Torquay United Fans Forum

It was obvious the day we got relegated that we would not do that well this season. Since then we have had loads of posts to that affect, I have posted several myself. While you have 4 or 5 players eating up a good percentage of your playing budget who are Conference South standard then you have no chance. I actually listed the players I thought were conf south, and I think Im a good judge as I watch Basingstoke town a number of times a season.

We have probably 8 players on league 2 wages, and at least 50% of those are conf south std. CH cannot do anything about that, that's all Knills fault!

There are many good players in conf south who are good enough and more importantly hungry enough to play in conf premier.

The problem Im afraid is attracting them here. I know that the Basingstoke players are part time, but some of them don't have another job, they want to make it in football so bad that they choose to do extra training. There are 2 or 3 players that would easily perform for TUFC at this level. How much you would need to pay them I dont know, but even though some knock our facilities they are miles better than Basingstokes and I would guess this would be the draw for some of these.

Im hoping that CH is looking at these sorts of players NOW!!!! And when he can shift out the high earners he can move quickly to get these in.

Not scientific I know but a sort of barometer is Macklin. He was a regular reserve for us, well he is a regular reserve for Basingstoke as well. There are a number of players ahead of him who are better. Basingstoke are far from the best team in the south as well, so there are even better players at some of the other clubs. If you took the best 11 south players in their positions, you would have a damn good conf prem team I can tell you.

Trojan 67 wrote:Harpin' on about a "zero budget" isn't accurate, is it ? The players ARE being paid! So there IS a budget! There will be no Boardroom investment while pisstakers on £1500 per week remain at the club. Prospects for the rest of the 2014/2015 season? 50pts, 20th in the table. Prospects for the 2015/2016 season? Another start in the WhamBamThankYouVanarama Conference.

Chris Hargreaves has said there is no money available for him to sign new players in January. So, obviously, there is a zero budget for this purpose. Seems accurate enough to me.

Harpin' on about a "zero budget" isn't accurate, is it ? The players ARE being paid! So there IS a budget! There will be no Boardroom investment while pisstakers on £1500 per week remain at the club. Prospects for the rest of the 2014/2015 season? 50pts, 20th in the table. Prospects for the 2015/2016 season? Another start in the WhamBamThankYouVanarama Conference.

forevertufc wrote:Incorrect there G/S. on 26.12.2007 we were sat 2nd in the conference on 48 points, had been knocked out of the F.A Cup by Brighton at the start of that month. We were sat 13th after the opening day 0.0 draw with Grays, Buckle's team went second in the table after winning 3.0 at Aldershot three days later, Buckles team that season never at any point dropped out of the top three places, after the first match.

You're right Forever, I must have been dreaming of a different season in my post-Christmas sleepy alcoholic old age..
But on the other hand, would Buckle have done so well if he'd been given a zero budget..?

One problem is that CH is completely inexperienced in management and it is showing. The very 1st away game this season we went up to Gateshead and got completely spanked. Yes, Gateshead had a quality forward who has since moved on, however we were tactically useless. I was very critical of CH's formation and I was slammed by a few who felt it was a long way to travel and the grass was a bit too long etc etc. On occasions we look completely gutless, there is no passion, no craft we couldn't string 2-3 passes together.
Managers don't necessarily have to like an individual player, they need to get the best out of him whatever the circumstances. I just wonder if CH has lost the dressing room??
I feel we do have 11 good players who are playing at 80%.

the problem is as most of us know - is that some of the players we have arnt good enough.

CH will never get us out of this league - he barely has a plan A never mind plan B. he makes some shocking decisions and appears not to see things that the fans in the ground can see....

Gullscorer wrote: Paul Buckle was hardly doing any better at this stage in his first season with all the resources he had available.

Incorrect there G/S. on 26.12.2007 we were sat 2nd in the conference on 48 points, had been knocked out of the F.A Cup by Brighton at the start of that month. We were sat 13th after the opening day 0.0 draw with Grays, Buckle's team went second in the table after winning 3.0 at Aldershot three days later, Buckles team that season never at any point dropped out of the top three places, after the first match.

I doubt any other manager in Hargreaves' position could have achieved more in the time he has been at Plainmoor, at a Conference club miles from the mainstream on a zero budget. And with no money to make any signings in the January transfer window, what more can you expect of him? We are still only just over halfway through the season within striking distance of the play-offs. Paul Buckle was hardly doing any better at this stage in his first season with all the resources he had available.

I think Hargreaves has been poor to be perfectly honest. The most glaring error was to go with Rice as his number 1 keeper which has hurt us bigtime.
His signings have been pretty good I would say O'Archie,Richards,Berry,Young,Macdonald,Bowman,Ajala all have ability.
I am not sure what contract Briscoe is on - he is a good player but personally I wouldn't keep him next year he is just too overweight to do anyomne justice.
As Plainmoor Roar says we have too many players on too much money who obviously know they are not going to be here next season.
The problem has been our inability to beat poor teams away from home this year.
I would expect there to be a monumental clear out at the end of the season though.

Reckon this will include Rice,Tonge,Downes,,Chappell,Cameron,Harding,Benyon,Yeoman,Pearce, and probably a few others I have forgotten to mention.Reckon we will finish between 13th-15th which isn't really good enough. We will get nowhere near the play offs.

Given our budget restraints our prospects are reliant on a number of things and some of these are not in our control.

Personally I think we can afford 11 good players at this level. CH has had the burden of high wage earners of Hawley, Harding, Benyon and Tongue. These as I stated last season in a post are not even conference standard, which has been proved this year.

I watch Basingstoke Town about 3 or 4 times a season when I'm desperate so I know the standard of players in conf south. There are a couple there who would easily do well in the conf premier. Its up to CH to identify these and try and get such players in for next season.

We will never be able to afford a whole squad of this standard so our prospects will depend on how often our best 11 will start. 2 things determine this, suspensions and injuries. CH should control suspensions and make it very clear that suspensions due to bad behaviour and violent play will not be tolerated. You cannot avoid accumulations of yellows.

Injuries are down to luck. You can probably get by with 1 forced injury but 2 or 3 will impact our results.

As for tactics to me its simple. You need a plan A and plan B. Plan A is whatever the 11 best players you have in a given season are best suited to. Plan B should be used when your losing with 15 minutes to go. You need 1 big lad, I mean 6'2 or over, a bruiser, a unit who only needs to head it, flick it on. You have 2 lively wingers like Cameron to feed off wherever the ball probably randomly goes.

What this does is two fold. Your opposition has got used to your style for 75 minutes and now its all changed. This will disrupt them and will make them re-organise. The whole rhythm of the game will change. If your making no headway with plan A then its blink in obvious to me you change the style and rhythm. What most teams do is just change like for like which rarely improves anything. So for 15 minutes everything is pumped down to your big guy. Its also a cheap plan B as you are not looking for a goalscorer or great ball control, just someone who is big enough to hold their ground, ruffle up the centre halves and just flick everything on.

Football is simple, many successful managers like Cloughie have said so. Some managers try and be too clever!

I feel we need some experience within our management and squad. Our results and performances are extremely inconsistent. Some of the team selections are baffling at times. Our disciplinary record is shocking. We do have some promising players and an excellent captain. We do need to lose a few high earners who are not performing. I just hope that CH recruits a couple of experienced players to guide us to some consistent winning performances in 2015.

Nobody knows, and that's whats great about football.

We could as easily go on a magnificent run and finish 2nd as well as falling right down the table. There are so many sides to the equation its impossible to work out. Just enjoy going to games and having a pie and pint, 1 game at a time

friendlygas wrote:Football doesn't work like that and you don't know the easier run in until it arrives because the easiest run in games should be against teams who have nothing at that time to play for rather than teams who are fighting relegation. A lot depends as well on the size and quality of your squad because as the season moves on so injuries come to play a part. I believe in taking each game as it comes and not trying to predict how we will do. Our next game is Boxing day against you and I wouldn't even try to predict that result let alone thinking about the run in. Whatever the result on Boxing day, the chances are that neither team will win both as that is often how double headers in a short time work out. I stopped predicting results a long time ago and now just hope that results go our way. How will we both fare this season, I don't know but what i do know is that we both have far more to worry about at this time than worry about the run ins,

absolutely agree.

we have been dire far more often this season than we have been good.

losing to telford and alfreton were the two worst results for a long time added to CH's dire decision on who to play at CB......

there are no easy games in this league.

So far we've lost away to Telford, Alfreton and Braintree, and failed to beat Southport at home, so a run of games against teams in the bottom half of league isn't going to guarantee us anything results wise. Our next three fixtures are home and away to Rovers, with Welling away sandwiched in between.

Welling are sat 3rd in the current form table, Rovers 5th, Torquay 16th . Said it a few times recently these three fixtures could well make or break our season, our team simply has to do better, achieve more consistency, otherwise these games are more than likely are going break our season.

What we do know though is that when Torquay start to play all the teams in the bottom half, the teams in and around them will be playing each other more likely. I know that there are no gimme's in any league really, but the facts are that the teams in the lower reaches are there for a reason. It should also be noted that for the first ten or so games, the fixtures were relatively kind and the points return was better. Imo, Torquay will get a better average of points in the last 2 or 3 months than the average so far. It took 77 points to get in the play offs last season and I dont think it will require as many this time round.


Its all if's and buts of course but I expect that things will pick up in the latter stages of the season. Time will tell I guess.