Notts came out on top in the first of two games against the Glovers in 4 days with the return at Huish park on Tuesday night.
Notts County - 2
Reeves (41'), Barnett (78')
Yeovil Town - 0
Notts Line Up (3-5-2)
Sam Slocombe
Mark Ellis
Alex Lacey (Ben Turner 50')
Connell Rawlinson
Jordan Barnett
Jake Reeves
Michael Doyle (C)
Enzio Boldewijn
Jim O'Brien
Kyle Wootton
Inih Effiong (Jimmy Knowles 90')
Substitutes not used:
Dion Kelly-Evans
Ruben Rodrigues
Elisha Sam
We will do the preview for Tuesday's match later in the article, but first a look back at Saturday's encounter.
Notts stuck with the 3-5-2 formation which had yielded 4 points from the previous two games and it is now clear that for the time being a more direct approach is being favoured, and whilst it's not always pretty the improvement on the pitch in all areas is quite apparent and non more so than the players' realisation that they don't have to try and walk the ball into the net all of the time.
I've been a little critical of Reeves recently but his involvement in both goals was excellent and more than made up for some of the wayward passing that was becoming a feature of his game.
Jordan Barnett played his best game so far for Notts and more than deserved his goal which in it's entirety was a little indication that the confidence is starting to find it's way back into the squad in what was a really nice phase of play down the right side, with Enzio also reminding us all of his creative abilities.
Key match stats and Notts clearly had the better of it.
Progress updated and the a move back up to 6th.
Results tracker updated:
Points needed and still projected for a top 3 finish compared to targets. I'm currently working on a model to try and forecast how the top 7 might finish and hope to have that done for the weekend.
League segment chart updated. Grey bar shows total points available for that segment. Green bar shows total points gained and yellow bar the PPG for that segment.
A decent start to this segment with a PPG of 2 points after the first two games.
Points by time segment. How many points would have been accumulated if games had finished at 15, 30, 45, 60, 75 and 90 minutes.
The pattern continues to show Notts tend to get stronger in the second half of games.
Onto player stats now and remember you can use the search function to see individual players or click on a column heading to sort highest to lowest etc.
Minutes played updated.
Goal contribution table updated. Again, you can find this on the website and sort columns etc.
Goal participation by minute detailing player goal contribution efficiency.
Goals scatter chart updated. Starting to see a few more dots outside the box.
Goals by time segment updated.
Expected goals and Notts clearly had the lion's share of chances. However the goals came from chances with very low expectancy and Jordan Barnett had the one and only "big" chance in the game with a one on one with the keeper in the second half.
Breakdown below of the key xG stats for Saturday's game and Notts expected points was back up to a respectable level at 1.862.
Player xG stats below and it is interesting to see the two goal scorers had the most attempts on goal with the strikers recording just 3 attempts between them.
Neal Ardley's record updated.
Preview | Yeovil Town (a) | Vanarama National League | 19:45
Tuesday 23rd March 2021 | Huish Park
So onto the return fixture which is taking place at the third time of trying.
The win on Saturday should mean that the Notts players travel down to Somerset full of confidence, likewise Yeovil will be desperate to put right the wrongs of that defeat.
Recent form radar and not a massive amount of change from the last one other than Notts have moved up a place in the best attack table and home form table which is where improvement needs to continue for the Magpies.
Yeovil's form, league position and PPG all suffered on the back of the defeat on saturday.
Goals for/against by time segment for Yeovil and they have now conceded 47 goals in the league this season.
xG for Yeovil updated after Saturday's game which was only the second time they have failed to score in the last 11 games. Also the gap between xG and aG closes but only very slightly.
As mentioned in the last preview Yeovil's over achieving in the xG stats is noticeable when it comes to expected points. You can see in the graph below that after 10 games they were some distance away with their actual points compared to expected. However their sudden improvement in form saw them making some progress but the defeat at Notts has started to open up the gap again and sees them dropping points compared to expectation.
Season xG and xPTS for Notts updated. Actual and expected goals still tracking each other closely but the trend of scoring slightly more goals than expected continues.
Saturday's win saw Notts increase their points tally to 45 which is just over 6 points more than expected for the season so far. This was an indication that the magpies were overachieving however you can now see some symmetry between xPTS and aPTS for the last few games meaning Notts are now starting to create chances in a more sustainable manner.
Not much to choose between the two teams at the bookies with Notts very slight favourites for the away win at circa 8/5 with Yeovil at circa 17/10 for the home win and you are looking at around 11/5 for the draw.
Based on these odds Notts have a 38% chance of winning and Yeovil 37%.
Forget the win at meadow Lane, Yeovil will be a different prospect on home turf which a rampant Torquay discovered to their peril earlier in the season losing 2-1 at Yeovil after beating them 6-1 in the home game just a couple of weeks earlier.
One beacon of light for the Magpies is that the influential Rhys Murphy looks like missing out for Yeovil after pulling his hamstring in the last game.
Notts should have the strength and quality in depth to make a decent fist of it but I'm struggling to see past a draw. Take the point, keep the unbeaten run going and look ahead to an intriguing semi final in the Trophy on Saturday.
COYP!
Richard