A tough afternoon out West...
Stevenage's poor run of form continued on Saturday as Yeovil came out 3-0 winners at Huish Park.
In a game not lacking incident, three men were sent off as Toner, Olomola and Zoko all saw red during a feisty second half.
It was a 20 minute spell during the first half which was Boro's undoing as all three goals were conceded, making for an almost impossible task to get anything out of the game.
Darren Sarll named three changes with all of them enforced – Matty Godden and Ben Kennedy unavailable through injury whilst Jonathan Smith was forced to serve a one game suspension after picking up his fifth yellow card of the season last weekend.
In came Jack King on his long awaited return with Danny Newton and Chris Whelpdale to support Kyle Wootton up top.
After Francois Zoko came close to getting onto the end of a dangerous cross just a few minutes in, Stevenage soon settled into the game and were the better side for the opening half of the half.
The physical presence of Newton, Wootton and King were all causing problems in the Yeovil area as Boro looked the most likely scorers during the early exchanges.
Whelpdale hit the post and Newton saw a goal disallowed and then cleared off the line as Stevenage turned the screw inside the first 25 minutes.
At that stage of the game you would have never believed what was about to happen but Boro failed to take their chances and were soon made to pay.
Surridge got Yeovil up and running with a fine strike from inside the box, low into the bottom corner before Stevenage capitulated and conceded a second just a minute later.
A two-on-one situation at the back following some poor defending leaving the simplest of finishes for Olomola to take advantage of.
The home side were feeling good and before the break they added another. A communication breakdown from a corner which left Surridge a free run and volley from 6 yards out to make it 3-0.
In truth, Yeovil could have further increased their lead before the break but the often helpless Fryer denied Zoko one-on-one in added time.
Sarll rang the changes at half-time, bringing on Wilkinson and Samuel for Wootton and Vancooten.
Inside the first five minutes of the half, Stevenage had two good chances to peg the Glovers back but once again couldn’t make the most of their opportunities. First up Newton saw an ambitious strike turned just around the post before Wilkinson headed over the resulting corner.
Franks received a whack to the face just a couple of moments later and was substituted by Kevin Toner, who soon found himself off once again.
Danny Newton again almost brought life back into the contest after a strong run up the pitch brought him into shooting position, Krysiak coming up big to deny him one-on-one.
The game descended into a farce seconds later as both sets of players got involved in an ugly clash over by the side-lines. From the press box it was impossible to tell exactly what happened but the end result was Kevin Toner and Olufela Olomola both seeing red.
Yeovil’s goalkeeper, Artur Krysiak continued to stop everything that came his way – denying Samuel from close range after good play by Gorman to slip him through.
There was to be one more notable moment of incident – a red card for Francois Zoko after a high challenge on Jack King which meant the home side finished the game with 9 men.
Although Boro kept plugging away, it was clearly too little too late as the visitors saw out the game and left Stevenage wondering what went wrong.
The result leaves Boro three points off the play-offs and Darren Sarll and his men will be glad to see the back of October as a tough month comes to an end.
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