Torquay United Fans Forum

The reason Danny Stevens is consistently our 'go to' substitute is an indication of the state of our squad. We have 4 strikers at the club - so when you start with all of them, where do you turn when things aren't working? The fact is, we had no options on the bench yesterday. The changes made were a case of giving players a taste of the occasion, rather than actually influencing the game. As said above, Lathrope and Nicho were two of the players that didn't deserve to be subbed off.

i agree with both of you ^^ to be honest. we are all only too aware, that Buckle has never really shown the ability to change anything from the touchline once the game has started. this is not 100% his fault, but you do have to lay most of the blame at his door - it's his job. i have always maintained he knows his plan A, but his plan B, C...........usually suck, and did again yesterday.

ok, so the options available to him were not great yesterday, but if anyone out there GENUINELY believes his substitutions were good ones, i'd be surprised.

clearly he believed the starting XI was his best team, and on recent performances, who could disagree (when you consider losing Stanley was a bit of a blow) i will give him credit for the following :-

1. Billy Kee was breathing out his ar$e after about 20mins, so in the second half, he was pushed up front, and zebba brought out wide to do the leg work.

2. he switched Jake to the right, not for long enough in my opinion, but he tried it.

however, when the above two points didn't have the desired impact, Bucks had no answer.

ok, he looked at the bench, and thought, who do i throw on ??? and yeah, his options were a bit limited, but :-

1. he took off Lathrope (again) who i thought was one of our better players, and put on Oastler (yeah, probably the best player on the bench) BUT a defensive minded midfielder. Never gonna change the game UNLESS he used it to push O'Kane on or out wide and go 4-3-3, but that didn't happen.

2. LRT for Nico. again, why ?? Nico, like Lathrope, can walk away knowing he played ok, and far better than others, and without Nico on the pitch, you take some major attacking options away from the team. another bad substitution.

3. Danny comes on. ok, good idea, but takes off (admittedly, a below par) Jakey, so not really giving us an extra attacking option, just a different one. all the while, billy is breathing even harder through his ar$e. and this with less than 10mins to go - might as well lose 15-0 but at least throw the kitchen sink at it and have a go.

4. Danny and Macklin haven't cut the mustard, we all know that, but they have pace to burn, stevenage were visibly tired, for the last 10-15 mins, get them on, let them run at the defence. unfortunately, Danny came on but looked rusty, the one chance he had, his touch was poor, and chance was gone.

5. leaving it til the last 2 (TWO !!!!) minutes to throw Branno forward. in that time, how many balls did we get in the box ?? ZIP, ZERO, NADA.

so, as i said in another thread, i'm not Buckle bashing, the majority from yesterday need to look at themselves and ask if they could've done more. we all know they could've, it was a big occassion and they choked. BUT, i felt at times when o'kane picked the ball up and tried to drive us forward, stevenage looked shakey, but we didn't have the final product. had we got one, we'd have gone on to win, i have no doubt.

so, in summary, Buckle has done a lot for the club, make no mistake, and for that i thank him sincerely. Do i want him to stay ?? well, part of me does, because i think that might be our best chance of signing Stanley, keeping Branno and maybe Jakey, and taking us on again next year. But if he goes ?? well, i honestly believe any manager with football league experience could match, or achieve more than Buckle has with the the addition of a few players, should the board allow it.

buckle is pretty good, but NOT as good as HE thinks he is. I think he should stick around, get a few more players in and see if he can iron out the flaws in his own game. it might be the best thing for TUFC in the short term, but IMHO, would be the best thing long term for the "very ambitious" Bucks.

Don't see what Buckle could have done differently. Picked the same XI and tactics that we were all drooling over in the semis versus Shrewsbury, but this time the players froze. His hands were tied with the subs available, but obviously decided to bring fresh legs on in the hope that it may disrupt Stevenage. It's a shame that he will be leaving like this, but I can't fault him for the performance. The players have to take responsibility on this one.

In my opinion. Just like Crawley. Big, big game, big prize on offer, and we froze.

I know he's still learning, but he needs to learn HOW TO IMPACT A GAME. I mean, he was outwitted by Evans, and now Westley too.

Our earliest substitution came in the 79th minute, and it wasn't even an attacking player? Good god. Westley somewhat cheated (in my opinion) when that Reid bloke went down - all the players came over for a teamtalk, right when we were on top. The Ref didn't clamp down on it unfortunately. Westley rejigged his team, which confused us - Charles was a striker, defender, midfielder, defender before being subbed off. It was madness, his reluctancy to make a change when we looked out of our depth. We weren't even threatening them late on, as ridiculous as it is.


Anyway, it looks a certainty that hes off so I'll use this to say thanks for the last four years, they've been fun.