Yeovil Town’s unbeaten preseason run came to an abrupt end as they were well beaten by a strong Bournemouth side at Huish Park tonight.
Two goals from Junior Stanislas and a third from Josh King sealed victory for the newest Premier League side in the Glovers first home warm up game of the summer.
Yeovil boss Paul Sturrock has brought in fifteen new signings in a busy first summer in charge and he started seven of them tonight along with returnee Stephen Arthurworrey. Among them was ex-Bournemouth midfielder Wes Fogden who lined up opposite former Glover Shaun MacDonald in the Cherries ranks.
It was a quiet first quarter hour lacking any excitement as Bournemouth played the ball around in their trademark manner. In fact, the only time the crowd came to life was when a baby seagull halted proceedings by nervelessly walking around the pitch. A dozen stewards soon nabbed the pitch invader before any harm came to him.
Influential Marc Pugh was running the show for Bournemouth and after pulling a shot wide early on, he set up Josh King but the new signing saw his shot deflected onto the post and cleared for a corner.
Within two minutes, the Cherries took the lead when Jakub Sokolik tripped Pugh in the box. Ref Kevin Johnson awarded the spot kick and Junior Stanislas converted into the corner for the opener.
The visitors controlled the first period, so much so that they played four minutes with ten men after Christian Atsugi, the loanee from Chelsea, limped off and his replacement wasn’t ready. The Glovers also suffered a first half blow with today’s new signing Iffy Allen going off on 35 minutes. The Glovers then had their first attempt on goal when Matt Dolan’s rasping left foot drive forced Artur Boruc into a fine save.
After the break, it took Eddie Howe’s men just 92 seconds to double the lead. And it was that man Stanislas again, tucking in from a narrow angle for his second of the night. He almost completed a hat trick three minutes later from a similar position but this time Yeovil keeper Artur Krysiak got down to save.
Josh King was looking equally threatening up front and after causing a flutter of hearts in the Yeovil defence with a cross that deflected off Arthurworrey and went behind, he put his new side three up on the hour. A rare long diagonal ball found the ex Blackburn forward and he outpaced the home back line and coolly slotted home.
The final half an hour saw few goal scoring chances for either side as a raft of substitutions and the nature of the game dictated. Yeovil’s last chance, and the final one of the match, saw the ball blazed over from a half cleared corner.
Yeovil: Krysiak, Sokolik, Smith, Dolan, Lacey, Arthurworrey, Allen, Fogden, Beck, Jeffers, Dickson
Subs: Weale (unused), Bird for Beck 73, Burrows for Jeffers 54, Gibbons for Allen 31, Laird for Dolan 68, Collins for Dickson 54, Sowunmi for Sokolik 82
