Gateshead Highlights

[Gulliball]

6+ minutes of decent, edited highlights, and were online and free to view before midnight last night. Better than our usual fifteen seconds at 1am.

[hector]

Embarrassing how easily they seemed to be able to cut through us. Decent move for our goal. Perhaps away from home, at least - to the 'big' clubs (now we are tinpot), he should field Richards (who on small evidence there, looked decent), drop Benyon and just play one up front.

[Gloomy Gull]

Just watched the highlights and from the footage it looked as though no Torquay player congratulated Briscoe on what looked a very good goal - given that he had to regain his feet before taking the shot.

I hope that was just the editor's cut and his teammates did in fact recognise his efforts.

[Pea]

I'm sure the highlights portray it wrongly, but that looks to me like we lost 3-1 to a side with a L1 striker up front, who hammered in two goals which would have graced any top flight match in the world. Considering we also missed a penalty, the scoring of which would have meant that we were at 2-2 (and earning a creditable away point) before their guy knocked in a 30-yarder. The only other game I've seen in this division this year featured Bristol Rovers (bookies favourites for the title) and Grimsby (playoff semi-finalists). Neither of those sides, with all their efforts combined, managed to produce anything of the quality that Gateshead seem to possess.

Have we, perhaps, just come across the outstanding talent in this division and been rightly beaten? Are Gateshead merely average and us, Rovers and Grimsby (on the evidence thus far available) going to be lucky to score half a dozen points between us?
I think the former is considerably more likely, but I'm happy to concede that that view is based on one televised match and 6 minutes of YouTube highlights.

That said, the first goal is nothing short of embarrassing. We just let the worst corner ever taken simply bobble and bounce, slowly and unchecked, straight to a player who was patently stood where he was in order to avoid getting involved at all.
Two and three for them, well, what do you want us to do. Might be nice if someone had got in his face for the second, rather than giving him a free shot from 18 yards, but the third is unstoppable. You can have two goalkeepers in and they're not getting that.

My real concern is some of our old shit who keep getting pitch time, despite the glaringly obvious fact that they simply aren't good enough. Imagine Benyon in the same place as their guy was for their second goal. 18 yards out, on his own, centre of goal. Does he A) smash it into the bottom corner or B) get flustered, take a heavy touch out for a goal kick, and then fall over his own feet?

Time for him to go. I don't give a shit about age, or size or experience, our best XI includes Ives, Richards, Ajala and Yeoman. If some other players have to miss out or we have to play an odd formation because of it, then so be it.
And finally, will someone, please, for **** sake, get hold of our strikers and teach them how to take a **** penalty!

[PhilGull]

The performance from our boys looked like they had just made a 9 hour coach journey that morning for another preseason friendly. Hopefully a kick up the are from Greavsie and a gentle reminder that the friendlies are over and this shit matters from now on will see some improvements on Tuesday.
To be fair to Gateshead though they look pretty damn good - far, far better than anything we saw the last time we were in the Conference or even League Two last year.

[bobby93]

To be fair I think Gateshead are a decent side. The real test will be how do we respond? A win on Tuesday will see confidence return.

And as Pea mentions above, I'd have all four of those players in the XI as well.