Aldershot vs Torquay

[AustrianAndyGull]

coming back to my main point and away from the history lesson, my point about us having a plan when I've seen us we don't have one, well not a viable long term plan. Our plan is to play as many defensive players as possible, launch it to Rene hope he does something, get the first goal, then defend for 80 minutes and win 1-0. It's pathetic, it's not a tactic it's sitting there waiting to get beat with no thoughts of taking charge of the game so to speak.

If we played football, on the ground, passed to feet but lacked a bit of spark or were just getting beat because the opposition were better than us at it then I'd have no qualms. But we don't. I know the budget isn't great and we can't have the likes of the players listed above any more but you can have a philosophy and away of playing that players can attempt to do. No matter what team Stoke pick they'll play the same way, no matter what team Swansea pick they'll play the same way and it's true for every team in the country. Our policy seems to be 4-5-1 park the bus and hope to stay in the game, it's dire, it's crap to watch and it doesn't work!!! Not with these players anyway.

I want to see us let of the leash for the remaining games, I want to see us commit men forward, try and score goals and not have these 'unlucky' 1-0 losses. they aren't unlucky, we're losing because we have no plan to deal with going behind and our starting plan is setting up to make games scrappy dire affairs where hopefully we nick it 1-0. Well stuff that.

If we end up going down or finishing 22nd having a go for the last games then I'll accept that, if we go down or continue to slide playing this way then we as fans should seriously demand change for next season because it isn't good enough

I posted that as part of a post elsewhere earlier. May as well be my match report , we started ok for 10 minutes and then defended for the other 80 despite the fact we were put under no severe pressure. We didn't have a single shot on target in 90 minutes against the team 23rd in the division at the start of play.

Rene ended up on the right, even at right back at one point such was his frustration of not seeing the ball all night. Arrrrrgh as I type this I keep remembering bits of what i've just witnessed..my eyes my eyes...

It was horrific, shambolic, inept, clueless, classless, disgraceful, embarrassing take your pick from any of those. aldershot were little better but when the last 10 minutes came, they had a go for it sensing blood and deservedly got a winning goal. We had parked the bus from minute 10 despite there not being an onslaught coming.

Again like I've said, we have no plan, we have no quality, we have no leadership on and off the field. We are relegation CERTAINTIES as we stand right now. We will not win another game this season playing like that.

Only positive was Leadbitter's performance was a good one. Enough positives.

It was probably summed up when Aldershot scored we had 10 minutes to save ourselves, Benyon got 0 minutes match time, we carried on with 1 up front and then put downes up there for the last 2 minutes. We're pot less and 1-0 down playing like a shower of sh*t and the striker we've spent a bit of dosh on gets 0 minutes? I can't even work it out.

We had a perfect surface, a perfect opposition but the problem is we are the worst side in the entire division and we proved that tonight.

No guts, No heart, No quality, No flair, No ideas, No shots, No Points. No hope

Royal, i beat you to it 4 months ago! :na: This is what i saw then and it has been allowed to continue with inevitable results.

[cambgull]

Wow, I just got in to see us lose 1-0. I expected that, what I didn't expect was to see us having a grand total of 2 shots, with neither of them being on target and one solitary corner.

I really can't understand the reasoning behind these tactics. There is not a single team in the world who would play these tactics every game because the manager would see what is happening and make changes. After the Exeter game, I had genuine hopes that Taylor would be a good motivator, yet somehow he has shown himself to be completely clueless about football in general.

We might not want Alan Knill, but he can't be any worse than this, surely?

[hector]

We might not want Alan Knill, but he can't be any worse than this, surely?

Yes.

[miltonkeynesgull]

Shan't say much as I'm too angry to post coherently, and much of what I think has been said already.

That was one of the most inept and pathetic Torquay displays I've seen in a very long time - right up there with the 3-0 drubbing away at Mansfield under Leroy.

Only Leadbitter, Rene and Poke can come away with any credit tonight. The rest - in particular Stevens, Nicholson and Mansell - were utterly shambolic in every way. An absolute disgrace that any player could turn in a performance like most of them did tonight.

Tactically we were horrendous. Loathe as I am to blame Taylor - as he has had this all thrust upon him - bringing on a 0% fit Ian Morris on instead of Benyon was absolutely mental. Goes to say that Benyon shouldn't even have been on the bench in the first place. Mr Baker wasn't very impressed either. Was stood next to him on the terrace.

The first half was alright, we hit the post and had a couple of half-hearted penalty shouts - but we were so woeful in the second half that we couldn't even muster a shot on goal.

That was a performance that harked back to the bad days, and the atmosphere in the away end was absolutely poisonous (with good reason) from about 65 minutes onwards. I honestly hoped I wouldn't have to hear and see this sort of thing at Torquay again.

Knill has a big job on his hands. We are a club in freefall.

[tauntongull]

Just got back to Taunton after watching what can only be described as a farce. Perspective is needed, get behind the team the happy clappers cry. Nothing or no one can defend the spineless performance this evening - especially by those that didn'tt event attend.- It defies belieft the lack of tactics and failure to deploy something to change the game when there was potential on the bench. it felt from the beginning of the game that Taylor was playing for a draw. Torquay are a team with no confidence at the moment - more fearful of losing. Rene frustrated with his service - understandably so. several players need to take a serious look at their contribution. my hope is that both Nicholson and Stevens are let go at the end of the season - i've seen enough. the choice was Morris who hasn"t played for seceral months.. It cost me just over £100 in tickets and petrol and quite frankly this evening I am ashamed to call myself a Torquay fan. The only saving grace is having spoken to Simon Baker at the game, who incidentally could'nt understand what the hell Taylor was doing either, said we have signed an interim manager with league 1 / 2 experience - announcement tomorrow.

So we over-achieved last season did we? - well with comments like that its no wonder everyone is not putting in be effort they should. I'm so angry about this comment made by Ling

The Port Vale game may very well end up being a rout if we play anything like we did tonight,

Grrrrrrrrrrr

[royalgull]

OK, the problem with Bucks is his f*cking ego. He may well come in, and think he can do a billy Kee on the wing stunt again. We can't afford that jumped up pr*ck to mess around with us, as it wont work. We need to get it right quickly, and play simply. HOWEVER, he knows how to get the best out of Benyon, he used to rim Macklin with 3 year contracts, loved Danny, and would probably like the back-line. So hopefully no craig or Morris on the wing.

However he will probably put Manse out the side, or at right-back. Some see moving Manse away from the centre as a good thing, I'm possibly inclined to agree.

Bucks likes wingers, I like wingers. What's Jake Robinson up to?

Ok, i'm happy with Bucks back on footballing merit, however as a person that bloke can f*ck off back to the hole he crawled out of when he was born, and spaff himself silly at the thought of managing 'massive clubs' for all I care. Slime bag who could potentially drive me to hate him even more if he didn't keep us up.

We wouldn't go down if Bucks took over, but he's not, it's Knill and we're fcuked.

[royalgull]

Knill's brand is other than one season at Bury - Losing.

[Scott Brehaut]

Can someone describe Knill's brand of football to me, and explain why we are so fcuk'd please? Bucks is debatable. He was atrocious for us at times, and would have had a good 8+ more points come the end of his season's if he hadn't over complicated thinsg and played players out of position/ refused to sub his favourites.

Anyhows I agree it's all about Knilly now...

His stats (albeit taken from Wikipedia)

Managerial statistics

As of 27 October 2012

Rotherham United (caretaker) Games - 11. Won 2. Drawn 2. Lost 7. Win % 18.18
Rotherham United Games 64. Won. 18 Drawn 17. Lost 29. Win% 28.13
Bury Games 165. Won 71. Drawn 44. Lost 50. Win % 43.03
Scunthorpe United Games 78. Won 16. Drawn 30. Lost 32. Win % 20.51
Total Games 317. Won 106. Drawn 93. Lost 118. Win % 33.44

[Scott Brehaut]

Also, "helped out" in this sort of role before:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/footbal ... 471169.stm

For the record, it didn't work - they were relegated....

[Dockers Pal]

Our Board have had the last week to find our Houdini. Tomorrow I guess we'll find out if in fact it is Houdini or Mr Bean!!

[AlexGulls]

We cant be any worse than we were tonight. Not long in we were very poor. Lets face it a lot of people moaned at Ling when he came in with a bad spell at Cambridge and he did well here last season and was doing an OK job this season. He cant be any more inept than Taylor. At least we might muster more than two or three shots in a game.

He cant do any worse considering we appear pretty screwed anyway.

[CP Gull]

Amazing to think that after that game last night that not only us, but the victors on the night, will almost certainly have a new man in charge by the time Saturday comes around .... as Dean Holdsworth has today been sacked!

February has certainly been a bad month for the Holdsworth brothers as David was recently sacked by Lincoln City as well.

It's fair to say that pretty much every club in the bottom six have taken action to try and arrest the slide towards the BSP, either by changing Manager or wholesale changes to the squad. It does make you wonder what would we have done if the same results achieved under the temporary reign of Shaun Taylor had happened under(a fit and well) Martin Ling. Would we have acted so decisively? I guess we'll never know ....