Just back

Someone's mildly impressed, in from 13/2 to 4/1 third favourites tonight. 11/4 Chesterfield, 7/2 Wrexham

If we can’t enjoy tonight and our current success, when can we.
If all goes our way in 7 days time we could have 35 points from 14 games…..I’d say that’s pretty impressive

Quoted from IlkleyMariner

If we can’t enjoy tonight and our current success, when can we.
If all goes our way in 7 days time we could have 35 points from 14 games…..I’d say that’s pretty impressive

This is my take on it, we’ve improved beyond what anyone would’ve imagined and anyone that thought we’d be too at this current stage is a liar…

We look a decent side, perhaps not our best performance today but we won and good sides find a way of winning…I reckon, with the exception of possibly Chesterfield, every single team would happily swap and be us at this moment in time…
Fans of teams around the top would’ve been looking at phones with 5 to go, seeing Yeovil in the ascendancy and hoping they nicked something…then we scored…remember how many times we left BP and then ducking Barnet scored or Fleetwood nicked one etc…

May be we’ve become that team finally…

for me the main problem is that Taylor has raised the bar , and 6 years after his first stint with us, LJL hasn't improved.6 years ago we accepted Lennie , for all his faults, but now he's 6 years older and still isn't really capable of scoring a 1 on1 or doing that bit of magic that Taylor can. He is very much second best and if we are going to try and win the league we, unfortunately, need better. Taylor is 33 and we will be lucky to get 40 games out of him so a competent replacement is essential.
I like lennie, but if we want to win the league we are going to need a back up striker who can step up to the plate. imho we need a slightly older, better Essel type striker who has pace and movement and an ability to finish.

Quoted from forza ivano

for me the main problem is that Taylor has raised the bar , and 6 years after his first stint with us, LJL hasn't improved.6 years ago we accepted Lennie , for all his faults, but now he's 6 years older and still isn't really capable of scoring a 1 on1 or doing that bit of magic that Taylor can. He is very much second best and if we are going to try and win the league we, unfortunately, need better. Taylor is 33 and we will be lucky to get 40 games out of him so a competent replacement is essential.
I like lennie, but if we want to win the league we are going to need a back up striker who can step up to the plate. imho we need a slightly older, better Essel type striker who has pace and movement and an ability to finish.

There’s a lad at Donnie not getting a game that’s very much like that…

In all seriousness, I agree. Taylor is clearly w class above Lennie. It’s clear that everyone loves Lennie and the players certainly respect him, he brings many things to the side but if we’re chasing a goal, you wouldn’t fancy him to get it…

Quoted from forza ivano

for me the main problem is that Taylor has raised the bar , and 6 years after his first stint with us, LJL hasn't improved.6 years ago we accepted Lennie , for all his faults, but now he's 6 years older and still isn't really capable of scoring a 1 on1 or doing that bit of magic that Taylor can. He is very much second best and if we are going to try and win the league we, unfortunately, need better. Taylor is 33 and we will be lucky to get 40 games out of him so a competent replacement is essential.
I like lennie, but if we want to win the league we are going to need a back up striker who can step up to the plate. imho we need a slightly older, better Essel type striker who has pace and movement and an ability to finish.

We certainly accepted him 6 years ago when he left the club after scoring 20 goals that season.

Quoted from aldi_01

There’s a lad at Donnie not getting a game that’s very much like that…

In all seriousness, I agree. Taylor is clearly w class above Lennie. It’s clear that everyone loves Lennie and the players certainly respect him, he brings many things to the side but if we’re chasing a goal, you wouldn’t fancy him to get it…

But you would fancy him to hold the ball up or the defenders so someone else could get it.

Quoted from forza ivano

for me the main problem is that Taylor has raised the bar , and 6 years after his first stint with us, LJL hasn't improved.6 years ago we accepted Lennie , for all his faults, but now he's 6 years older and still isn't really capable of scoring a 1 on1 or doing that bit of magic that Taylor can. He is very much second best and if we are going to try and win the league we, unfortunately, need better. Taylor is 33 and we will be lucky to get 40 games out of him so a competent replacement is essential.
I like lennie, but if we want to win the league we are going to need a back up striker who can step up to the plate. imho we need a slightly older, better Essel type striker who has pace and movement and an ability to finish.

I've confused my seasons and thought LJL was a part of our promotion side, it seems the seasons all blend into one. The following season after LJL departed we went up with the following top 4 goal scorers: Pádraig Amond with 36 goals, Omar Bogle with 20 goals, Nathan Arnold with 13 goals and Jon-Paul Pittman with a helpful 8 goals. Blimey, that was strike force - 77 goals between them.

When you look at statistics, it is difficult to see LJL as a striker, he's probably better being a number 10 or dropping into a holding midfield position as he's so physical and can draw players to him.

Quoted from HertsGTFC

Whoever does the scouting for Yeovil needs to get some recognition as they did a good job on us today and their work rate was impressive.

Agreed not our most fluid performance but there where a few little snapshots of the quality and more importantly the confidence we currently have and that’s underlined by our back 4 who are looking really comfortable in the ball whilst maintaining “us shape” consistently well.

Good teams win without playing well and I don’t think anyone had a bad game we just wasn’t as cohesive.

So 3 more points, 4 point gap at the top with for different reasons 2 tricky games coming up.

Well done Town, job done today.

UTM!!

I thought Yeovil did a job on Harry Clifton today and made it very difficult for us to play. The fresh legs of Sousa, Revan or Wright in the closing stages must frighten teams though.

Sousa was instrumental in us seeing the game out today I thought.

Yeovil are deservedly getting credit for the part they played in today’s game; whilst not blessed with some of the firepower we have in our ranks I thought they looked very organised and tactically smart.

Their approach was different to anything I’ve seen against us at BP so far this season. They lined up with a front three, which I think is a different system to what they usually play, and pressed us high up the pitch whilst keeping their midfield and defensive line quite deep. It left us looking rushed playing out from the back at times, and then having played out through the press still found ourselves with another 8 men between the ball and their goal. I felt it frustrated and maybe even rattled us a little in the first half.

Ultimately though, if our effort and teamwork have been a feature of our season, I thought we were well matched in that department - it was individual quality that won us the game today. Not many teams in this league have players that could see let alone execute McAtee’s through ball to Bapaga, and few will have players with the pace to get on the end of it before the keeper.

It was a well taken penalty by Lennie, and it took some large testacles to step up after missing one last. I’ll offer a slightly different opinion on him, in so much that I don’t think the biggest issue with him today was his finishing. Regarding that miss, without having seen it back I felt McAtee should have shot, his ball to Lennie should have been better, Lennie should have anticipated it better and even allowing for the overhit pass should probably have scored. We should have finished that move off with a goal, but both players were equally at fault.

The bigger issue I saw with Lennie in relation to today’s game is that he plays with his back to goal. He holds the ball up well, and that will be a very useful quality in some matches this season, but it’s probably not how you want to set-up at home against a stubborn and hardworking side like Yeovil. I thought it cost us some fluidity and spontaneity in the attacking third, and I wonder if we might have played differently had Taylor been available. On the whole though, I thought he did well at what he does, it just wasn’t quite what we needed at times this afternoon.

I thought Sousa looked excellent when he came on, and looked like a man desperate to win his shirt back. That, right now, is surely the major selection headache Hurst has - if there’s only room in the lineup for one of Sousa or Bapaga, who starts? Personally I think Sousa looks the more refined player and has lost that little bit of rawness he had in the first few games, but Bapaga’s return in terms of goals and assists (mostly by way of penalties won) is hard to argue with.

As much as today could have ended with a different outcome and Yeovil certainly made us sweat, there weren’t too many hearts in mouth moments and we probably just about deserved the three points. A neat goal from McAtee, not quite at his excellent best, put some gloss on the score line and made injury time a lot less stressful.

Overall, the pleasing thing is that we’re winning games in different ways. The last four Saturday’s we’ve alternated between spanking teams and then grinding out a result.

Notts County to get the spanking then…but we’ll need to be a bit better than we were today.