Torquay United Fans Forum

We're two and a half weeks from the Macclefield game and IMO we have only a handful of players we could have any belief in Macdonald, Geohagen, Butler, Murembedzi, Young, Bristoe, and Marsh. Fairhurst doesnt look fit, Yeoman has only worked in fits and starts, Richards,? Hurst injured,and a handful of juniors with little or no league level experience. It doesn't look good. And we're promised a fresh bout of no-nonsense long ball tactics. Woohoo!!

Forevertufc, I think we are going through the same angst that so many other former L2 clubs fans have gone through wondering when we will get back into winning ways and promotion. Nearly all the clubs that have fallen further, have done due to financial mismanagement - the exception being Stockport I think.
There are as you point out several more experienced non-league managers and CH has got lessons to learn from their strategies as well as from higher leagues managers.

In my view it remains to early to say whether or not CH will make it as a manager.
Looking at Wikipedia it took Nigel Clough 10 years at Burton before they became a shoe-in for promotion to L2 and it took Steve Evans 8 years and several club changes for him to get a club promoted to L2 (which he couldn't take advantage of cos he got banned). The other perspective is it only took Martin O'Neill two seasons to get Wycombe up. I'm just saying it ain't easy.
Also bear in mind that the average time it takes a former L2 club to get back up is 4-5 seasons.

I hope that the Manager/coach and players have learnt thae lessons from the previous Alfreton game, and indeed all the other matches where we have played the smaller clubs because we have been poor more often against them, ensure that our midfield isn't out-muscled and aim to play the game as much as poss in the Alfreton half. I also hope Seabright keeps the keepers spot. I guess Odofin will be on the bench to cover the CB spot.
A win would be appropriate.

It would be nice to know a bit more about this game particularly who played as we had trialists involved. I've looked at the Taunton website and it mentions a Mateo Duvnjak who was new to me.

Its for situations like this that the club has a squad strategy ie players suspended or injured, otherwise unavailable have to be covered by able replacements. We have by general acknowledgement 3 good CBs for Conference standard and then we have a junior pro in Hutchings who should be able to come in when necessary much as Mackenzie did a few of seasons ago. If I remember correctly then people thought he did ok. Huthings was on the bench yesterday indicating that CH had him in mind should he be needed.

Would Briscoe and Hutchings be possibles for the bench?

It shouldn't be but we would suspect Bucks did have those advantages.
Leroy should have benefitted from the larger gates, better TV money and the proceeds of David Grahams transfer, but the players would have expected a pay increase and apart from the transfer in of Leon Constantine I don't recall any other obvious expenditure.
Mike Bateson had great care with the purse strings!!

Just a further thought on the comparative finances between the two squads. Hargreaves has quite a few players on League 2 contracts whereas Buckle had hardly any, so Buckle had more parachute money available potentially.

Thanks for doing that.

You're right about 'usable' players. From Buckle's squad I didn't remember Adams or Gwinnett. I have a feeling that Gwinnett was an early junior pro?

I wondered whether this had an influence on things like the current issue with overnight stays.

Am I right in thinking that Hargreaves' squad is bigger than Buckle's?

Andy, I for one hope that you continue to contribute when you wish.

Back to this game.
Gateshead will be a good benchmark to judge our own qualities and weaknesses against. Think of their strengths
They have a manager who has nearly 18 years managerial experience, mostly non-league, including getting York promoted from the conference and he is well aware of how to get success at this level on little money:
Gateshead were the beaten play-off finalists, don't seem to have been hit by this apparent failure and are used to winning, they have many new recruits but this hasn't upset the squad

CH has to learn the way this division works, He hasn't got the squad he was aiming for and we're in the Conference for a reason. We shouldn't expect it to be easy. Nevertheless we really have to win the next three - these are against clubs that can be expected to be strugglers.

I hope that the rationale behind transfer listing these particular players is:
1) CH is sure he can sign replacements who are better or
2) They are too expensive for the club to keep or
3) There are too many players in the squad for these players positions and these are the weakest or
4) something in their attitude, personality, WHY that means CH doesn't want them in the squad
Or a combination of all of them

We also had Steve Woods and Matt Hockley I believe, and Chris Robertson had been with us on loan.

Following on from Brucies post which I mostly agree with. However
We'll need 3 expereinced CBs so still think we should offer Downes.
Like Lathrope - he's mostly been in Hargreaves teams and his absence has mostly coincided with defeats.
Poke - if proven recovered from injury could offer a pay as you play deal.
I've also looked at Mozika's results and his spell did coincide with a modest upturn in the Knill era.

Of the loanees Cargill, Coulthirst, Goodwin and O'Connor - its got to be worth enquiring that we can have them again.

Lastly, we won't keep all we want but if CH works a miracle we'll have a better basis of a squad than Buckle had to start with all those years ago.