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It wasn't a winger's pitch last night. Far too hard and uneven and, mostly, made of rock hard dirt rather than grass. The two wide boys will do just fine on professional surfaces. Tiverton, as usual, were diving in. Thompson is lucky he can still walk after a challenge put in on him after about 2 minutes.
Those fretting over signings need to take the hint and BE COOL and those slating the club for trialling Rendell need to consider suicide, since you're too stupid to be of any practical value to the world in general.

Pre-season is about getting match fit, getting minutes into the legs, reacquainting the players with the feel of a ball at their feet and having a butcher's at a few players who may, or may not, turn out to be useful. The fact that we drew with TTFC last night is meaningless. By the same logic which says we're in trouble based on that result, surely we should be writing to the FA demanding a promotion to the Championship on the basis that we beat Yeovil 2-0.

As a fitness exercise, last night was perfect. We had long spells in possession and we had long spells without possession. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Knill, at half time, had asked that we let Tivvy have more of the play, in order to properly exercise the back 5. No one was injured (although we have God, rather than anyone else, to thank for that) and our fringe players now have 90 good minutes under their belts. NC showed his ability, a couple of others staked claims to the bench (Sullivan, Hutchings, McKenzie) and a couple didn't do so well, but that's football.

Matt.

Richinns wrote:Man Utd lost to some unheard Japanese team yesterday. Shall we write them off as relegation fodder too?

Come on people - get a grip.

Spot on.

In reality, the team that we put out last night probably only featured four positions (inc combinations of players I.e. Mansell/Harding) that were filled by players who you would expect to be in our starting XI come the first game, that is subject to both a fully fit squad and Knill plugging the gaps in attack and defence. Those positions would be CH (Downes), 1 x CM (Mansell/Harding) and 2 x Wingers (perm any two from Chapell, Cameron, Bodin, Thompson).

The midfield was pretty close to the one we would expect to see starting, but personally much as I like him and he has impressed in the PSFs I don't see Craig starting and other than Downesy in defence all the other positions were filled by back ups - I even expect Nico to be given the nod over Cruise too.

Personally I would still like to see another FOUR players added, that would include a centre half (Cooper?), two strikers and for me at least another central midfielder (Mozika?). It may seem a little unnecessary to want yet another CM but we have lost both Easton and Morris from last seasons squad and of course(albeit only temporarily) Labadie and to date we have only brought in Harding (no doubt at a considerable cost) to replace them. To me he is not that box to box midfielder that Labadie was/is and I still live in hope that Knill will bring another one in to fill that role.

It still leaves Alan Knill with a lot of work to do and realistically given the pace of progress to date, I don't expect all these positions to be filled over the next 10 days but hopefully a minimum of 1 x centre half and 1 x Striker will arrive in time. Of course, no doubt our budget will restrict us as to how many we can bring in but surely there is room for at least three more, given that we released SEVEN and lost a further FOUR to ther teams during the course of the summer .... so a total of ELEVEN departures and so far we have only added FIVE. Notwithstanding that the likes of Harding, Tonge and Benyon would be on decent money, I doubt that the likes of the "unproven" Chapell and Cameron are on much (if indeed any) more money than say Stevens and Macklin were last year and so you would expect (subject to a similar budget this year) there is still plenty of scope for three (min) or four quality additions.... undoubtedly with probably one or two of those being on long term loans where hopefully we are only making a contribution of player wages.

don't know if I've missed something, but why were Benyon and lathrope left out of the squad, they were both at the game along with pokey!

I think it was a chance to give them a night off, nothing more sinister than that.

Matt.

I was at the game last night and even though it was a pre season run about what concerned me was that we allowed tiverton to bully us off the ball on many occasions. We seamed to lack basic aggression in the tackle lots of neat flicks and pretty football however on a a cold night away at york in feb that will not bring about points. We need some nasty players in this side someone who will not worry about putting a size 12 through somebody taking a booking to stop a goal. Craig last night very impressed me ide like to see him cement a center mid position alongside harding and A N other this season. But here is some good news we will sign a center half today or tomorrow who fits the bill nicely like i said a nasty brute is needed and a nasty brute we seam to have.

gullno4 wrote:don't know if I've missed something, but why were Benyon and lathrope left out of the squad, they were both at the game along with pokey!

They both had slight niggles nothing major, so just left out as a precaution.

teeboo100 wrote:I was at the game last night and even though it was a pre season run about what concerned me was that we allowed tiverton to bully us off the ball on many occasions. We seamed to lack basic aggression in the tackle lots of neat flicks and pretty football however on a a cold night away at york in feb that will not bring about points. We need some nasty players in this side someone who will not worry about putting a size 12 through somebody taking a booking to stop a goal. Craig last night very impressed me ide like to see him cement a center mid position alongside harding and A N other this season. But here is some good news we will sign a center half today or tomorrow who fits the bill nicely like i said a nasty brute is needed and a nasty brute we seam to have.

I would agree with you but don't forget this is a pre-season 'friendly'. Yes, the games needs to be competitive but no-one is going to risk injury, either to themselves or the opposition, especially with the ground so hard as it is at the moment.
If yourself and Matt are right, which I have every reason to believe you are then we are in for a great finish to pre-season in terms of signings!
Do either of you know if these will be in before the Hereford game?

hi phil yes i believe the defender will be here today good player as well think we will all be very happy with this one

teeboo100 wrote:hi phil yes i believe the defender will be here today good player as well think we will all be very happy with this one

Exciting! A new name or one we've seen mentioned before?

new name

teeboo100 wrote:new name

Please tell me it's T!tfvck Bumble!

nah mate lol

Teeboo - does this mean that Shaun Cooper is not prepared to sign?

New centre half sounds promising! As long as he is a big lad I would prefer him over Cooper.

We need size , a big centre half with 2 big strikers, along side Harding and Tonge we would turn into quite a big physical team.

Any names for this centre half? Also any names on a centre forward?