Graham Turner's thoughts after the defeat to Yeovil Town
By Matt Johnson
Town manager Graham Turner admitted that his side’s performance in the 3-1 home defeat to Yeovil was the worst he had seen in his entire tenure at the club.
The Glovers went ahead early on and controlled proceedings before adding two further strikes in the second half. Matt Richards’ penalty ten minutes from time proved scant consolation as Town lost their fourth match of the season at the previously impregnable Greenhous Meadow.
“Well I think we’ve got to be honest and say that it’s probably the most inept performance since I’ve been at the club,” said Turner.
“You can’t give the opposition a goal head-start at this level like we’ve done. Then they’ve relaxed and gained in confidence and let us have it in certain areas and we’ve barely troubled them. It’s the consequence of the start that we had.
“We’ve done it several times this season now where we’ve given silly early goals away, but that one here was unforgiveable and it’s been very costly. It contributed to a very, very poor performance.”
Whereas Turner usually defends the efforts of his players, on this occasion, the Town boss felt unable to do so; such was the level of performance. But he heaped importance on the need of his squad to bounce back and come out fighting in upcoming fixtures.
“That’s the fewest chances we’ve created in any game. Normally I’ve been complimentary about the players even when we’ve lost that they’ve worked hard and created one or two chances.
“Some occasions we’ve been unlucky, but there was no luck tonight – we didn’t deserve anything out of the game. The players will be the first to admit that. We were way, way beneath the level that we should’ve been.
“We’ve admitted that the performance has been inept and it has been awful, but it’s how players deal with that because we’re obviously under a bit of pressure now with the way results have gone and what you want is your players to come out and stand tall and perform.”
Turner made clear his passion to spark a positive reaction from his group of players ready for the weekend’s visit of Colchester but, perhaps more adamantly than before, he highlighted the need to bolster his squad, reaffirming that the search for reinforcements is very much an ongoing process.
“We’ve been looking and the ones that we want have got to come in and clearly improve the team, but you look at tonight and you’ve got to say whilst we’ve been trying to strengthen the attack, we’ve also got to say that defensively we were quite poor – but what we haven’t got to do is beat the players into submission.
“Yes we want to strengthen, yes we are looking and yes we have been for some time, but the majority of the players that we play on Saturday were on the park today, so it’s how they react from tonight that is the vital thing.”