Toni Koskela was the oldest player in a very youtfhul City line up which featured plenty of faces regular visitors to Academy Under 18 games last season would be familiar with - players such as Ryan Morgan, Joe Jacobson, Tariq Khalil, Lloyd Jenkins and Scott McCoubrey all featuring in the starting line up.
McCoubrey who is about five foot eight inches tall was about an inch or two bigger than his strike partner Anthony Taylor which, to a large extent, dictated the way City would play as they passed the ball about patiently looking for room down the sides of the Yeovil defence rather than getting involved in an aerial battle.
Another aspect of City's game was that they tried to get runners from midfield in behind the visitors defence and, in the first half especially, they succeeded in doing so to very good effect.
City's neat passing had already carved out a few half chances before they took the lead around the twenty minute mark when Tariq Khalil timed his run perfectly to reach a superb long through ball by Jacobson. Khalil found himself clean through on goal but allowed keeper Collis to block his first effort, however, he then showed great composure to take the ball around the keeper and past another defender and roll it into the empty net.
I am always impresed by the skilful and hard working Tariq Khalil when I see him play, but I am afraid that he doesn't play enough because his last two seasons certainly (and possibly the one before that) have been blighted by injury. Hopefully, he can get a full season in this time around, although I noticed that when he was substituted late on and took his shirt off, he was wearing a shoulder protector presumably as a precaution against him suffering another shoulder dislocation (I believe he has had at least two of them already).
Khalil, Fish and Koskela were a very effective midfield unit early on, but, after that first goal, there was a tendency (perhaps understandable given the lack of anybody remotely resembling a target man) to play one pass too many and Yeovil gradually began to get a foothold in the game.
Having said that, it was City who carried the greater threat thoughout the first period - McCoubrey's goal was ruled out because Taylor had just run the ball out before crossing as he got free down the right and Nicky Fish came very close as another excellently timed run from midfield took him round the keeper, but, from an awkward angle he fired just too high and wide.
After the break though, Yeovil had almost complete territorial domination - captain Danny Parslow led by example to ensure that the visitors didn't have too many chances, but when the otherwise impressive Scott Allison played a poor pass out, Parslow was helpless as McCallum sped past him only for the Yeovil player to then fire wastefully wide.
There was another shot just wide from a Yeovil team featuring John Terry's brother Paul, but, thinking back, although they had a lot of possession in the second half, they didn't really do that much with it.
McCoubrey and Kift then made way for Mark Jones and Shane Dawe with about twenty minutes left and it was Jones who confirmed City's win five minutes from the end when Toni Koskela's fine crossfield pass gave Taylor the chance to take on the full back in the right wing position where he had been so impressive last season. Predictably, Taylor got by his man and put over a lovely cross which took Collis completely out of the game leaving
Jones to nod in from a couple of yards with no Yeovil defender anywhere near him.
After that there was time for new boy from North Wales Carl Jones to replace Khalil, but he barely got a kick as the game wound down quietly.
Although everybody in the City team had their moments today, I would nominate Khalil and Fish as stand out players. Besides his goal, Khalil also got around the pitch well as exemplified by the time in the first half when he popped on the left wing to receive a shot corner and then got back to the right back position to calmly nod back to Allison as Yeovil threatened with a quick breakaway.
Nicky Fish looked what he has done for a few years now and that is someone who is very comfortable at this level - highlight of his game for me was a beautifully timed clean tackle to break up a very dangerous Yeovil attack when the slightest error in timing would have meant a certain penalty to the visitors. The problem Nicky Fish has though at City is that there seem to be more midfield players than ever in front of him in the midfield pecking order (some of them unjustifiably so based on what I have seen so far) - if he isn't going to get a first team chance, I wonder if he would be better off being loaned out to somebody so he can play at the higher standard that I believe he now needs to play at?