Accrington Stanley vs Torquay United - Saturday 26th Feb

[Jeff]

I'm sorry guys, but I couldn't set off for Accrington without there being a matchday thread waiting on here! Apologies for this not being up to the excellent standard NickGull and Matt have produced recently - Mods feel free to delete/move if someone comes on to deliver the goods.

Anyway, its pretty rare that i go to an away game with such a feeling of dread as I do Accrington. Horrible place, horrible ground and normally a horrible performance. I am expecting nothing out of today. The last couple of weeks have shown that if the pitch starts to cut up and get heavy, we struggle. And Accrington's pitch is well known for cutting up as early as September. Bearing in mind they had a game called off recently, played on it midweek and then had it subjected to a heavy downpour overnight, I'm expecting a mudbath.

Stanley are a side that surprise me. You look through the names in their squad and their is nobody of any real note. On paper, they should be right down at the bottom. I mean, if you look at Barnet's side the other week they had McLeod and Kabba - those are names you are always going to fear at this level. Gone are the days that Accrington had Gary Roberts and Paul Mullin. Only Ian Craney remains from those glory(!) days, and he is apparantly past his best. But you have to admire the work that John Coleman has done. Little gobsh*te yes, but whatever he does clearly works at Accrington. It seems their lad Terry Gornell has scored a few, same goes for winger Sean McConville but I have no idea what sort of players they are. I get the impression they aren't the 6foot plus beast that Paul Mullin was, so maybe they don't play as direct anymore which could play into our hands.

As for us, I would want us to recall Bevan (just my opinion though!, and replace Macklin with Gilligan for a bit of extra strength on a stodgy pitch. Today is not going to be a day for Eunan O'Kane. The best hope we have is Billy Kee returning to haunt his old club - with Kee being such a lad, you can visualise him scoring down at the home end and doing his little dance in front of them (fingers crossed!)

After the pain of Cheltenham, I just hope that if we get beat we get beat soundly. None of this late goal, unlucky result crap. Either we turn in a blinder and win, or we crumble weakly. I don't want the epic drive home thinking what might have been.

Anyway, must dash. 4hr 42minute drive awaits apparantly! Give me a couple of hours after the game for the usual match report, it will come but want to escape the clutches of the north first!!!!!!

[Gulliball]

Have a look at their highlights from the game on Tuesday:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/footbal ... 406110.stm

The pitch looks in a right state, and it's had a game and a few more days of rain since then. It'll be an awful game, in awful conditions and we'll have to fight for every second to get something from it.

Prediction Leaguers - don't forget!

[Gulliball]

Pitch inspection at 12.30. FIngers crossed...

[gulls_aloud]

Blimey, shocking state! Let's hope the pitch is safe to play on and it's not a wasted journey. Loved reading Jeff's OP and hope we get a match report this evening, we'll see..

[royalgull]

that'll be off then, that ground and pitch is a dump.

[holsten]

How has the pitch got in that state?! Look at the stripes on it! Hopefully the game will go ahead, just one of those games you never really look forward to and we can't be dealing with ANOTHER game to add to the backlog. I'd definately take any sort of point there today. Strength is needed as said, so not a day for Macklin or Eunan. I'd stick Mansell back in the middle, get Ellis and Branston paired up again and Robbo at RB. Stanley has to feature and I'm sure he will, but this could be a day where Nicho should be prefered to LRT, his deliveries into the box on a pitch like that will be essential.

Prediction, who knows? I really cannot put any sort of guess into the scoreline.

[SuperNickyWroe]

this is a game (if it goes ahead) thats crying out for 3-5-2.

id play robbo, pickler and ellis and then take yer pick for the middle 5!

then billy bunter and (j) robbo up front.

[CP Gull]

There has got to be some serious doubt as to whether the game will go ahead given the state of that pitch!

If it does get called off then I hope we make sure that we get our overnight expenses off them (Accy) pretty sharpish as it appears they don't have a pot to pee in at the moment or at least they won't have after the 9th March after HMRC have stepped in ....

http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/ne ... l_auction/

Anyone need a set of floodlights, complete with pylons for their back garden ?

[Dave_Pougher]

Got to be one for Bevans long kicks surely !

[gullsflyinghigh]

I would play:

-------------------Bevan--------------------

--Robbo----Ellis--------Branston----Nicho--

--Gilligan----Mansell----Stanley----Zebs--

--------------Kee------Robinson--------------

Simple 442, let Nicho stick it in the box whenever possible, hope for the best. Gilligan's supposed to have a good delivery too. Looks like you can't really play football on that pitch, so i'd take a point out of this game. Lets hope it goes ahead.

[bixieupnorth]

i dont fancy any points coming back to devon with us either, prob 2-1 to them, kee to score ours

[bixieupnorth]

cousin etc just arrived at ground, reckons pitch looks fine but very sandy

[PlainmoorRoar]

Game on

http://www.accringtonstanley.co.uk/index.php/newsy/3892

[bixieupnorth]

game is on still!!

[Wisconsin_gull]

Seem like we are all dreading this fixture...
So here goes.
3-3
2 goals from the pickler in the last 5 mins!
COYY