MATCH OFF - Aldershot v Torquay United - 29/12/12

[Scott Brehaut]

Is Saah still out for this one?

If so, I presume Nico will be captain given Manse's injury.

At the risk of turning this thread back to football matters......I found out the answer to my first question myself.

[ferrarilover]

Can't believe Nick did a rundown of his favorite members and I didn't get a mention. Devastated.

I concur with Sexy, 5-0 and not a lot less than 14k in attendance just because they want to watch Torquay.

Matt.

[coley in stripes]

At the risk of as usual sounding negative. I totally agree with Austrian's comments...(Well it was me who started the link 'Is Ling the real thing')...Following the Gulls is a serious hobby for me, time consuming and expensive. But a hobby is supposed to be fun not heart breaking. To see, for apparently no reason, promotion thrown away last season and the same 'score one then defend and hope' type tactics still being adopted but now not paying off, is so frustrating and needless. Where are the goals that stop the ridiculass senarios of points being dropped in the last few minutes ???

Do spooky and unexplainable things only happen at Torquay ! It's as though there is no intention to win games, but there again Torquay United is a business, a struggling one at that with a small catchment area BUT as a paying fan, you think that you are entitled to get 'value for money'.....Sorry, I can't help but to ask the question again...IS LING THE REAL THING ???

[ferrarilover]

No, we haven't been good this season, but that is the lot of being a fan of a L2 football club. If you want to win every week, then I suggest Manchester United is a more suitable club for you to follow. If you advocate sacking the manager every time you concede a goal, then Chelsea is your go to guy. If you like to sack managers to deflect attention away from a club that is so clearly rotten to the core, then it's Bristol Rovers you need. If, however, you fancy enjoying the highs and lows of proper lower league football, then stick around and tough it out.
That said, given our very early cup exits this year, prepare yourself for another couple of years of tight belts and very little front line investment. Unless we manage a run against the odds in two of next years cups, or get a plum third round draw in the FA Cup, the pot is very, very empty.

Matt.

[Jeff]

This year more so than ever, League 2 is poor. This is easily proved by the fact that we are still very much in the running for the playoffs, despite having never hit anything like top form for anything greater than "in patches".

Last year we had a decent, well set up team which was a masterstroke by Ling given the swift rebuilding job he had to do. It was nothing short of miraculous given his budgetary and time constraints, and for me that buys him a lot of time when things don't go so well. However when he was asked to pretty much pull the same trick again this season, its not worked out. Miracles are good enough when they happen once, twice just ain't going to happen.

I think the frustration stems from us not moving forward from last year - pretty understandable when you consider we lost our 3 better players. If we had managed to improve on last years side, we'd be top 3 in this dismal league. As it is, we've become weaker yet still good enough to be a realistic Play off proposition at this stage.

Much like the start of last season, we haven't found that winning formula yet and its clearly taking longer than it did last year. We keep getting 90% of the way there, but not quite the whole deal. This of course hasn't been helped with a pretty poor run of injuries - something that we were massively fortunate didn't affect us last season.

I'm looking forward to the Shots game, as I always enjoy going there. Proper football ground. With the Argyle game being my first game for a little while, I wasn't massively impressed with the system we went with but I can accept that it just wasn't our day yesterday. As another poster has already stated, the latest twist we should employ on our formation will be to move Craig into Mansell's vacated role, Bodin out wide and give Yeoman a start in the "second-striker" role. It was a very lively cameo performance from Yeoman which deserves to be recognised.

[SuperNickyWroe]

No, we haven't been good this season, but that is the lot of being a fan of a L2 football club. If you want to win every week, then I suggest Manchester United is a more suitable club for you to follow. If you advocate sacking the manager every time you concede a goal, then Chelsea is your go to guy. If you like to sack managers to deflect attention away from a club that is so clearly rotten to the core, then it's Bristol Rovers you need. If, however, you fancy enjoying the highs and lows of proper lower league football, then stick around and tough it out.
That said, given our very early cup exits this year, prepare yourself for another couple of years of tight belts and very little front line investment. Unless we manage a run against the odds in two of next years cups, or get a plum third round draw in the FA Cup, the pot is very, very empty.

Matt.

nice one matt. was going to post something similar till i read this!

you could have also added blackburn and notts forest to the dodgy list!

and theres me thinking we all come on here cos we love TUFC............

[AustrianAndyGull]

Cheers for the support Coley!

Us negative moaners better stick together otherwise we will have a site full of people that agree with each other.

Matt, you say that if Coley and myself want to see our team win every week then we should support Man Utd. That is the very trap that Nick and others fell into and i don't wish to be misunderstood my good man.

I want to watch a team that ATTEMPTS to win every week, if we did this and lost then i would find it perfectly acceptable. The entertainment value of the match itself is just as important as the victory and although i would be happy scraping wins out of nothing ( like what happened a lot last season and was dull ) i would rather see us draw or lose trying to win. Wins are not the be all and end all ( although i may not be saying that if we were in the bottom two! :~D ) but the manner in which you go about trying to achieve those wins is. Hoping to nick the odd goal here and there and further hoping that we can hang onto it is not a viable or workable tactic and Ling still hasn't worked this out yet.

Arguably for all our injuries and suspensions and loss of players over the summer we shouldn't be continuing to fill like for like just so Ling is able to continue with a game plan that is archaic, even for league 2. Like i have said before, there are times and places for drab 'see if we can nick something' games and during the course of a season we will see a few but to have that as an actual tactic each week is disturbing.

Even more disturbing is our away performances which all season have all followed a similar pattern. We won at York but had a couple of chances which we scored, they could have had a hatful with better finishing and it is the kind of sustained pressure that other teams have against US during games that i want to see reversed. I want to see US have large portions of sustained pressure and dangerous attacks but we seem to have brief spells and it fizzles out.

[coley in stripes]

Well done again Andy, some great points....I don't want to support any other team but I expect effort from the team that I do support...That is the basis of supporting a team. Things are not being put right and as a consequence precious points are being dropped in unbelievable circumstances...

Turning the tables, those that find the current senario acceptable should maybe the ones to follow another club.

[Forest gull]

No, we haven't been good this season, but that is the lot of being a fan of a L2 football club. If you want to win every week, then I suggest Manchester United is a more suitable club for you to follow. If you advocate sacking the manager every time you concede a goal, then Chelsea is your go to guy. If you like to sack managers to deflect attention away from a club that is so clearly rotten to the core, then it's Bristol Rovers you need. If, however, you fancy enjoying the highs and lows of proper lower league football, then stick around and tough it out.
That said, given our very early cup exits this year, prepare yourself for another couple of years of tight belts and very little front line investment. Unless we manage a run against the odds in two of next years cups, or get a plum third round draw in the FA Cup, the pot is very, very empty.

Matt.

Blimey, I agree with Matt.

[Plymouth Gull]

Can't believe Nick did a rundown of his favorite members and I didn't get a mention. Devastated.

Matt.

It was people who rarely post these days, you still do.

@Andy: No we didn't all agree with it, but people would go about making their point in a much less forceful way, without all the CAPITALS and the swearing and the insults you like to use. Even then if there was still a disagreement it'd be a case of agreeing to disagree and moving on. I always remember Dave and Fonda nearly always disagreeing but never did it reach the level of hurling abuse at the other.

[GulldenBoy]

Rene just tweeted "God must be looking down on me... games off tomoz so I can be with the misses for birth of my child" so looks like the game is off.

[CP Gull]

GAME OFF

Confirmed here ....

http://www.theshots.co.uk/news/Aldersho ... newstype=n

Probably done us a favour with all the injuries we have.

[brucie]

Think we will take that - should be fresh for new years day. Mind you looking at the weather forecast for the weekend and more rain forcast on Monday I reckon that might be off as well which will be a right pain as I am going to that one.

[dazgull]

Think we will take that - should be fresh for new years day. Mind you looking at the weather forecast for the weekend and more rain forcast on Monday I reckon that might be off as well which will be a right pain as I am going to that one.

Fresh? Hardly think so. We had the weekend off for the City game whilst Argyle had a long trip to Accy playing on a sodden surface and then the trip home. Who looked like they had played a few days before, us. Argyle were still going right to the end.

Will hopefully get thompson back as we desperately need some pace on the wing, then get Craig back in the middle as he is wasted every time he plays there.

[Dutchgull]

I am siding with NickGull on this one. I also don't enjoy this site as much as I used to. I always read all the threads but often cant be bothered to post as I tend to be more accepting of what this club is trying to do and view the bigger picture rather than going overboard on individual games. Individual players etc. There are also a few other posters I could name who don't appear here anymore and that is such a shame. This site does seem to be dominated by one or two posters but maybe thats just evolution.....

I have followed this club since I was ten years old and I am now fifty two so believe me I have see some great moments but PLENTY of lows !!! BUT I am now more optimistic about the overall health of the club especially in these harsh economic times than I have been for many many years.

Unfortunately this area is not and will never be a hot bed of football. Not only are we a low wage area even if you have a job but the population is full of people who come here to retire and so have no affinity with Torquay United. I have a brother who cant stand any sport let alone Torquay Utd ! I also have a close friend who has a similar opinion. Thankfully one of my friends is a season ticket holder but to prove my point about economics two friends who were once regulars now cannot afford to come to matches as each has a young family to provide for. Watching football is an expensive luxury when your money is tight.

So in effect I am happy with how Martin Ling is running the side taking into consideration the budget restraints he is having to work under and the crippling injury list we have. Those guys still have to be paid even though they are not playing and could be one of the reasons why he doesn't rush out and sign loan players like a certain previous manager did.

Of course everybody is entitled to their opinion but its annoying for old farts like me who have seen it all from the bad old days of football hooligans and worrying about your safety attending games to the off and on the pitch horror of the Webb years. The slow dismantling of the club once Mike Bateson lost his enthusiasm to the horrendous farce that was Chris ******** (!). What we have now is virtual football nirvana in comparison to all that !!!!!