NO MORE MILLER TIME AT YEOVIL!
YEOVIL manager Gary Johnson insists he only wants players who are willing to fight for survival after his basement boys gave their survival hopes a boost by beating Blackpool – despite ditching top-scorer Ishmael Miller.
The Glovers travelled to Bloomfield Road without Miller, with the on-loan Nottingham Forest striker understood to have breached club discipline.
But it mattered little as James Hayter scored a first-half penalty and Tom Lawrence, on loan from Manchester United, grabbed his first Yeovil goal to ensure Elliot Grandin’s superb 78th-minute strike was nothing but a consolation for Blackpool.
Despite still rooted to the foot of the table the result was a first win in seven for Yeovil and Johnson was full of praise for his attacking duo in Miller’s absence.
“I’m not sure he (Miller) has returned to Nottingham Forest yet but he’s left our club,” Johnson said. “Obviously we thank him for his goals but we’ve agreed that we would part company and go into these next few games with people that I think are going to score goals and work very hard and put in an aggressive work rate.
“The top lads scored a goal each and they did just that so you don’t want to get into too many details and that’s how it is.We just felt that sometimes players are not conducive to your environment and that was the case.
“It was a meeting we had and he [Miller] said that he wouldn’t play but that sort of coincided with what we was thinking.
“But now we move on. I’m really pleased with the two strikers. We do thank him for his goals and we do wish him well for the future.
“There’s 18 points to play for so we need to pick up as many points as we can.”
After David Goodwillie had fluffed his line early on Yeovil took the lead as Hayter scroed from the penalty spot in the 16th minute after Blackpool defender Tony McMahon was adjudged to have handled in the area from a corner. Barry Ferguson’s side had a golden opportunity to equalise after 24 minutes as MacKenzie met a McMahon freekick from the right but headed over unmarked from six yards.
Blackpool, booed off at halftime, came close to conceding again after 48 minutes. The ball broke to Grant from a free-kick and he forced Gilks to save his right-foot smash from eight yards.
Goodwillie squandered a fantastic opportunity to equalise after 53 minutes, dribbling through the Yeovil defence before inexplicably firing over when one-on-one with the keeper from 12 yards. And Yeovil doubled their lead after 74 minutes as Lawrence was slipped in down the middle and struck the ball low left-footed between the legs of Gilks.
Blackpool struck back almost immediately as substitute Grandin’s dipping shot from 25 yards crept just under Dunn’s bar after 78 minutes – but that was as good as it got for the hosts.
Defeat leaves Blackpool just six points above the relegation zone in 18th and caretaker manager Ferguson said: “They were the better team on the day, which is disappointing for me because the way I want to play is not the way that I know the boys in that dressing room played.
“I’ll put it down to a bad day at the office. But it’s hurting because I know those boys inside out and that’s not the way they want to play.The only good thing about it is that we’ve got a game in 72 hours against Derby and we can put this game to bed.
“We need to improve on everything. I need to go away and have a long hard think about what to do on Tuesday.”