Wealdstone v Yeovil Town - Match Preview

THE DETAILS

Wealdstone v Yeovil Town Vanarama National League Grosvenor Vale

Saturday 1 May, 3:00pm kick-off

This game will take place behind closed doors.

HOW TO WATCH

Due to current COVID-19 restrictions enforced on outdoor spectator sport, this game will currently take place behind closed doors. You can purchase a streaming pass for the fixture by clicking HERE.

THE CONTEXT It's fair to say at lot has happened at both clubs since the Stones began their first National League campaign in over 30 years against the Glovers back in October in a 2-2 draw at Huish Park. Yeovil began the campaign poorly after making the play-offs last season with the Stones building from the momentum from their National League South title winning campaign and having an electric start to the season, both clubs have gone in opposite directions since. Stones are three games without a win but showed shoots of improvement in Saturday's 2-0 defeat to Aldershot Town, whilst Yeovil completed a comfortable 3-0 win over Solihull Moors on Tuesday night recovering from a heavy 5-1 defeat to the same opponents on Saturday.

TEAM NEWS

Stones could see the return of Nottingham Forest loanees Riley Harbottle and George Shelvey after both players have missed the last two games through injury. Craig Fasanmade will return to the side too after completing his three-match suspension. Defenders Nikola Tavares, George Langston and Josh Meekings are all out and Dennon Lewis picked up a knock in Saturday's defeat to Aldershot and could be a doubt. Jack Cawley is out on loan at Concord Rangers and will miss the Stones' Bank Holiday weekend fixtures.

FORM GUIDE Stones: Aldershot Town (A) 2-0 L Maidenhead United (H) 0-6 L

Hartlepool United (H) 2-7 L (Lo-Everton, Gondoh) Boreham Wood (A) 3-1 L (Mendy)

Barnet (H) 5-1 W (Okimo, Lewis 2, Fasanmade, Mendy)

Maidenhead United: Solihull Moors (H) 3-0 W (Quigley 3) Solihull Moors (A) 5-1 L (Murphy) Boreham Wood (H) 1-0 W (Knowles) Barnet (H) 3-1 W (Knowles, Lee, Neufville) Notts County (H) 2-2 D (Smith, Reid)

WHAT WAS SAID Stuart Maynard: "They have senior players that have played at this level consistently year in, year out and they've got a good sized group as well. If you look at when they had bad form this season they had two or three senior players out and when they've come back they picked up.

"Players like Rhys Murphy are top players in this division, he's come back, been scoring and they've creeped up the league and at one stage looked like they could get into the play-offs, but they've just dipped off a little bit now. They're a good team that made the play-offs last year and were unlucky not to beat Barnet in a very tight game in those, they're a massive, massive club in this league.

"There's no easy games week in, week out you're coming up against ex-EFL clubs and we've got to be realistic of the situation that we're in as a football club right now, we've furloughed people and it's hard, you don't want to make excuses but it's the truth.

"Realistically we are thin and down to bare bones and the lads are dead on their feet, there's nothing we can do, it's not that they're giving up or 'throwing the towel in' at all, they are giving everything for the club and don't have any more left. You look at other clubs and they can change it, we don't have that luxury so we have to keep going with the lads, we will keep working hard as a group, we will keep going collectively and we will give our all for the football club from now until the end of the season."

WHO TO WATCH FOR? Rhys Murphy: The much sought after striker joined the Glovers in the summer of 2019 following their relegation to the National League from EFL League Two and after a prolific spell at National League South side Chelmford City where he scored 28 goals in the 2018/19 season, helping them reach the play-offs. Before Chelmsford the former Arsenal youngster spent most of his career in the EFL with notable spells at Dagenham & Redbridge, Oldham Athletic, Crawley Town and Forest Green Rovers and has 14 goals to his name this season, just six shy of his tally of 20 last campaign.

HEAD-TO-HEAD

Played - 23 Won - 8 Drawn - 7 Lost - 8

LAST FIVE MEETINGS Oct 2020 - Yeovil Town 2-2 Stones (Emmanuel, Phillips) Mar 1989 - Stones 1-4 Yeovil Town (Lynch) Mar 1985 - Stones 0-3 Yeovil Town Sep 1984 - Yeovil Town 0-2 Stones (Graves, Byatt) Jan 1984 - Yeovil Town 4-3 Stones (Byatt 2, Wainwright)

MATCH SPONSORS

We would like to thank Oldfield Construction and Si Hayers who are both sponsoring Saturday's National League game as match sponsors, and would also like to thank ball sponsor Peter Smallwood.

Preview by Chris Woods