Glovers on a Roll?

Having now had a few days to take in the performance at the weekend, I have drawn a few conclusions:

1. We still lack cutting edge up front. This was painfully obvious as it was happening on Saturday, but whilst (first half especially) we completely outplayed the Shrimpers, we only ended up outscoring them by a goal that hit one of our strikers on it's way wide of the goal. Matches like that, especially against ten men, are often decided that way, but let's not pretend, this isn't the first time this season our lack of cutting edge has come back to haunt us - cases in point are the 3-3 with Leyton Orient at Huish Park earlier this season, and the away defeat at Elland Road. The Leyton Orient match especially could have been dead and buried by the time Jarvis scored their third, and we wasted even more chances after they'd equalised. The fact that in late November Ryan Mason is still our top scorer with 4 goals (although we do admittedly have a decent spread of goalscorers) shows that we could really still do with someone who is going to finish teams off on a regular basis. Obika, generally playing well in my opinion, is not quite clinical enough (4 goals in the Spurs reserves notwithstanding), Williams doesn't score, Tomlin in my opinion isn't good enough to lead the line. So the buck seems to fall to Dean Bowditch, scorer of two goals in 70 minutes as a Glovers player. Will he be good enough? He undoubtedly possesses quality, but his injury record, especially before joining the Glovers, isn't encouraging. We need to find that ability to apply the finishing touch from somewhere.

2. We should be looking up rather than down. A third into the season, we lie 12th with 21 points, two wins from the playoffs. Now, it may seem like like I'm calling a cooker hot here, but the top teams gather points much quicker than the bottom. That we're more or less keeping pace with the teams above us chasing playoff places, for the moment at least, is a very good sign and you feel it'll take a while for a team like Stockport to pick up 7 points that we do not. George O'Callaghan seemed to state earlier this week that the playoffs are the aim, and whilst I feel they'll probably be out of our reach, the very fact that this team aren't just striving to survive in League 1 has bought the buzz back to Huish Park.

3. Well I say bought the buzz back, the one thing Skivo hasn't brought back to Huish Park yet are supporters. Charlton are expecting to bring 1700 supporters down at the weekend, almost half the total attendance last weekend. The gaffer must be wondering what on earth he has to do to get the supporters back - there have been 24 goals (15 scored, 9 conceded) so far in 8 games this season, 3 goals a match on average, what more can the supporters want than a winning team and lots of goals?

To be perfectly honest, there isn't a lot to complain about so far, and my third point must be the one of biggest concern to Skivo at this point in time - dwindling attendances mean a smaller playing budget at a time when the team has really had to reel in it's spending anyway. There isn't a lot to complain about at this point for a Yeovil fan and with the Charlton match merely a day away, let's hope we'll have even more to cheer about come Saturday at 5pm.