do feel fit and tonight I felt good out there”

The game saw no fewer than three goals ruled out for various reasons, two for the Glovers; and Bradley says there’s more to come from this side.

“We’ve got to want more, we’ve got to keep pushing as a team and as a squad, we can’t be satisfied with coming here tonight and going away with a point because these are the places we have to come and look to get all three points”

With Chesterfield on the horizon, Bradley is adamant the Glovers will be out for the win, with confidence remaining high.

“I think every game we have to go into with confidence, if you don’t you’ve already lost the game, it doesn’t matter who you’re playing – top of the league or bottom of the league – the objective has to be the same, to be going to game to try and win”

He also praised the return of Charlie Lee as assistant manager in his first league game in his new role, saying Lee is a “great bloke” and it’s “great to have him back”.

Bradley and Yeovil head to Derbyshire to face Chesterfield this Saturday at 17:20.

Alex Bradley has set himself the ambition of breaking in to the Yeovil Town midfield and manager Darren Sarll says he is not far away from doing it.

The versatile 23-year-old signed permanently last January having played as a right-back for his previous club Lincoln City and whilst on loan at Harrogate Town in the 2019-20 season and played 27 times for the Glovers last season – mostly at right-back.

Alex Bradley in conversation with manager Darren Sarll.

However, he has only started once for the Glovers this season in a midfield role in the 3-1 FA Trophy win over Woking in December and his only other game time has come from the substitutes’ bench.

Meanwhile, Sarll has brought in  Mark Little in the right-back slot and, when the experienced head was missing through injury he brought Dan Moss in on loan, with Morgan Williams also filling in.

Speaking ahead of the trip to Eastleigh on Saturday, the manager explained Bradley’s lack of starting appearances: “I signed Alex as a right back, but he thought – and I don’t disagree – that he would be more beneficial playing in midfield.

If someone commits to another position, the manager is reluctant to play him in a position he’s reluctant to play in.

“That drove our recruitment for another right back and for support for Mark when he was injured and Dan Moss was a top signing for us.

“It meant Alex was not competing with Mark Little and Jordan Barnett for a spot, he was competing with a bigger pool of midfield players and you have to be the best one.

“I don’t think there would be too many arguments if I said Josh Staunton, Matt Worthington and Dale Gorman have been among our best players this season, so it’s been harder for him to force himself in to the team.

“Alex has all the potential in the world, when he came in last year I likened him to Jack Stacey who is now at Bournemouth. You have these things as a manager and I know if Alex goes in at right back he gives it his all.”

Bradley played 13 minutes at the end of Tuesday night’s defeat at Wealdstone and six minutes in the closing stages of the derby draw against W*ymouth, but Sarll said he had seen “a real resurgence” in the player in recent weeks.

He said: “We have had to have lots of conversations, he’s probably in a stronger position than he has been right now.

“He has been training really well and I have seen a real hunger and desire in him and he’s made an impression when he’s come on.

“Those conversations between Alex and I have been beneficial.

Alex Bradley in conversation with manager Darren Sarll.

Have you seen Alex Bradley?

The former Finland youth International turned a loan deal from Lincoln into a permanent one back in January of 2021.

It’s probably safe to say the next year hasn’t quite been what he imagined.

At the time he said; My ambitions for the rest of the season are to play as many games as I can to the best of my ability and to help the team achieve what we are all capable of.

“To reach the play-off spots is doable and it’s up to us as a squad to make that happen. I hope we can have a very successful remainder of the campaign and get this club back to where it belongs.”

Those play off spots of course never materialised, and the reasons for that are complex and in no way, shape or form down to Alex.

In total, the defender/midfielder played 24 times in the 2020/21 season for Yeovil, mostly from the start and mostly at right back.

He was rarely absent through injury and only got sent off once right at the end of the season away at Aldershot.

Alex Bradley is sent off at Aldershot Town

Now, this season feels a very different story.

He has played in nine league games so far.

That’s less than half of the matches, what’s more alarming is that’s he started NONE.

Using Soccerbase as a guide his nine sub appearances in the league have come in the following minutes of matches; 89, 76, 89, 86, 87, 88, 75, 81 & 89.

He did get nearly half an hour vs Yate Town in the FA Cup and started the Trophy game against Woking but was taken off after 73 minutes.

All of this means his last completed match was the defeat to Stockport on the final day of last season.

I’ve been scratching my head as to what’s changed and why Bradley has been left out in the cold so often.

…and before you all start screaming “he’s clearly fallen out with the manager”…

I’m not going to putting that forward as an argument, there’s no evidence to suggest that and there might be more to it.

Yeovil signed Mark Little and then Dan Moss both would have been ahead of him in the pecking order for the right back shirt that he occupied so regularly last season.

But at Lincoln, he was predominantly a midfielder, playing as such in an EFL Cup game against Liverpool shortly before heading to Somerset.

The Glovers have moved to a 4-3-3 system this campaign for the most part and with the success of Gorman, Staunton and Worthington as a trio there means there has been little need to tinker with that – despite the little Mitch Rose experiment of which we shall not mention again.

It was suggested that he might be more suited to a standard right side of midfield position, recent talk of a return to 4-4-2 might have fuelled some excitement in the 22-year old of a potential return, but suggestions after the Southend loss are that a tactical switch might be on the scrap heap already have probably quashed that.

Alex Bradley. Picture courtesy of Mike Kunz.

Has he just been unlucky then?

He’s done nothing wrong in his mini cameos, but even then he came on in multiple different roles.

He played left wing at Stockport replacing Tom Knowles, he played on the right of the front three for a few seconds against Stevenage in the cup tasked with just killing time and being a nuisance.

He went into a defensive back line made up of about 7 players at Solihull and at Wrexham too.

Maybe he has just been biding his time, a little like Morgan Williams who had to snaffle a chance as an emergency left back when the opportunity came.

Others, like Matty Worthington have had unexplained time out the side and come back to be a mainstay in the team, so I don’t think his time at the club is coming to an end either.

It’s all a bit confusing and this weekend’s game against Needham Market might show us exactly where he stands in the respect of his involvement.

Despite Darren Sarll suggesting not much will change, he’d likely make a slight alteration or two.

We still expect Max Evans to play in goal (well, we don’t think Dillon Barnes is going to play) and with a potential reshuffle of putting Staunton in defence and with Worthington recovering from illness it might give Bradley some space in midfield.

Or will the early departure of Moss and the slow integration of Little back into the side offer him the chance back on the right side of defence?

What do you think? Has Alex Bradley been unlucky? Will he get a chance this weekend? Let us know!

Yeovil Town manager Darren Sarll was proud of his side’s comeback after the Glovers turned a 0-1 deficit into a 3-1 in the FA Trophy game against Woking.

Speaking to BBC Somerset’s Sheridan Robins he said that he needed to give his players a ‘polite’ word at the half time interval.

When we went in at half time, I thought about the interview afterwards and have to say I’d picked the wrong team, for the right reason, to try and give some players some extra minutes.”

“I reminded them the amount of balls we had to defend at Wrexham, the amount of commitment we had to show at Bromley, the amount of quality we’ve had to show over the last two months and I said ‘are you ready for that to be all in vein, for all that to end today?’”

“The second half, there was a different energy to us, the body language was different, because first half was absolute garbage”

“The attitude and energy of the players was magnificent second half and their spirit and their fightback – that’s a really experienced side, Woking, good players, good manager and I thought once we built our momentum and speed of our play I thought we became the team we’d become accustomed to seeing.”

Adi Yussuf in action for Yeovil Town.
Picture courtesy of Mike Kunz.

The introduction of Adi Yussuf on the hour mark was a key moment in the game as the Tanzanian international scored a brace to send the Glovers into the fourth round.

Sarll was full of praise for all three subs and the introduction from the start of Max Evans, Alex Bradley and Jeheim Headley

It’s like a team of misfits and they’re broken pieces of a puzzle, so when any of these lads do well, there’s a real sense of achievement… we like to celebrate their successes and Adi is no different.

(He’s) another one who has done so well for us, it’s taken its time, but he looks so much fitter and stronger now and he made a real difference when he came on.

He was powerful, disruptive and destructive and took his goals well.”

Young Max (Evans) in goal, didn’t have a lot to do, but I thought he kicked very well, I thought Reuben (Reid) did well – we are a different team to last year, so the service to him was different … Reuben is going to need time, Alex (Bradley) I thought did much better in the second half, I was worried about his booking, so instead of having him suspended and we go to Torquay with one sub, that we save him…”

Sarll also confirmed that winger Charlie Wakefield had a slight injury and had been ill this week and was unlikely to come off the bench, and hoped to have Morgan Williams back in contention for Boxing Day’s trip to Torquay.

 

 

Alex Bradley could be back in contention for this weekend’s televised fixture against FC Halifax Town at Huish Park.

The versatile player has missed the opening two matches of the season through injury and manager Darren Sarll said he is hopeful he will be available for selection at the weekend.

Speaking ahead of the game, the boss said: “I would like to think that Alex Bradley will be back in contention on Saturday after injury, it depends how late we can get him back in to training.

“I am not prepared to take a risk on someone like Alex just to get that fifth substitute on the bench.

Alex Bradley is sent off at Aldershot Town last season – it’s the only picture we had of him!

However, he added that there were no new injuries picked up in the 2-1 win at Aldershot Town on Monday with many players who played twice over the Bank Holiday weekend being given two days off training this week.

Sarll said he was still looking to bring “another couple” of players in to the squad.

He added: “We were close on one yesterday (Wednesday) but something turned for the worse and we were not able to get it done.”

Left-back Jack Robinson, who signed from Championship Middlesbrough ahead of the opening game defeat to King’s Lynn last weekend, will not be fit for Saturday.

The managers said: “We don’t know when he will be available, he rolled his ankle in his second session and it didn’t reduce in swelling and he did not recover so we are being precautionary with him.

“I don’t know when he’ll be back, I would like to say next Saturday away at Stockport.

“He will be a big player for us when he is because he is a wonderful passer of the ball and maybe allows us to play (Jordan) Barnett a bit further forward.”

Striker Reuben Reid and defender Mark Little will both be out of contention for Yeovil Town until Christmas, according to manager Darren Sarll.

Speaking ahead of the opening National League fixture at home to King’s Lynn on Saturday, the boss confirmed Little had undergone surgery on his foot after picking up an injury in the pre-season friendly against Forest Green Rovers.

Reid suffered a hamstring tear in the friendly against Weston-super-Mare will be missing for up to four months.

Yeovil Town manager Darren Sarll.
Picture courtesy of Mike Kunz.

 

Sarll said: “Both of them (Reid and Little) we should expect them around Christmas, if anyone was going to come back sooner it would Reuben but Mark had to undergo an operation.

“I have never seen anything like it in 20 years, put your foot down and rotate it the wrong way and a ligament ruptured on top of his metatarsal that keeps the metatarsal in position. – that is a new one on me!”

He also confirmed that defender Alex Bradley and loan midfielder Lewis Simper are also likely to miss the opening game.

Both appear to have been among a group of players who have been affected by the outbreak of COVID-19 which led to the postponement of the club’s final two pre-season friendlies and last weekend’s trip to Wrexham.

Speaking about new striker Adi Yussuf, the manager said the former Wrexham and Solihull Moors player still needed to work on his fitness before he could be a regular.

He said: “(Luke) Wilkinson said when he played against Yussuf (in training) he gave him a hard time and all those things are important when new players walk in to the dressing room.

“It would have been ideal if they had a bit longer, Adi needs to spike his fitness levels a bit before we see him playing week in, week out but he will be a really good signing.

“He has got that hunger back and sometimes players just need a home and to feel wanted and (Joe) Quigley was in that category and I am looking forward to working with Adi.”

Yeovil Town defender Alex Bradley has had his suspension confirmed by the Football Association today.

Bradley was sent off during the Glovers’ 2-0 loss to Aldershot on Tuesday night in the 55th minute.

The FA Suspensions Website has been updated to show that the defender is scheduled to miss three games for breach of Law 12 S1.

However, manager Darren Sarll confirmed the club’s intention to appeal the decision saying;

I just don’t get it, I don’t understand it… it’s on the half line, it’s a professional foul to stop the attack, he’s clipped his heel… there’s no danger to the individual, how many of them do you see every week?”

“We’d like to think with an appeal and a clear mind the referee might do the right thing, becasue I found it very strange”

We will bring you news of the outcome of any suspension here on the Gloverscast, but as it stands Alex Bradley will missing for games against King’s Lynn, Maidenhead and Altrincham before being available again on the final day of the season against Stockport County.