excuses

[Burnhamgull]

I expect, and hope, Chris Hargreaves will be our manager next season as with his own team I believe, with the experience of this season behind him, he will turn the club around.
I agree, though, that the remaining 13 league games will define his outcome. Surely a home win next Saturday against bottom club Telford should be a home banker. After today the players owe themselves and not least the supporters a decent performance.

I might be wrong but Telford were bottom and we were in the middle of an unbeaten run when we played up there earlier in the season......we lost and Downes got sent off so don't assume we'll win next weekend.

[Dave]

I've tried so hard to keep my powder dry as far as Chris Hargreaves is concerned, even given my vocal support to him at games, in a bid to be fair. My patience is wearing very thin now, yes I do agree CH has had his hands tied to a certain extent by the fact there are some players left who are earning wages to high for the club, however those players mentioned along with the summer signings managed right should have been more than enough to see our team chase a play-off spot.

People really need to remove their collective heads from the sand here, ask yourself what is the common denominator of this wrenched season that goes from bad to worse, and worse still, I'll give the answer, the manager.

Go back to the motm votes for the start of season and match threads , you'll see Dale Tonge hailed as re-born for a start, ask yourself why Richards has gone from a player seen as better than Mansell in his prime at Torquay , to the worst midfielder we've ever had, ask yourself why Bowman has morphed into a unless couldn't give damn player, from a striker at the start of the season most of us felt would have made the difference and probably kept us up the season before.

Ask yourself why we were talking about a squad that was together in possession, with out possession, when they scored you saw the whole celebrate the goals together , and now they look so splintered. It's all about how they're managed, as individuals and a squad. Agreed, Pearce looks like he's been utterly destroyed this season. This isn't by any means the worst TUFC we've ever had, the team/squad proved at the start of the season it was more than good enough to fight for promotion, now we can thank our lucky stars we had good start. Judge CH next season This is his team, this his squad.

[Dave]

He was transfer listed because of wages, not at all because of performance. IE if downes was on £600 a week he would never have been put on the list but because he was nearer to the magical £1000 he was put on the list. So the reality is Hargreaves is saying judge me on my players, but the truth is if downes was on less money he would be one oh his players as he has constantly picked him unlike benyon who is on more money. But hey crack away and be drawn in by the dilusionsal rubbish being put out and I don't have a crystal ball but I can't wait to say hey I told you so.

Thank gord, at last, some one who finally gets it.

[Lloyder5]

I think the general point with that is that 75% of the team today was his own, but not 75% of his budget was free to spend as he wished last summer. When you have to sign 4 players from trials on the wages of one departing player, then there is going to be a drop in quality. As it is MacDonald, Ajala, Richards and Ofori-Acheampong have been among our better performers this season. It is the senior players who have not contributed according to their share of the budget, and most of these have been inherited (Tonge, Harding, Benyon and to a lesser extent Cameron and Pearce). Downes (when not suspended), Young, Bowman and Briscoe are the only senior players (in terms of wages) who are contributing regularly, and three of those were signings this summer.

Take out the expensive deadwood and we would have scope to add proven experience to a young squad. That is the frustration.

[BayGull]

Surely a home win next Saturday against bottom club Telford should be a home banker. After today the players owe themselves and not least the supporters a decent performance.

Maybe a nice gesture and a way of apology plus a crowd incentive would be to reduce prices DRASTICALLY for this game.
CH has wanted to buy pints enough times for travelling fans, what about something for the poor suffering home fans too?

Admission £5 and £1 .. might boost numbers .... and moral!

[Kit_robin]

I have also kept very quiet about CH, but I am also starting to lose patience.

I, however, do agree with the sentiment that CH was hamstrung at the beginning of the season, and continues to be, by a group of senior players whose complete lack of contribution should shame them. Tonge,despite what some people saw, was just as bad this season as last,culminating in a truly terrible performance at kidderminster where he was subbed at HT. Benyon seems to have been broken by a series of moves that haven't worked and a lack of games over the last five years. Harding should give us half his wages back, such has been his complete lack of product. Downes, despite some people fawning over him, has cost us countless goals this season and does not warrant the money we pay for him -he is being shown how to do it by someone almost ten years younger on no doubt a third of the money (MacDonald). Hawley? Hah.

CH has signed the better players in the squad, no doubt. He can spot a good player. Young and Bowman the obvious standouts. If he had more money to get a decent goalkeeper and a senior CM (the areas we most need recruitment) then who knows? I think we would be doing better, but I think that would be down to the experience of the players than CH.

And that is the point. We are a collection of individuals. I can't think of one player that has improved since the season started, which isn't great seeing as some of them are very young and ripe for coaching. Our defence is often unorganised, our CM positioning is awful, we have no connection between Bowman and whoever CH decides to play with him. The defence, midfield and forwards all seem to act as separate units. That was ok at the beginning of the season,and to be expected, but for there to have been no change, and in some places got worse, strikes of bad tactical coaching.

When you compare us to, say, Wrexham yesterday, it was plain to see the difference. Wrexham had some good players, but no more than us. There average players, however, were coached well to know their job, provide a cohesive unit to allow the better players to do what they do best. Teams that play us now know that all they have to do is stay organised and we will eventually capitulate. Happens most weeks!

Unfortunately we can't replace him. We can't keep sacking people, as it costs too much. My hope is that CH uses this to learn, and that he will improve. I don't think this is impossible, but i would like to see some signs of it over the last 13 games to give me a positive feeling. And he needs to start the season with a new GK and a senior CM!

[Dave]

A very good post Kit-robin. One of the main reasons why Chris Hargreaves was brought in as our manager, was the club knew it was going to have to reduce budgets and go down the road of bringing more, young raw talented players.

Chris Hargreaves record as a youth development coach to be fair was pretty good, so CH should have been a good fit for TUFC, however this season and what we've seen unfold has given me a concern, and concern that's growing. CH actually has brought in some very good young raw talented players, we saw that in pre-season and in the first 12 weeks or so, but these players haven't maintained their performance levels, their performance levels haven't improved either, these players are going backwards, and that's a problem, because next season we can all forget it, the loss of the parachute payment is greater than any money saved when those players on wages the club can't afford have gone, their will no bringing top class conference premier players, it will be trialists and bargain basement hopefuls.

[nickbrod]

As I posted last night these last 13 league games will have a big bearing on management and players' futures. Firstly we need to get to the 'magic' 50 points as quickly as possible - that's a priority. Then if I were the manager I would play those lads who I would keep for next season.
We all can safely guess the majority on the released list: Benyon, Tonge, Pearce, Harding, (where is he these days not injured surely?) Downes (unless he takes a pay cut), Yeoman, Cameron, Seabright (although I understand he's gone already) and possibly some others, maybe Ofori-Acheampong and Cruise. Ives could go looking for 'greener grass' while are the non-contract players (Gueguen, McQuilkin, Dawson being given contracts or not?)
Culling that many would allow the manager (whoever he might be) to start again.
Finally if I were the manager I would have a long chat with Young on Monday morning to find out what's happened to him. Has he put on weight or it is my imagination? At present he's nowhere near the player he was.

[PL21gull]

Spot-on Kit_robin, we are not a team but a collection of individuals, and at this stage of the season we should expect a melding of players (whoever signed them) and of tactics, and a style and platform being set for next season. But where are these elements ????

[hector]

There are extenuating circumstances for Hargreaves, in terms of the budget he has to work with, the shocking legacy he was left by Alan Knill and the general malaise the club existed in, long before he came.

He is also an inexperienced manager, a rookie, who is going to make mistakes in the way young players will. There have been plenty of good managers who made horrendous starts to their careers, such as Gerry Francis at Exeter City.

However, the way the team has disintegrated since that purple patch in September - meaning that for 5 months the product has been poor - would cost some managers, in some clubs, their job. Probably, before the season started, the sort of season I imagined us having, is the sort of season we are having but the 10 game run made it feel like the Conference was easy (which I think it is, to be fair - as the teams running away with this league are not good teams - the standard is very poor, evidenced by the park football we witnessed yesterday) has made the subsequent collapse in form feel horrendous.

I the start of the season, I felt that Courtney Richards was the best of his signings and would go on and get us money in the transfer market. Perhaps he will - he is young and has plenty to learn. And that maybe is the point - the performance of too many players has deteriorated, to the point that they have become shadows of their former selves. Is that bad management, poor coaching or simply that they overachieved early on?

[wivelgull]

There is one terrible truth that is apparent: the days of TUFC being a Football League side are over; if not for ever, then for a very long, long time. The reports on this site are often fairly vituperative when we lose, but this current set of reports (I wasn't there) indicate that yesterday's performance was one of the worst ever by a team which is one of the worst ever (and, yes, I do agree with brucie).
The person I feel for the most is Mrs. Bristow; how much of her fortune has been wasted? More to the point, how much more will be? She ought to get out as quickly as possible.
A succession of disastrous board decisions has let to the present plight. The board certainly will not improve, and neither will the decision-making.
The management situation speaks for itself. It may sound odd now, but Mr. Buckle seems to have had the right idea: any nonsense and....farewell!
Crowd numbers - now there's a thing. A so-called 'crowd' of just over 3000 for such an important game is appalling - and it won't improve. I can recall being in TUFC's lowest ever crowd (850) about thirty years ago; this is where we are heading.
And just to think, Robin Stubbs once played for Torquay United!

[Sunnysideup]

Tonge,despite what some people saw, was just as bad this season as last,culminating in a truly terrible performance at kidderminster where he was subbed at HT.

It seems to have slipped your memory that he went off injured, having been carrying an injury for the previous 3 or 4 games. That resulted in him being ruled out for the rest of the season. In the games I saw before that, he certainly looked a solid enough full back for this level.

[royalgull]

Hargreaves will ruin this club......

Not having that, the board's cowardly decision to sack Martin Ling and hire a proven failure like Alan Knill after a poor audition then allowing him to throw 2 year deals out on £1000 a week plus to numerous hopeless players is what has absolutely killed this football club. The conveyor belt of atrocious signings, poor selections and a season of losing continuously has set the rot in and it's continued into this season.

Hargreaves has been left to search the basement barrel signing lads released from youth teams, League 2 teams or Conference teams and with that you are going to sign some tat, there are reasons why they've been released. If Luke Young was 'championship class' and such an excellent player why are sodding Argyle letting him go for nothing? Big Duane hasn't played any professional football in his career so he's not going to be the finished article neither are the likes of Ajala, Richards, MacDonalad or near enough any of the players we signed. But for me it's not even been them that have been our worst players, the likes of Pearce, especially Downes, Harding, Benyon, Cameron, Chapell, Tonge it's these lads the experienced players on good money or in someone like Cameron or Chapell's case not experienced but he has some talent that have just not performed at all for us, they've offered no value for money, no leadership no consistency. It's no wonder that very few of them have achieved anything in this game over a long period of time.

This has been a disastrous season, i'm not saying Hargreaves is blameless but his group of players is neither good enough nor strong enough mentally to achieve anything. The FA Trophy was a smokescreen to this season, it gave this club some much needed hope, if one club needed a Wembley final and something positive to cling to after 2 and a bit years of losing every week it was Torquay yet given a tie against a club doing even worse than us, we got battered twice. Disgraceful but fully in tune to what we've all been used to over the last 2 and a half years. Constant embarrassment and defeat. In many ways it would have just papered over the cracks but now we all know for certain, this current bunch of players are absolutely useless and spineless near enough to a man.

I'm willing to give Hargreaves more time mainly because we have no real alternative, we can't keep sacking managers but we have to do better, this is going to be statistically one of the worst if not THE worst season in our history, some of these lads would be shoe ins for my worst ever TUFC XI and when you consider what a mediocre history this club actually has that is a damning indictment of their abilities. I can't wait for this season to be over and a mass cull in the summer I would literally like to see about 4 or 5 return and a whole new squad brought in based on young players with a few proven older heads in there, whether it's possible i don't know but something drastic has to be done as this clubs ethos and direction has to change, there is a rot set in here and an acceptance of failure and it has to change.

[Gullscorer]

I agree. Chris Hargreaves inherited Alan Knill's squad and was given a near zero budget, and much of that has gone, unavoidably, to players on unaffordable wages. He had no choice but to bring in the young affordable players he did. Some of them will make progress in the game, some will not. The football world abounds with stories of players who've been rejected by clubs only to find a club where they achieve success.

The problem here is that there are too many young inexperienced players in our squad who seem to be mentally fragile and lack resilience when something goes wrong. After all, they had a run of good results early in the season, so we know what they're capable of. But perhaps a few of them give up too easily, don't realise they need to toughen up in a tough game; I'm referring here to the right mental attitude, and not the petulant toughness which produces so many red and yellow cards. Success never comes without having to put in the effort, without the willingness to learn from their elders, nor without the determination, never-give-up attitude, and the will to succeed.

Perhaps the biggest problem is the lack of older, wiser, more experienced and authoritative players on the pitch. But such players cost money.
If CH had been given Paul Buckle's budget from the outset this would not be so much of a problem. However, players departing in the summer should free up those big wages for one or two older, experienced players with real backbone to boost the squad.

CH himself lacked managerial experience when he arrived but, given the situation he faced and is still facing, I doubt any other manager, not even the world's greatest, could have come in and achieved more. He should certainly be given more time to turn things around and to this end he deserves our support. I expect only a mid-table finish this season, and it may be a couple more seasons before we can realistically expect any hopes of promotion. Unless CH works a footballing miracle next season..

[Behind-the-Gulls]

I agree. Chris Hargreaves inherited Alan Knill's squad and was given a near zero budget, and much of that has gone, unavoidably, to players on unaffordable wages. He had no choice but to bring in the young affordable players he did. Some of them will make progress in the game, some will not. The football world abounds with stories of players who've been rejected by clubs only to find a club where they achieve success.

The problem here is that there are too many young inexperienced players in our squad who seem to be mentally fragile and lack resilience when something goes wrong. After all, they had a run of good results early in the season, so we know what they're capable of. But perhaps a few of them give up too easily, don't realise they need to toughen up in a tough game; I'm referring here to the right mental attitude, and not the petulant toughness which produces so many red and yellow cards. Success never comes without having to put in the effort, without the willingness to learn from their elders, nor without the determination, never-give-up attitude, and the will to succeed.

Perhaps the biggest problem is the lack of older, wiser, more experienced and authoritative players on the pitch. But such players cost money.
If CH had been given Paul Buckle's budget from the outset this would not be so much of a problem. However, players departing in the summer should free up those big wages for one or two older, experienced players with real backbone to boost the squad.

CH himself lacked managerial experience when he arrived but, given the situation he faced and is still facing, I doubt any other manager, not even the world's greatest, could have come in and achieved more. He should certainly be given more time to turn things around and to this end he deserves our support. I expect only a mid-table finish this season, and it may be a couple more seasons before we can realistically expect any hopes of promotion. Unless CH works a footballing miracle next season..