It’s obvious that Yeovil Town haven’t quite adjusted to life back in League Two; just one win and only four points in total from their opening seven league games mean that they are languishing right at the bottom of the Football League. What is less obvious, though, is the reason for their dire start to the season. How can a team who were only recently playing in the Championship suddenly be struggling in League Two?
If you’re a Glovers fan you’ll probably try and claim it’s the fault of the officials. Refereeing mistakes have been commonplace at Huish Park for many years, with many stating that Yeovil Town are unfairly disadvantaged by the man in the middle through being such a small club. Indeed, a compilation of ‘mistakes’ from just the 2013/14 season has been viewed over 2,000 times on YouTube after the club was relegated from the Championship.
In truth, almost every fanbase in the country asserts that they’re discriminated against by referees. However, you can’t blame the officials for back-to-back relegations no matter how hard you try. Yes, even if Adam le Fondre dived to win a penalty; yes, even if the ball went out of play before Bolton scored; and yes, even if James Hayter was not even close to Robert Green when he was ruled to be “impeding” him. (If you’re a Yeovil fan, you’ll remember all of those incidents!)
A more regularly flagged excuse this year is the injury crisis currently going on in Somerset. Starting the season with Simon Gillett and Kevin Dawson already set for a lengthy spell on the side-lines, Paul Sturrock’s squad has been decimated with niggling frailties and long-term strains over the past few weeks. At its worst, Sturrock has gone on record to say that eight or nine players of whom are currently ruled out would be in the starting 11 were it not for injury.
This would be a disaster for any club, let alone one who has a history of working with small squads. The result will be that Yeovil won’t be able to name a full bench for their game against AFC Wimbledon, even with the help of academy players. In contrast, for the League One Play-Off Final, Yeovil had just two of their main players out injured: midfielders Matty Dolan and Dominic Blizzard, who arguably wouldn’t have started the match anyway. It’s clear how important fitness is for a small club like Yeovil.
On the other hand, Glovers supporters should be reminded of the troubles that Wycombe Wanderers faced last year in League Two towards the ‘crunch time’ of the campaign in April. It even resulted in manager, Gareth Ainsworth, weighing up the possibility of coming out of retirement just so the he could fill his bench. Despite this, Wycombe still managed to secure a place in the League Two Play-Off places, even making it to the final at Wembley. In fact, it was only penalties that saw Southend United promoted to England’s third tier instead of the Chairboys.
With this in mind, can Yeovil Town use having a long injury list as an excuse when Wycombe not only coped much better than them, but also thrived when faced with the same problem?
It’s fair to say that there are other reasons why Yeovil have struggled this year, though. A key issue has been their inability to hold onto leads, with negative and defensive tactics at fault for conceding goals. The clichéd “parking of the bus” has been used ineffectively in most games, including against Morecambe when the Glovers went from 2-0 up to 4-2 down in the space of 45 minutes. Even if it did work, it’s always horrible to see a home team trying to preserve a lead or draw when they should, in my view, be going forward and attacking.
So, is Yeovil’s poor start to the season down to injuries or do the problems lie deeper? It’s hard to say yet, but when every player is given a clean bill of health, we will soon have the answer.
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