Torquay United Fans Forum

must admit I haven't seen every Tai performance, but he made a big difference again yesterday. Why do some people moan about him. If you come on a as sub and perhaps your very first bit of control or pass isn't perfect, people make an instant decision rather than over your whole performance (not that that happened yesterday).

if you take our results when Tai started games, and the outcome over the period of games when he's come on as a sub when we seem to score more than the opposition do, I think our form would be better than Barcelona's.

Lucky it didn't matter as Crawley won, but bizarrely in the pub afterwards every Hereford fan who'd been at their end said one of their players handballed to prevent us scoring on the line in the first half from one of our close range efforts, even though I haven't heard of any Utd fans at our end who saw it (I certainly didn't), and I personally didn't even notice our players appealing.
A Torquay fan who got in at the Hereford home end also saw it, and said all their fans around him were saying they'd got away with a penalty and sending-off there. Not sure if it was 1-0 or 2-0 at the time, but 1-1 against 10 men who had to go forward looking for 3 points could have seen a massively different result with us possibly running away with it. Must have been a crafty one behind his body that only those behind their goal saw.

PS have to say what a nice bunch all Hereford fans were after the game. Wish them well next season.

Anyone notice when Hereford's keeper and their players taking throw-ins wasted time at every opportunity second half, there were no ball boys, yet a Crystal Palace fan standing with me said there HAD BEEN ball boys around the pitch at the start of the game, but when Hereford were 3-0 up they didn't bother coming out second half.
It might not be sporting, but we can't be so soft - we need to adopt similar ploys. At least get our all boys sprinting around retrieving the ball asap in the play off if we're behind and not exactly rushing when we're ahead. Others do it to us, so we're handicapping ourselves if we don't do it too.
Hereford managed to use up an awful lot of time every occasion the ball went off, and that's going to happen to us if we're behind in this semi or any other game. I wouldn't blame Cheltenham for being as lazy as possible getting the ball as our players would do the same, and they can get away without being booked by a ref if a keeper walks to the corner flag and back for the ball or wait when no-one is getting it. (it's harder to con a ref when it's quickly returned to you).

It happened at Oxford with its wide pitch perimeter and big stands. The ball was very quick to to be handed to the thrower by ball boys when Oxford were 1-0 down, and nothing much was done when they went 2-1 ahead.
If we're behind we want the ball in Nicho's hands asap to save time and his energy instead of him running after it as Rene was having to do when we had no ball boys at plainmoor against Southend.

If others do it, I wouldn't call it cheating - it's just making the most of everything home advantage offers, like they do.

I might be being stupid but I can't find anything on Twitter that is critical.
I think to be honest Eunan's contribution over the recent games has been under-rated because we all expect so much of him - people think he's going to deliver Plymouth at Plainmoor like goals every time and when he doesn't they say "oh, Eunan's not at his best" because he hasn't done something amazing that stands out.
But in that centre midfield he's doing his job by doing the basic stuff better than other Div 2 players and it's a major reason why Hereford never kept the ball for more than about 10 seconds in the second half yesterday. For his physique Eunan wins loads of headers and tackles, his first touch is normally sound and buys him a yard or extra bit of time, and he has that bit of extra pace compared to our other players, which is seeing him win possession back for us when he shouldn't be favourite to get the ball because the opposition player is a yard or two ahead of him. It's the slow ones that go in a bit late and end up taking the legs whereas Eunan is retrieving the ball. Similarly when he's a yard ahead or in a yard of space he drives forward over 5-15 yards and stays ahead of any opponents trying to tackle back, drawing another defender to come and confront him and making space for others.
Every time we've thrown on extra attacking subs and with Eunan and Manse behind them we've totally dominated as when we were behind against Bristol,Port Vale, Oxford, Hereford.

I'm afraid Danny still never got past his full-back, the only threat from the left was laying it back to Nicho to deliver his crosses from quite a way back (fortunately his delivery is so good). But then anyone could just feed the ball back to Nicho. The main threat came from around Hereford's right hand corner flag in the second half with Joe Oastler contributing really well and Jarvis, Morris and Eunan all doing their bit to work someone into a dangerous crossing position. So I'd go for Jarvis or Atieno. 2 up front gave us more threat in the box from crosses and even just long balls and Jarvis is obviously better aerially than Danny. Only problem with starting with Atieno and Howe is that neither will last 2 hours if extra time is needed (in Tai's case just because he hasn't played full games for ages), and won't last 90 either. So you can't take both off after 70 minutes. So when one goes off the other one has to come on the pitch second half to be main centre forward. So that probably means Jarvis, but he too might struggle with 90 or 120 minutes.
Other question is if Danny isn't on the left, who should be left midfield. Ian Morris, or Jarvis, or Eunan???

Saah
Oastler
O'Kane
Atieno
Olejnik

(bit worrying that with all the various permutations above, our combined usual starting attacking force of Stevens and Howe don't get a mention in anyone's top 5)

ring my phone no on my post further down about a spare ticket our group has if you still need one. But be as quick as poss because someone else in our travelling group is trying another person. It will get you in with Gulls fans but as it's not all-ticket for home fans I imagine any Torquay fans who gets their earlyish before the whole ground is full will be able to get in if they don't wear colours.

If any London fans need a ticket for Hereford I know someone who can't go now, but with it being Friday you'd have to collect it.
Also we were buying 4 train tickets for the price of 2 on the group deal, so if you want to go for half price ie £22 return with me and 2 other Gulls fans, call me 07831 314540.
Leaving Twickenham 9.30 or Reading about an hour later. we can choose train back from one soon after final whistle or one after 7 if we get promoted or want to watch cup final

What a load of complete rubbish about players not interested/not wanting promotion/not giving 100% or whatever other reasons like that are given for Saturday - and I don't even think they were tired. There was some great battling and tackling from our players yesterday and bodies were being thrown in front of Wimbledon shots. They were gutted to lose But I'm afraid most of it goes on the 2/3 of the pitch we are defending, rather than in the final third up front. (that's not a criticism or Rene). But we just don't relieve the pressure on ourselves enough IMO and put it on the opposition, which we desperately have to do if we're to get these two wins. Even if we do pinch the first goal against Crewe, we don't want to be say defending it for 80 minutes, we want to be playing in their half, so I think we need something different up front.
I've never before criticised Danny as I always thought he did have skills that other lower league players don't as far as first touch, keeping possession, balance etc, but I've now come to realise the end product is ineffective and he's now started giving the ball away with his passing. I've seen quite a lot of recent games and I can't barely recall him beating a full-back on the outside and getting to the byline for a cross or pull back and so many goals, or at least corners come from that. Look at Bristol Rovers forum and there's a clip of the umpteen times Carayol goes outside past defenders and crosses with his less favoured left foot or cuts inside and shoots (switching between both seems to completely flummox defenders). We haven't got width because Danny cuts inside or stops and looks inside or backwards.
Zebs might not have been the best in front of goal but at least with his drive and step-overs he took on people down the right and made things happen. Perhaps LRT would be better - i haven't seen enough of him though.
Or alternatively at least we can pressure teams by "bullying" them with strength up front - Atieno or perhaps Jarvis - to run the channels or balls down the line. It may not be the prettiest football, but in the cup matches against Blackpool and Coventry I recall Billy Kee and Matt Green (can't remember if Sillsy was in one) - not necessarily the greatest of strikers - just keeping us on the attack all the time by fighting and chasing and forcing full backs to concede throw ins and corners and ensuring we were on top. Even Benyon - not a big bloke - with his harrying could do this. The perfectly good disallowed goal at Oxford just came from a headed flick on, I think by Tai, and Rene was in on the keeper.
But having Rene alone up front with limited pace on the right, although I think Morris has been playing some really good football (and winning lots in the air), and Danny stopping on the left just isn't creating chances. Agst Wombes, Southend no goals. Against Oxford that produced one goal from a poor back pass, Barnet one chance and a goal when a defender slipped. nothing against Swindon, (OK Burton we scored and then they were down to 10 men). It also produced no goals against Port Vale, or Accrington until subs came on when we got 3 goals in those two games, and Atieno coming on scored the 2nd at Oxford. So 2 goals in the last 7 games with the usual starting 11, 4 goals in under 4 half games with the subs on (subs also led to the fightback against Bristol). Lathrope could still sit in front of the back four and there's no reason Jarvis or Atieno can't track back to help the full-backs as Zebs used to do. Perhaps put Morris on the left and Atieno right.
Sums it up when my Wimbledon fan mate said before the game we'd win because they are crap, I said don't worry, we go for 1-0 wins, he said their defence is so bad that we'd get at least one. Then, a team with promotion beckoning, barely musters a corner until late in the second half (which is quite common). Afterwards, he said he was expecting more from us. Yet, so much of the rest of the team is so good as our 4 nominations in the league team of the year reveals, and that hasn't even got the best two current performers Saah and Ellis

With Dagenham safe now, as Northampton were last night, I'm not sure they'll get much off what is to be fair is a strong Crawley side. And Accrington, well it's outrageous that they're mucking about not playing players they have on loan from Hull and using youngsters instead (not just for us but Crewe and Oxford must be peeved they rolled over for Cheltenham). They gave us quite a tough time with their proper team.
so it's looking like we need 3 wins - and that might not be enough.
Perhaps the positive now is that we now know we need to go for win rather than the mustn't concede/lose fear we had for recent games, and Crawley perhaps think they're nearly home and dry and as they're above us they can afford a non-win. It might have helped us if they'd had that 3 points over Northampton a long time ago and we would have known we had to win games like Southend last weekend instead of hoping Northampton would get something off them. (Northampton would also have been in more relegation danger a while back and might have fought harder from the off last night).
As some said above, Eunan's legitimate disallowed Oxford goal could have produced that "unexpected bonus" 3 points that would have got us up. Don't think we can regard ourselves as suffering hard luck because we didn't deserve to beat Barnet so it balanced, but beating Oxford would have given us that overall perhaps undeserved extra bit of good luck and points that you tend to need to get promoted, especially against richer competitors (rarely would you expect the promoted Conference side be such strong automatic spot probabilites, although Stevenage battled to promotion last year, and Fleetwood could be a worry next year.)

Did we have any ball boys yesterday? Every time their full back wasted time taking his throws we had an injured Rene having to waste energy running to get the ball for him. As the full-back was waiting for the ball rather than time-wasting with it in his hands, he didn't have to fear a booking. Come a play-off game if we're chasing the game and the other team are working the line and every time they wasted up to a minute for each throw it could even end up vitally important.
You could argue that if we're leading it serves us, but I noticed at Oxford their ball boys rushed to give the ball back when they were losing and just sat on their arses when they were ahead which admittedly isn't very sportsmanlike but it's just part of home advantage that we should be utilising. (There's lots of "unsportsmanlike" little advantages like this I've heard about in ice hockey which I can't remember exactly but some are to do with there being 3 periods and the home team gets 2 attacking one end which is better because it's quicker for their subs, who aren't at the centre line, to get on)
If opposition do it to us, it's only fair for us to do the same

Few agreed with me when I suggested last week we change our successful line-up, but I wasn't suggesting we lose Damon Lathrope. I was thinking more get Atieno or Jarvis in for Danny (Morris has been great in his last 3 games). Danny slows down attacks by stopping to come in on his right foot. Rowe-Turner who I hear is very quick could take on full-backs. It would also give us more height in attack and defence and more strength in defence.
I wrote that before each game I'm thinking "we could win it", but I don't think "we'll probably win it", and I expect us to be very hard to beat - a long-winded way of saying a draw. Before Oxford I predicted all 5 games looking like draws, which as said above is fine consolidation or play-off form but won't clinch promotion.

Our system involves Rene getting the ball deep with his back to goal, and then having to pass backwards to midfielders. Also with Danny and Nico, they often work crosses, but yesterday a third midfielder was having to get involved in the little left-side passing moves to work the cross, which with Lathrope deep, left just 2 men in the middle and by then the opposition have time to get defenders back. It's also usually played back to Nico to deliver a long, diagonal cross (thankfully Nico's delivery is better than most). But when did we last see a goal come from Rene heading in a cross?
Joe Oastler was a bit unlucky that his forward runs to try and get round the other full-back weren't quite coming off.
And Bobby's quick drop kicks? Is Rene expected to win the header, run on to his own flick and beat the 4 defenders?
None of this is a criticism - as people say above, it's only because we've now set ourselves to be in competition with the division's 3 most consistent winners, rather than just accepting being much better than the majority!!

Why did the police or whoever suggest the game should be all-ticket when southend just had the usual average away following,probably less than lots of others like Port Vale/Gillingham/Burton etc. A call to Southend last Monday would have revealed about 200 had been sold. And also what's the logic of making a game all-ticket and then selling tickets at the ground on the matchday (thankfully we did or the gate would have been lower)?
It makes you wonder if there's any point to the new stand as it wasn't needed for smaller games - it's only of use for big games which would have exceeded our old capacity, but if every time the police then say there's a big away following (Argyle/Bristol) so it's got to be all-ticket, our "big game" occasional fans don't bother coming, and hence the attendance is down to the usual. ie the number of home fans will never necessitate a new stand with all-ticket games, so all our new stand will serve is away fans, accommodating another 500 from Argyle/Rover/Exeter/Coventry,hopefully?

Having watched the BBC sport video of our second disallowed goal at Oxford (the first does look just offside), where you can freeze frame when Rene squares the ball, what a shocking decision it was. Eunan is clearly not in front of the ball, which he has to be to be offside regardless of where Oxford players are. All the more shocking as the linesman must have been right in line, as Rene had two strikes there was loads of time, Eunan was virtually standing still and no runners had to be contended with and the linesman wouldn't have had to look ahead from ball at time it was passed to man miles ahead or across. 2-0 and demoralised Oxford would have been beaten as we'd probably have been more in control than in the first half before they ended up gettin their lucky corner goal, which also has a bit of backing into Bobby. So perhaps for our good fortune before like at Barnet, it's deserted us this time.
Anyway, although some might say we've been "lucky" to win games just because the other team might have had more than the ball, can anyone remember any really bad ref's decisions in our favour that gained us 2 points?

Before everyone jumps on me by saying Lingy's formula has worked - yes I realise it has - this is just an idea for debate. I'm not even sure if I believe it would work changing our system. But 2 things have made me ponder our tactic of just Rene up front tonight. I thought we were a couple of debatable offside decisions away from clinching a 2-0 lead and victory today (disallowed goals) and deserved at least a draw, which should be pretty satisfying. However, firstly, I was surprised to then see the match stats still showed Oxford had many more shots at goal and more shots on target even though at the ground I never felt they deserved to win. This is quite a familiar story especially away, where we have been pulling off results despite losing out territorially, on corners and on shots.
Even though Oxford until their flukey goal had great difficulty picking a way through our excellent defence to make clearcut chances, the law of averages says that if we keep facing long range shots, corners, crosses we're going to concede. Similarly we're always counting on getting that one goal - hopefully first - from less attacking play, plus that tends to restrict us to looking for a 1-0 win. Overall this makes us hard to beat - admittedly I can rarely see us losing - and I go into any game thinking we COULD win it. However, I rarely think we'll PROBABLY win a game - which a top 3 side would usually expect to be thinking. This would all be fine if a nice run of draw/win/draw/win was enough, but Crawley and Shrews I reckon go into games expecting they will win. And currently we need to win every game which makes going for this 1-0 policy a high risk strategy.
Then came the second bit of food for thought. When we had to go for it today, even down to just ten men, Oxford were on the rack hanging on for the last 15 minutes when we committed to attack. It was a similar story when we had to have a go at Bristol Rovers while two down. Suddenly from an even game, Rovers barely got out their half. Same again after Port Vale were 1-0 up at half-time. It seems when we commit to attack - rather than just Rene up front - we start dominating teams. Perhaps the opposition are forced to pull men back who otherwise can roam forward.
Anway, LIngy knows more about football than I ever will, so I may be talking bollocks suggesting we go for teams rather than looking to pick them off