Southend United v Torquay United - 16/3/13

[AustrianAndyGull]

I didn't mean it literally, you get the general idea of what i meant though?

Anyway, i'd take a 2-2 draw away at Southend and a man sent off.

[ferrarilover]

I think Knilly Alan has now started to have a positive influence on the team. Manse taking corners, Cruise on the pitch etc. Rather hoping that this trend will continue and he will have made further alterations to the Lingy side which got it so badly wrong this time round.

Southend are needlessly good, massive and powerful with goal threats all over the pitch. That said, for continuing to field Moshni (or Mohsni, as Wiki calls him), they are complete scum and deserve to be relegated at least 5 divisions. The bloke is a waster and has no place in football. He is part of exactly the same cancer that Manchester City are. Too much money, not enough graft. It's odd, I always thought Sturrock had more backbone than to be held to ransom by some long haired prima donna. Alas, non.

No idea what the score will be. It doesn't seem to matter how we play or what the oppo are like, we lost by the odd goal, so I'll say a draw (SUFC -1) at 5/2 with Betfred.

Matt.

Omid Djalili Piccalilli?

[Scott Brehaut]

I didn't mean it literally, you get the general idea of what i meant though?

Of course I did you daft sod - I was being pedantic

[AustrianAndyGull]

I've heard that somewhere before.

[gullno4]

I'd like to see

Poke
Leadbitter Saah Macdonald Cruise
Macklin Labadie Mansell Chappell
Howe Bodin

think that gives us our best chance of winning, realistically I think we'll lose 3-1, but we can dream !!!!

[AustrianAndyGull]

Yep, can't argue with that much Gullno4 although i'd start Jarvis and use Bodin as a sub.

We'll win this if my formation is used obviously. :Oops:

[SuperNickyWroe]

I'd like to see

Poke
Leadbitter Saah Macdonald Cruise
Macklin Labadie Mansell Chappell
Howe Bodin

think that gives us our best chance of winning, realistically I think we'll lose 3-1, but we can dream !!!!

bodin is away with the welsh u21's............

and hes defo there as austrianandygull drove him to the meet-up - just in case he got "lost"....... :}

[AustrianAndyGull]

I did think that myself but the OS says he is out for the Chesterfield and York games and not this so someone is wrong.

[Gullscorer]

Whatever the line-up, I don't want to see any formation or tactics that are at all overly-defensive. We must win games.

I've said it before, but if we don't attack, we won't score goals. If we don't score goals we won't win. If we don't win games we won't pick up enough points.

Better to win one and lose one (= 3 points) than to draw two (= 2 points), and certainly better than to play for draws, and then to draw one and lose one (= 1 point).

[ferrarilover]

On Scorer's point (up there ^^^) I feel this is possibly our best shot at a "free" game. Realistically, no one expects us to get anything from this one. This is not one that the staff, fans and players will be targeting as a winnable match. At this stage of the season and in the position we're in, the management and board must be looking at the remaining fixtures and cherry picking certain matches which they will target to win at the expense of effort or performance in others. We don't want to go all out to beat Southend, only to lose to a better team, knacker ourselves, then piss away three winnable points against Barnet because we went after a game we were never going to win. Thus, this one is a bit of a freebie. We might, therefore, just as well go all out, bat shit crazy attack mode. Stick all our offensive players on the pitch and just attack relentlessly. If Amir Khan gets in the ring with Lennox Lewis, he isn't going to out-box the heavyweight, so he might as well come out of his corner throwing haymakers and hope like hell he gets lucky.
For me, this is a no lose, like a cup game against much bigger and better opponents. Just do something crazy and see what happens. If we try to play out usual defensive, cautious, pedestrian football, we will, almost certainly, get beaten. We might as well have a right go at this one and see if we get lucky. The worst we can do is get zero points. I don't think we'll be so far below them that they will hit us for a proper hat full (or hatful?) of goals, but if we lose 4-0 having a go, that's got to be no worse than losing 1-0 and tiring ourselves out by defending for an hour and a half, surely?

Matt.

[standupsitdown]

Much as I don't want to see a defensive display, nor must we get hammerred. In our position 1.0 is not the same as 4.0. Currently our goal difference is worth an extra point over the 6 other clubs fighting relegation, but other than Accrington, there are now only a few goals in it. A heavy defeat would almost be like losing a point.

[AustrianAndyGull]

On Scorer's point (up there ^^^) I feel this is possibly our best shot at a "free" game. Realistically, no one expects us to get anything from this one. This is not one that the staff, fans and players will be targeting as a winnable match. At this stage of the season and in the position we're in, the management and board must be looking at the remaining fixtures and cherry picking certain matches which they will target to win at the expense of effort or performance in others. We don't want to go all out to beat Southend, only to lose to a better team, knacker ourselves, then piss away three winnable points against Barnet because we went after a game we were never going to win. Thus, this one is a bit of a freebie. We might, therefore, just as well go all out, bat sh*t crazy attack mode. Stick all our offensive players on the pitch and just attack relentlessly. If Amir Khan gets in the ring with Lennox Lewis, he isn't going to out-box the heavyweight, so he might as well come out of his corner throwing haymakers and hope like hell he gets lucky.
For me, this is a no lose, like a cup game against much bigger and better opponents. Just do something crazy and see what happens. If we try to play out usual defensive, cautious, pedestrian football, we will, almost certainly, get beaten. We might as well have a right go at this one and see if we get lucky. The worst we can do is get zero points. I don't think we'll be so far below them that they will hit us for a proper hat full (or hatful?) of goals, but if we lose 4-0 having a go, that's got to be no worse than losing 1-0 and tiring ourselves out by defending for an hour and a half, surely?

Matt.

This is 100% correct and i hope Knill agrees or we're screwed.

I do disagree with you Matt though in your evaluation of Southend and the apparent high esteem in which you hold them. They've lost 7 at home including to Accrington and Wimbledon and they play a similar tentative game to us at home certainly and their fans don't like it. I'd say we've nothing to fear and we should go out there looking to win a game that is very winnable at the moment. A week ago i'd have said you were insane if you thought we could get any result from Roots Hall but given their indifferent home form and what happened to us on tuesday night we will never have a better chance to beat them. They're not a great side and there is 3 points in this just like there is for the Chesterfield game, the York game and so on and so i think we should take each game in isolation and try and win them all. (apart from Gillingham away where we probably WILL end up getting slaughtered ).

COYY!!!!! We'll win this 2-1!

[SBP]

I can see Knill do something like this
Poke
Oastler Saah Macdonald Cruise
Macklin Labadie Mansell Chappell
Jarvis
Howe

[Plymouth Gull]

Bodin is available today. He misses the two home games next week.

[AustrianAndyGull]

I can see Knill do something like this
Poke
Oastler Saah Macdonald Cruise
Macklin Labadie Mansell Chappell
Jarvis
Howe

I'd be happy with that too SBP. I think Cruise should DEFINATELY play, i think CHAPPELL should start and i'd go with Jarvis from the off and bring Billy on later on for a 25 minute burst or so. I'm really looking forward to seeing how Chappell does today ( assuming he gets in ) and i hope he can give us some much needed attacking impetus.