Yeovil Town midfielder Matt Worthington is enjoying playing in a more advanced position under new manager Mark Cooper.
The 24-year-old impressed playing a role supporting the attack in last weekend’s 3-1 home win over bottom club Gateshead and is hoping to carry on this form when the Glovers travel to top-of-the-table Notts County on Saturday.
Speaking before the game, he said: “Being higher up the pitch suits my attributes, I can press from the position higher up the pitch, win the ball back and I want to start adding goals and assists to my game, so being in that position will help.”
Cooper was again full of praise for the former AFC Bournemouth youngster and suggested he expects him to continue in the new role in the coming weeks.
The manager said: “Matt has tremendous athletic attributes, so we need him to run through the middle of the pitch and create opportunities which he did on Saturday.
“I don’t want him sitting back and not being able to use his athleticism, so it makes sense for us to let him off the leash and let him run.”
Worthington spent half-a-season on loan at Forest Green Rovers working under Cooper in 2018 and said the new manager had given the squad an opportunity to show what they are about since his arrival at Huish Park.
He said: “He’s given everyone a chance to show themselves, it’s a clean slate for everyone. He’s made a big difference in terms of the style he wants to play, eventually he wants to have us playing good, attacking football.
“But, as he has said, that takes time. We need to get back to basics, get points on the board and however we do that, that’s what we need to do.
“From the first day he came in he said the big problem was confidence, he had watched a few games before he took over as manager and he could see that, everyone could see that.
“We needed to strip back to basics and I said before last weekend that the goals would come, and they did.
“When he came in I was excited and over the past couple of games you can see what he has worked with us on – it’s keeping the ball, high intensity and getting after people.”
Worthington spoke about the club’s difficult start to the season which led to the dismissal of Chris Hargreaves, who was only appointed manager in the summer.
He said: “It was hard. For me personally, I struggled with going home and annoying the missus quite a lot by being in a bad mood, Yeovil is a small place and when we are not winning games it seems like the whole town is on a down.
“We have a good group and a good captain in Staunts (Josh Staunton) and we have multiple conversations with just the players to say this is what we need to do.
“We needed to stick together, stick to the game plan and if we kept trying to make chances, things will change and hopefully things have changed now.”