Torquay United v Gillingham - 23/10/12

[AustrianAndyGull]

The table toppers from the Medway arrive in Devon in scintillating form off the back of totally annihalating Burton Albion and their 8 game unbeaten run at the Priestfield at the weekend. Already on 32 points, the Gills are 10 points clear of 4th place Cheltenham and are looking good for automatic promotion. Manager Martin Allen has galvanised a seemingly ordinary squad of players and with a few additions of his own has turned around the Gills fortunes in double quick time. Former Notts County boss Allen, a man who i respect for being able to accept what life is like at the lowest level and make the best of what he has without complaint took over from previous manager Andy Hessenthaler who stepped down in the summer after failing to secure the Gills a play off place. Allen is an old hand in the football business and the former West Ham defender looks like he has found the key to success judging by the start that the Kent club have made.

The size of the task facing the Gulls is huge and this game is easily our toughest test of the season thus far. If we bear in mind that Gillingham have hit 4 goals on 3 occasions this season,have hit 3 goals on two occasions and have only failed to score once in the league then the difficulty facing the lads for this game is all to apparent. 10 goal top scorer and club captain Danny Kedwell is a handful and dangerous at this level whilst former Brentford midfielder Myles Weston has also chipped in with 4 as has much travelled Jamaican hitman Deon Burton. Ex Posh midfielder Chris Whelpdale is quality at league 2 level and has 3 goals. They have a plethora of players who have also netted once or twice so it's clear that they are a goal threat from almost anywhere on the park.

In addition to the players already mentioned they have Ben Strevens, a striker who was at Barnet with Allen. The 32 year old was released by Wycombe in the summer and signed for Gillingham on a 12 month deal. Goalkeeper Stuart Nelson, who has also worked with Allen during their time at Notts County was also added in the summer on a 2 year deal. Charlie Allen, Martin's 20 year old son also signed and he notched his first goal for the club in their recent 4-0 mauling of freefall club Aldershot. Lewis Montrose, who i saw a bit of when he was on loan at Chesterfield is also part of the squad as well as USA international Robbie Findlay who is on loan from Nottingham Forest. It is also worth mentioning on loan Southampton keeper Tommy Forecast, with a name like that maybe we should get him to one side and ask him if there is any more rain due for tuesday and what the score will be! Then he can go and tell all the skippers out there on dogger bank the shipping...........................FORECAST!!! Hahahahahahaahahah! Such mirth and merriment.

Last time out v Burton at Priestfield ATTENDANCE 7,268

1. Stuart Nelson (gk)
2. Matt Fish
3. Joe Martin
4. Tom Flanagan ( on loan from MK Dons )
5. Adam Barrett
6. Jake Payne
7. Chris Whelpdale
8. Charlie Allen
9. Lewis Montrose
10. Myles Weston
11. Danny Kedwell

SUBS: Tommy Forecast (gk) ( on loan from Southampton ) UNUSED, Andrew Frampton UNUSED, Callum Davies UNUSED, Bradley Dack ( on for Payne on 46 mins ), Ben Strevens ( on for Kedwell on 65 mins ), Deon Burton UNUSED, Robbie Findlay ( on for Weston on 62 mins ).

I'm not doing an ANDY'S TOWN OF THE DAY because again, it's a home game and you lot all know about Torquay and what a town full of weird talking pirates it is so apologies.

The referee for this one is.............step forward Mr Brendan Malone from Wiltshire and please for the love of God, leave the guide dog at home, officiate properly and fairly and you won't go far wrong with the Torquay faithful. Every ref i have seen this year has been utterly atrocious. Darren Drysdale at Wycombe the worst , he should really be in prison. Either that or in celebrity Big Brother, both mean that you've failed and are a complete talentless arsehole. Looking at his stats for red cards, they seem to come in clutches and one is due so i'm having a bet on tuesday that there will be a sending off in the game.

His glamourous assistants are the slightly camply named Justin Amey, and Richard Martin with the fourth official being Mr Christopher Powell.

Scott Brehaut has very kindly informed me that Oastler WILL BE OUT for this one due to his red card at the Mem on saturday so Lingy will have to shuffle his pack and it will be interesting to see what line up he opts for. One thing is for sure, we are going to have to be at our best on the night to get the 3 points and we don't need to carry any passengers. We have hit 4 ourselves at home against Aldershot and Rochdale and 3 against Accrington so i'm going to give the lads a squeak and say we can get a draw. It will definately be a score draw though as they WILL score and we can't keep clean sheets so i'll go for a 2-2. Goals from Howe (who else?) and Downes ( as he is more of a goal threat than the rest of our strike force ).If the game was at the Priestfield then we would be beaten on current away form and performance but the fact it is at Plainmoor means we can nick something.

Hope you all enjoy this matchday thread as per usual and i must say that the time it's taken me to research and type it up has been a pleasure. I've been listening to Chicken Rhythms by Northside for an hour and the time has flown. MADCHESTER!!! MAD FORRIT AR KID!!!!

And as always ( apart from if it's a JPT game obviously ) COME ON YOU YELLOWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Glostergull]

Andy, is it possible that you are madder than me. Barking mad in fact. (Thinks for a few seconds and comes up with the conclusion that your not). Well that's settled then.
Keep yer day job mate. i will stick to the jokes, then we will know who to blame. You got to have someone to blame so it might as well be me.
Nice round up of Gillingham. they have always seemed to be a bogey team and I wonder sometimes if it would save us all the heartache and just give em the points and not bother to turn up.
They have no Joe Juffour this season but Allen seems to have gelled them together. I am more than surprised the Andy Hessenthaler didn't have more time. I would have thought that giving up just because you missed the playoffs was a bit shortsighted given that it was only one season. But there you go. They could have just as easily appointed a sueccessor and found themsleves at or near the bottom despite the change of manager.
We can only see.

[Richinns]

If Leadbitter plays then he will be very nervous and a very hard game to make your season starting debut in.

Have a bad feeling about this game - could be a heavy defeat.

[stevegull]

For those that went to Rovers... How did Leadbitter get on? Woefully inept? Blended in? Or outstanding display?

[bixieupnorth]

he certainly didnt look overawed by the occasions, very pacy getting forward, cant think of anything bad that he did in his 45 minute debut against a decent rovers front line

[Behind-the-Gulls]

Not many options other than playing Leadbitter at RB. Putting Manse there will severely weaken our mid-field,with no obvious replacement.Lathrope is playing his way back in and I expect him to start getting back to the way he was before the injury,very soon.
This will allow Manse to provide more of an attacking threat from mid-field than we've seen of late. We lacked width on Saturday so I think we might need Danny from the off for this one. I too would be pleased with a draw,which will be okay given the opposition and provided we beat Morecombe on Saturday.

[gullno4]

If we play like Saturday we will lose 0-5, if we play to our best we will scrape a win! We're due a good result COYY!

[Gullscorer]

he certainly didnt look overawed by the occasions, very pacy getting forward, cant think of anything bad that he did in his 45 minute debut against a decent rovers front line

...except perhaps he could have been in the right position to clear off the line instead of being behind the Rovers' scorer for their third goal...

[lucy6lucy]

Tough task tomorrow, but if there is hope, Rochdale beat them at there place, so they are human and beatable

[Kernowgull]

For those that went to Rovers... How did Leadbitter get on? Woefully inept? Blended in? Or outstanding display?

I had him in my 4 choices on the MOTM thread Steve, was really impressed, possibly because I was expecting dreadful, but still good. I think the biggest problem could be if people give him grief when he has a poor touch, which knowing some of our moron fans, they will do!!

[yellowmonkey]

0-7 to them we gonna get humped big time

[Richinns]

0-7 to them we gonna get humped big time

brucie?

[Plymouth Gull]

I had him in my 4 choices on the MOTM thread Steve, was really impressed, possibly because I was expecting dreadful, but still good. I think the biggest problem could be if people give him grief when he has a poor touch, which knowing some of our moron fans, they will do!!

Pretty much how I saw it. Certainly got an engine on him anyway!

[bixieupnorth]

i too am expecting a defeat, we all know, that on our day, we can beat any team in this division, and when the whole team clicks for the whole we will give someone a real whooping

unfortunately i cant see that happening this evening, with a young right back we'll have some pace attacking down that side even if he chooses not to play a winger further forward. hopefully lathrope will have regained his form that was lacking after his spell out injured and provide his usual efficient holding role allowing manse to get back to the box to box role he did so well last season. these things will no doubt be more apparent on saturday. tonight, i fear the gills will have too much for us, renes scoring run will come to an end and they'll run out 1-3 winners, manse to score ours. again the red scarf waving hordes will stay away watching the (not all) champions league and there'll be a touch over 2300 there, 2317 i'll say, 122 from kent

[bixieupnorth]

in no way condoning gambling, but there are usually some good pointers to be seen in the latest prices. bookies make gills 11/10, us 9/4, the draw 13/5 and they're not usually very wrong