County will be looking to end the regular National League season in style on Saturday by securing a top three finish, and a home play-off semi-final, with victory against Yeovil Town at Huish Park.
Last weekend’s stalemate at home to Woking in front of 2,200+ County fans temporarily left our top three hopes in the balance, but Hartlepool’s 3-0 defeat at Champions Sutton a day later means it’s back in our own hands going into the last game of the season.
We sit a point clear of the Pools with a vastly superior goal difference, meaning a win on Saturday would leave us just one home win away from the play-off final in Bristol on Sunday 20th June. Hartlepool, meanwhile, host Weymouth and will be looking to punce should County drop any points down in Somerset.
Darren Sarll’s Yeovil Town have little to play for in their final game after an up and down second season back in the National League, currently sitting 15th in the league table after a late defeat at Altrincham last time out – a game in which they led 3-2 with just a few minutes remaining. They currently sit 15th in the league table, and can finish the day anywhere between 14th-16th.
Since we last met:
This will be our third meeting with the Glovers this season, with County victorious in both previous clashes in the National League and FA Cup at Edgeley Park. The last such meeting came back in February, as Alex Reid’s first-half strike earned Simon Rusk a first home win as County manager, in a game shown live on BT Sport.
That result moved County above Hartlepool and up into the top three, as we look to complete that job with another win this weekend. For Yeovil, a side tipped for promotion at the start of the season after missing out in the play-offs last term, it continued an underwhelming start to the season that saw them languishing down in 19th after 18 games, two points above the relegation zone.
Despite defeat in their next game away at Eastleigh, Sarll’s men looked to have turned a corner after five wins from their next six games – a 4-1 win at Barnet lifting them as high as tenth, with the gap to the play-off places just three points.
That was to be as good as it got for the side from Somerset though, with defeats to play-off rivals Chesterfield, Sutton, Bromley and Notts County in their next five games again leaving them adrift in the bottom half of the table.
Results on the pitch, however, were soon put into perspective after the Club were rocked at the end of March by the tragic death of their captain Lee Collins. Both clubs will be paying tribute to Lee, described as the ‘glue’ of the club, before the game this weekend with a minute’s applause, whilst Yeovil have recently launched a Crowdfunder campaign in order to raise funds to help support his partner and children – more information on that can be found by clicking here.
After spending several weeks without a game in order to grieve, the Club made a return to action in April with a 1-0 victory over Boreham Wood, at an emotionally charged Huish Park.
More recently, the side have bit hit with a number of injuries to key players, including star striker and top scorer Rhys Murphy. In their last game against Altrincham, they were only able to name four substitutes on the bench, and also lost key man Josh Neufville to injury during the game – with the on-loan Luton Town man ruled out for this game.
Former County man Matty Warburton had a loan spell at Huish Park earlier in the year, even scoring at Edgeley Park in our 3-2 FA Cup win back in November, but he has now returned to parent club Northampton, and won’t be involved on Saturday.
Match Stats:
- County have lost just one of ten previous meetings with Yeovil, and are unbeaten in all our previous visits to Huish Park – the last of which came in August 2019, where an Adam Thomas goal salvaged a 1-1 draw.
- County will be bidding for a sixth successive away win in the National League, having won six of our last seven games on the road.
- You have to go back to 2013 for the last time County lost their final game of a regular league season – a 4-0 defeat at Kidderminster that saw us relegated to the National League North.
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