Shambolic Glovers throw it away again

YEOVIL Town have the second worst home record in the in the npower League One, and this match against promotion hopefuls Huddersfield Town showed exactly why.

A man to the good for 76 minutes after former Glover Lee Peltier was red-carded by referee Phil Crossley after lashing out at Dean Bowditch, Yeovil missed a host of chances to have been out of sight by half-time and them meekly surrendered their physical advantage with an appalling second-half display that bordered on shambolic.

Anyone who came in at half-time and was not aware of the situation would have thought the Terriers had a full team so much were they on top, particularly after Antony Kay was left unmarked to head the equaliser just before the hour.

I will prove unpopular with some people at the football club once more for my negative comments, but the reality is these are facts not opinions.

The Glovers were by far the better side even before Peltier’s dismissal, but once again their inability to score goals has proved costly.

Despite the fact that Andy Williams scored a delightful goal to put them ahead on 39 minutes -curling his low shot around keeper Ian Bennett into the corner of the net - the reality is he missed two excellent chances from close in before that, which ended up further away from goal than where he was standing.

Then, before Kay’s equaliser, he poked his shot wide of the far post from no more than two yards out when it was easier to have cut it back to a colleague.

With Oli Johnson spurning an easy chance before dithering on the ball when put through clear on goal allowing Terriers skipper Peter Clarke to dispossess him, and Max Ehner ballooning the ball over the bar from almost on the line after Bennett fumbled a shot from a corner, all in the first-half, Yeovil could and should have had the game won by the break.

Whether the man advantage made them complacent is anyone’s guess, but a reshuffle at half-time by Huddersfield manager Lee Clark outsmarted his Yeovil counterpart Terry Skiverton, and the Terriers, playing much further up the field, kept the Glovers penned in their own half for long periods.

The loss of midfielder Paul Wotton with a pulled hamstring after four minutes did not help the cause particularly in the second half where they were looking for someone to break up Huddersfield’s dominance but Yeovil’s inability to overcome a team of ten men for practically the whole match suggests there is something radically wrong, particularly as the opposition did not prove to be that much better despite their high league status.

There followed further misery on Tuesday evening when Southampton recorded an easy 3-0 victory at St Mary’s Stadium.

True the Glovers were missing Wotton and skipper Paul Huntingdon who appeared to injure his foot on Saturday when, with keeper Stephen Henderson, he prevented Benk Afobe grabbing a winner for Huddersfield.

However the game was very much one way and now the Glovers have slipped perilously back into the relegation fight with Plymouth Argyle, Dagenham & Redbridge and Bristol Rovers all winning on Tuesday.

Saturday’s home clash with Walsall becomes a hugely important clash, as nothing more than a victory will do to keep them from dropping back into the bottom four.

Skiverton was a winner on the field, but he had better get back to winning from the dug-out very soon or relegation beckons for his team.

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