Steve Thompson made just one change to the side from the starting eleven that won against league leaders Swansea last week with Colin Miles replacing the injured Liam Fontaine. Following his two games for the Welsh Under 21s side, Arron Davies returned to the squad, but found there was only a place on the subs bench for him.

The first ten minutes were a little chaotic and scrappy with Gillingham carving out the first chance of the match following an error of judgement by Chris Weale. Having raced towards the corner flag, Wealey backtracked on realising that a Gillingham winger was going to reach the ball before him, only to find a deep looping cross swirling out of the skies. The Yeovil keeper's spill of the ball could have put his team in trouble, but his brave dive at the feet of Matthew Jarvis did enough to put off the Gillingham striker and he skewed his shot wide of the target.

Phil Jevons curled a free kick narrowly over the bar as Yeovil pressurised through their efficient use of set pieces, whilst Gillingham attempted to force their own play through the long ball game without having any real joy against the twin towers of Terry Skiverton and Efetobore Sodje.

Sodje wasn't doing bad at the other end, latching onto a pair of Lee Johnson corners. The first saw his downward header land at the feet of Pablo Bastianini, who found himself surrounded by defender and goalkeeper. The Argentinian managed to squirm and turn, but a defender close to the goal-line blocked his close range attempt. On the next corner, Sodje again was the first to rise to the ball and this time the ball crashed off the underside of the crossbar, rebounding out, although referee Mick Fletcher spotted a spurious linesman's flag for some form of indiscretion.

Phil Jevons produced a low shot that Paul Crichton had to get low down to save. Minutes later some great interchanging of passing between Paul Terry, Lee Johnson and Kevin Amankwaah down the right wing freed up the latter to put in a looping cross that saw Phil Jevons loop a header just wide of the target.

It took Gillingham 37 minutes before they won their first corner, such was the lack of forward play from the home side, with the Glovers mopping up pretty much everything they managed to put into their half. Four minutes before the break, the Glovers should have been rewarded with a penalty when Leon Johnson attempted to rip Pablo Bastianini's shirt off his back in clear view of referee Fletcher and his linesman. Had Bastianini thrown himself to the floor, the referee would have been forced into making a decision, but instead he allowed play to go on, and the turn and shot went over the bar. Lee Johnson made clear his feelings on the subject, where Pablo's grasp of the English language would have made that task impossible. Fletcher then proceeded to give three lesser offences to each side just outside the box, leaving the spectator with the impression that he was not prepared to make the potentially match deciding decisions.

Right on the half time break, the Gills reminded Yeovil that they were still in the match as an attacking force, with Matthew Jarvis again the player that could have broken the deadlock. He flashed a shot on the angle from the left side of the penalty area, but Chris Weale brilliantly parried the shot, and Phil Jevons of all people was close to the goal-line to volley the ball away from danger.

The second half opened with Mike Flynn landing in the referee's notebook for an industrial tackle on Pablo Bastianini although the South American style crocodile roll did not win him too many friends in Priestfield. From the resultant free kick, Colin Miles curled the ball around the wall, but keeper Paul Crichton again made things look easy with a comfortable save.

Gillingham had a rare chance on the hour mark when Chris Weale had to stretch to catch Neil Harris's looping header from a deep Tom Williams left wing cross. Manager Neil Cooper, who had already brought on Moses Ashikodi made his last two throws of the dice to try and impose the game upon Yeovil by bringing on two more substitutes, but this was a disjointed messy second half with neither side really imposing themselves upon the game.

Darren Way took a nasty looking knock midway through the second period when he attempted to head away the ball only to find the boot of Moses Ashikodi landing square in his face, laying him out cold. Referee Fletcher's immediate signal to the stretcher bearers looked ominous but somehow Darren got to his feet and after a lengthy chat with physio Glen Schmidt came back onto the field of play. Ashikodi got perhaps a harsh, but significant booking - it was little more than an accidental collision.

If Ashikodi's first booking had been harsh, his second was purely academic. Eight minutes after his first introduction into the referee's book, he recklessly charged into Yeovil captain Terry Skiverton after the defender had cleared the ball, with the collision occurring whilst the ball was 30 yards upfield. The only surprise was that it was two yellows rather than a straight red, particularly with many on the main stand side having witnessed a bit of afters in the form of a stamp. Gillingham, with 15 minutes remaining, were down to ten men.

Paul Terry landed in the book for a rather poor tackle on the edge of the area as the game began to get a nasty undercurrent to it, and there was a real fear at this stage that the referee would look to even things up. Thankfully Yeovil kept their cool, whilst Gillingham looked to play out time, ironically keeping possession far more efficiently than they had done with eleven men on the field, being forced to pass the ball around for the first time during the match. That made Yeovil's attempts to capitalise on the extra man a lot harder, even if Kevin Gall and Arron Davies were now on the field in an attempt to inject extra urgency into what was by now a rather slow-paced staccato second half.

In the dying minutes, Phil Jevons almost grabbed a winner when he chested the ball with his back to goal following an Arron Davies cross, but when he hooked his shot over his head, home keeper Paul Crichton parried the ball over his own crossbar to preserve the blank scoresheet.

Referee Fletcher's untidy match was compounded by somehow contriving to only award two minutes injury time as the Glovers attempted to pressurise Gillingham into making a mistake. Given that Way was out cold for around double that time it was mystifying as to how the match official could only find two minutes in a half that had been punctuated by five substitutions, Way's head injury, Skivo's injury and the sending off of Ashikodi, and several attempts by the referee to speed up Crichton's goal kicks. But in the end perhaps it could be argued that even if he had extended the match by ten minutes, Yeovil's second half chances on goal were so few and far between, it is doubtful if it would have made a difference. Had they sneaked a goal during the better first half performance, then it seems likely that they would have got all three points against a Gills side whose attitude and body language makes it clear why they lie 22nd in the table after this weekend's games. A useful away point, but it could have been somewhat more.

Badger

MOTM Vote Result:

Overall match rating: 5.4 / 10
Performance: 5.9
Entertainment: 4.9

56 votes received.

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