Cheltenham v Yeovil: Johnson faces his old club

Johnson spent 7 years combined at Yeovil

Cheltenham Town’s last League Two campaign in 14/15 ended with relegation and the club faces a battle to avoid the same fate.

There is enough to suggest that the atmosphere in the camp and work rate among the players is not as bad as it was two years ago. Expected goals statistics, particularly from the first half of the campaign, suggest results bely performances.

They looked poor in the first half at Notts County and lost 2-1, despite an improvement after the interval. They failed to get a point at Stevenage, despite playing the last quarter of the match at the Lamex with a man advantage. They then conceded a last gasp equalizer to deny them a priceless win over Newport.

The Robins have drawn the joint-2nd most games in the division with 11 and only two of their last 11 matches have ended in a defeat by more than one goal. When they got relegated in 14/15, they frequently lost games without putting up a fight.

One of the problems that year however, was frequent changes in tactics and personnel, something Gary Johnson has been criticized for this term. He was questioned on similar grounds in the latter stages of his tenure at Yeovil, though injuries did not help then.

Johnson faces his former club, Yeovil Town, who currently have worse goalscoring record (33) than Cheltenham (34) but sit six places higher. Since beating Crawley 5-0 at the beginning of December, Darren Way’s side have been in similar form to the Robins. In the subsequent 11 games, they scored just nine goals with the same number of points, also luckily the same points distance they are from the bottom two.

The Glovers were denied victory over Cambridge in midweek by an 89th minute equalizer. They have conceded six of their last nine goals in the final 15 minutes of matches, which suggests fitness has been an issue, as has the absence of a clinical goalscorer.

That has been problematic since the promotion winning campaign under Johnson, when Paddy Madden fired them into the Championship. 22-goal Madden and 14-goal James Hayter in 12/13 were the last players to score more than 10 in a season for the Glovers. In the subsequent three seasons, mercurial figures such as Ishmael Miller, Gozie Ugwu and Ryan Bird have shown flashes of promise but none started more than 21 games.

This year, key attacking figures remain short in supply: Ryan Hedges and Otis Khan are their main attacking contributors with nine goals between them but both are currently out through injury.

These clubs are more unified than they have been during previous relegation campaigns, but both must start showing some quality.

The Football Lab’s Verdict: 1-1