28th July 2014

Yeovil manager Gary Johnson was pleased with his side’s first half performance before tiredness led to Cardiff coming away comfortable 4-1 victors from Huish Park.

AJ Leitch-Smith scored his sixth goal of pre-season to give the Glovers a first half lead before four second half goals from Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side condemned Town to defeat.

However, Johnson was left pleased with aspects of the game as well as the benefits of all but one of the starting eleven completing 90 minutes.

“Certain parts of the game went well for us, certainly early on. The first 45 minutes we played our game and looked nice and compact when we didn’t have it and gave them a problem when we did.

“The squad need 90 minutes each now so I tried to do that but Brendan Moloney had a yellow card and a cut to the head so that’s why I changed that one. But because of our tiredness and maybe not quite having 90 minutes in us they came out on with their top team and were very assured and they showed us that we’re not quite ready to take on a team in the second half who are totally fresh with the ability that the team they brought on had.

“I think today was about us giving our boys as near 90 minutes as we could whatever Cardiff did; they obviously had two very strong sides and the second side was probably a little bit stronger than the first so it caught us as we were tiring and as they were up for it as it were, but they had some quality players come on in the second half and that opened us up a little bit.”

With the opening League One fixture at home to Doncaster under two weeks away, Johnson was full of praise for goal scorer Leitch-Smith, as well as revealing there are still places to be won in the starting eleven.

“He brought a good save out of Marshall as well before the goal, but he’s looked bright and again he’s got a couple of weeks to get a bit of sharpness about him as well. But some of the lads have pencilled themselves into the starting line-up and some haven’t and there’s still competition for places in some areas.”