With Lee Morris failing a fitness test before the game due to a hamstring/back injury, Russell Slade's one and only dilemma was who to take his place. Kevin Cooper, playing probably his last game for the Glovers, got the nod probably on the basis that he fitted the 4-2-3-1 formation that Slade tends to prefer away from home slightly better than Wayne Gray would. Gray sat on the bench, with Scott Guyett also filling one of those slots as he recovered from his hamstring strain.

Chesterfield came out of the blocks very sharply, and Mark Lynch had to provide a brave block on a Kevan Hurst shot after a Caleb Folan cross had only been half cleared by the Yeovil defence. At the other end, an Arron Davies corner was half-cleared by the Chesterfield defence, but Jean-Paul Kalala immediately fired the ball back in on goal, and Paul Terry's intelligent flick to divert the path of the ball sent the shot narrowly over the bar.

A minute later, Chesterfield top scorer and slayer of West Ham in midweek, Caleb Folan, twisted and turned inside the Yeovil penalty box, firing in a shot on the angle that went through a Yeovil defender's legs, meaning that the unsighted Steve Mildenhall did extremely well to save with his legs, diverting the ball out for a corner. From another corner, Colin Larkin's set-piece was headed at the back post by Caleb Folan, and although Mildenhall had the looping attempt easily covered, he opted for safety first and palmed the ball over his bar.

Chris Cohen was booked for a foul on the halfway line on Derek Niven, with referee Gary Sutton seemingly reacting to the howls from the crowd when judging the severity of the challenge. Midway through the half there was a heart-in-mouth moment when Steve Mildenhall went to collect a high ball and appeared to land awkwardly on his knee, requiring lengthy treatment for his fall. The fact that physio Jim Joyce stayed crouched behind Mildenhall's goal for the following five minutes gave an idea of how concerned he was. Surprisingly Chesterfield didn't try and take advantage of that. As Mildenhall gingerly walked around his area, flexing his joints and trying to work the problem out of his knee, the home side seemed to lose their rhythm from their opening pressure, which suited Mildenhall and Yeovil down to the ground, with the ball generally being sideways-passed across midfield.

Kevin Cooper became Yeovil's second booking for a foul on Paul Hall, and it appeared that Yeovil by now had the measure of their opponents and were snuffing them out comfortably. Mark Allott's shot through a crowd of players was perhaps concerning in that it forced Mildenhall to save, landing on his knees, but if anything that seemed to perk him up, perhaps realising that he was going to get through his problem without having to leave the field. A wild shot by Allott a minute later, completely overswinging on his kick, saw him fire well wide of the target from 20 yards, and really Chesterfield weren't getting much closer than that thanks to the aerial dominance of Terry Skiverton and a very solid looking back four.

Yeovil were seeing very little of the ball at the opposite end of the field - Marcus Stewart seemed very isolated up front and their best chances were coming from set pieces. Four minutes before the break, a Chris Cohen corner caused some distress to the home defence - bobbling across the penalty area at waist height, taking deflection after deflection as it begged for a Yeovil boot to land on it but somehow Chesterfield managed to avoid that fate.

Colin Larkin managed a sweetly struck drive that went straight down the throat of Mildenhall as the game went into injury time, whilst Caleb Folan sliced well wide when trying to hit a shot on the turn. There was no doubt about which side was dominating and it wasn't Yeovil, but on the other hand there wasn't too much to get het up about from the Chesterfield attack, with neither Hall nor Folan having had any opportunity to run at the Yeovil defence. However, if Yeovil wanted anything more than a 0-0 draw they were going to need to push out a bit more as Marcus Stewart was out on his own to an extreme during the first 45 minutes.

Half time saw Yeovil reorganise and try and deal with the problem of not having any real attacking options. Paul Terry was replaced by Wayne Gray, which gave a notion that Steve Mildenhall had been deemed to be fit at half time, given Terry is deemed to be the usual stand-in keeper in the event of no-one being on the bench. The Glovers switched to a 4-4-2 with Gray partnering Marcus Stewart up front.

The idea was of course to give the Glovers extra attacking options. The revised formation had nothing realistically to do with goal that followed five minutes after the break, but it increased the need for those options even further. A free kick was won close to the corner flag by Kevan Hurst, and when the Sheffield United loan man took the kick himself, Yeovil's marking seemed to have gone to sleep with no-one picking up Alan O'HARE and the ball was quickly swept home from 10 yards out. 1-0 down, and now creating chances assumed a greater urgency.

Aaron Downes became the first Chesterfield player in the book after he cynically tripped Arron Davies, with the Welshman in full flight on one of his mazey runs through midfield. Caleb Folan soon followed him for needlessly upending Mark Lynch close to the corner flag, as Chesterfield tried to thwart any attempt Yeovil had of getting up a head of steam.

Time was slipping by without anything in particular happening. This was a fairly ugly looking half, with the ball spending much of the time up in the air, with both sides playing head tennis, which suited Chesterfield, but didn't suit Yeovil, who were never going to succeed unless they could get the ball at their feet. There was a general lack of width to Yeovil's game as well. Chesterfield counterattacked well and strangely looked more dangerous when they held men behind the ball at 1-0 than they had when they were actively searching for a goal. Hall and Folan's swift darts across the halfway line were exposing the Yeovil defence as they pushed up and Mark Lynch in particular was finding his flank to be more than busy, with the right-back being exposed on a number of occasions with runs by pairs of Chesterfield players leaving him outnumbered.

With Chesterfield thus winning the battle of the wingers, those were the two positions that Russell Slade chose to replace. Off went Arron Davies and Kevin Cooper, and Ishmael Welsh and Anthony Barry assumed wide positions, even if Barry's right-wing slot seemed to be notional - again he kept drifting into the centre, making it a touch too easy for Chesterfield to mark their men.

Even after those two substitutions, Chesterfield still looked more than happy with their task of seeing out a 1-0 victory, but with just a minute of normal time remaining, Yeovil found a spark where they'd previously had nothing. Ishmael Welsh and Nathan Jones paired up on the left flank, actually gave Yeovil some width to stretch the Chesterfield defence for once, and when Welsh laid the ball back to Jones, his swirling looping cross to the back post seemed to cause the home defence to lose their composure and shape. The ball found Chris Cohen on the backpost, who with all the maturity of a 30-something player, headed the ball back across the face of goal to THAT 30-something player Marcus STEWART, who showed that even at his age, he still has plenty of agility by planting a stooped header into the back of the net from six yards out with the keeper caught well out of position.

For all of Chesterfield's dominance of the attack in this match, they never got the second goal they desired, and despite Yeovil doing little and achieving little up front, they clung in there and once again snatched a draw at the death in a game that they probably didn't deserve to. Definitely a point gained there, and whilst the Glovers continue to steal such points this season, they are picking up the draws and the wins that eluded them last year, and probably explains why they are where they are in the League One table.

MOTM Vote Result:

Pos	Player
1	Terry Skiverton
2	Marcus Stewart
3	Terrell Forbes

Overall match rating: 4.0 / 10
Performance: 4.0
Entertainment: 4.0

15 votes received.

Any comments/questions please email ytfc.motm@tiscali.co.uk

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