Trips to Moss Rose and indeed anything involving Macclesfield Town have historically never been that fruitful for Yeovil Town. Hence this was not the best of matches to return to league football in after the euphoria of Charlton Athletic last week, and certainly not the best to have lost Paul Terry to a knee ligaments injury and Bartosz Tarachulski to a single match suspension after picking up five yellow cards. Gary Johnson brought in loan signing Kevin Amankwaah to make his debut at right-back, whilst Arron Davies got his first ever start for Yeovil up front with Phil Jevons.

The game started evenly enough, and it was all a bit scrappy. Matthew Tipton curled an early chance wide of the post, and not long afterwards a couple of crowded penalty area shots were deflected for corners as the home side looked slightly more assertive without actually threatening the Yeovil goal.

The game was somewhat inverted, with Yeovil providing the more astute approach play, passing the ball well through defence and midfield. The snag was that was about as far as it went with Jevons and Davies rarely getting a sniff of the ball as Macclesfield's huge trio of central defenders dominated. Sensibly Yeovil tried to play the ball along the deck but even then the end result was lacking. The home side meanwhile took the attitude of trying to act as an away side - soaking up the Yeovil possession and trying to catch the Glovers on the break.

Paul Harsley drove a long ranger over the bar from 25 yards, and on the half hour mark, we were finally treated to the game's first on target shot, with left wing-back Graham Potter forcing Chris Weale to clutch the ball tight on the angle. It was to be a warning sign to Yeovil of the Macclesfield player's shooting abilities.

It was a different source that saw the deadlock broken on 38 minutes though and the home side had a touch of fortune in their approach play. Big striker Jon Parkin twice seemed to lose the ball in an attempt to grind his way through the middle of the Yeovil defence but each time a Yeovil boot went in, the ball pinged back at him. His final touch was half-blocked by Kevin Amankwaah but only succeeded in doing a freakish lobbed "pass" to Matthew TIPTON. Whilst the build-up was fortunate, there was nothing fluke-like about Tipton's sharp dipping volley on the angle which gave Chris Weale no chance as it hit the far corner of the net.

The half ended in a non-descript fashion. Arron Davies probably went the closest for the Glovers, with a shot that deflected off a defender for a corner, but this was a less than impressive half and it was difficult - other than the obvious factor of the missing Bartosz Tarachulski - to work out exactly where the problem areas were.

Gary Johnson replaced Andrejs Stolcers with Adrian Caceres at half time with Stolcers having barely seen the ball during his 45 minutes on the field. If that was meant to spark things off, then 40 seconds into the half that gambit was in tatters. On their first attack, Alex MacKenzie caused a goal-line scramble on the foot of Chris Weale's left hand post, and with the ball only being half hacked away, a return ball to the other post, saw Kevin Amankwaah's headed clearance fall into the path of Graham POTTER fire through a crowd of players for a scrappy, messy goal from Yeovil's point of view. This was going to be a hard one to pull round. The comedian on the PA tried to announce it as Matthew Tipton's goal, but there were few in the ground that would agree with him.

Phil Jevons almost got a goal back for Yeovil when a Kevin Amankwaah cross was only half parried by keeper Alan Fettis and Danny Swailes attempt to clear was charged down by Jevons who came inches from scoring a freak goal with the ball only just clearing the bar.

Yeovil huffed and puffed largely though and didn't really show too many signs of getting back into the game. Kevin Gall was replaced by Michael Rose who assumed his usual left-back role whilst Andy Lindegaard took over Gall's right wing position. But after that failed to spark things, Yemi Odubade was put on for Lindegaard as time began to ran out.

Jonathan Parkin provided the best comedy moment of the match when he missed a sitter at the back post, putting himself into the net instead of the ball, and threatening to bring the goal down with him. A lightweight Parkin is not, and the end result was two Macclesfield officials frantically trying to repair their goalnetting. Sadly for Yeovil, after a lengthy delay they succeeded.

Despite Yeovil's attempts to force the game, they continued to look toothless up front and every ball that reached the Maccy penalty box rarely lasted there long. Jevons, Davies and Caceres all went close with half-chances but keeper Alan Fettis was rarely tested in anger.

If anything it seemed that Macclesfield were more likely to catch Yeovil out at the back with Tipton and Parkin looking probably the best all-round pairing Yeovil had faced all season. Seven minutes from the end though, it was Graham POTTER who dealt another blow for Yeovil, as a half-cleared corner was headed out again by Amankwaah, and in a near replica to Potter's previous strike no Yeovil player closed down his angled shot, and Maccy were 3-0 up and game over.

Right at the death, Yeovil did restore some pride, although the irony was that it took a Macclesfield player to find the net. Lee Johnson undid the resolute Macclesfield backline at last with a pass that found Arron Davies in on goal, and as his rasping drive was parried by Fettis, Danny WHITAKER unwittingly collected the rebound and bundled it into his own net, under pressure from Phil Jevons.

Too little, too late though and Yeovil deservedly went home with nothing from the game. Gary Johnson will no doubt welcome back Bartosz Tarachulski with open arms back into the side, as this was surely the biggest influencing factor of where Yeovil lost the game as they never held the ball up in the opposition penalty area, thus releasing the ball back into home possession. On a day where there were few positives, Kevin Amankwaah made a fairly impressive debut for the Glovers. He needs to get his first touch polished at the Huish Park training ground, but the way he managed to cover the full length of the Macclesfield pitch as an attacking full-back suggested that he may be a welcome addition to the squad over the coming month.

Badger

MOTM Vote Result:

Overall match rating: 3.7 / 10
Performance: 3.4
Entertainment: 4

14 votes received.

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