NL: Torquay United v Sutton 3pm 25 February 17

1 1 sutton only shot they had so far we never learn

All over at the mighty plainmoor lost 3 2 to a side who had an outfield player in goal who incidentally did not have to make one save pathetic whats the excuse tonight

Shambolic performance from a shambolic team an excuse as a manager and inept owners. Utter disgrace!

That was not just awful. let's face it we are used to that these last few seasons. But this was probably the most humiliating I've experienced at Plainmoor. Today told me we will get relegated and I will be surprised if we survive. I wish Nicholson would do the honourable thing and resign. If ever you wanted to see evidence that he is not up to the job, today is evidence of that. We had a gift today - 1-0 up playing against a part-time team with a full-back in goal for 75 minutes. We still lost and quite frankly we were clueless. Crowd 1,646, sponsors MOTM going to Reid to a chorus of laughs from the home crowd. Yes, Reid tries but there is rarely an end product to his game and never looks like scoring. Our only striker of note, Williams, was substituted to chants of "you don't know what you're doing" aimed at Nicholson. Well done Nicholson on that master class of tactics today.

I thought the gods were on our side today. After around 5 minutes a huge kick from Hodgkiss was carried by the strong wind and keeper Worner got injured in dealing with the punt. He was hobbling around. Young was our only player with the gumption to test their injured keeper. His long range shot was on target but should have been a routine save. Worner let the ball through him and Torquay had a dream start. Shortly afterwards Worner was replaced by their....full-back as there was no "Roly-Poly" keeper on the bench. Surely this was going to be a routine win for Torquay? Even a draw would be a disaster in the circumstances.

Torquay were well on top and Sutton were in disarray after the upheaval. It was important Torquay got the second goal and that meant testing their stand-in keeper. But we are talking about Torquay here with their chronic lack of goal scoring threat. At least we defend better these days, or so we thought? Sutton had a corner, took it short to danger man Deacon. Torquay were slow to react and Deacon hit lovely shot into the far corner. It was probably their first goal attempt on 30 minutes. It was no longer a forgone conclusion that Torquay would win this one and their keeper was not tested for the rest of the half. At half-time I had big doubts Torquay would win as they were really making hard work of their earlier gift.

Seconds after the re-start Torquay took the lead. A long punt was flicked on and Williams smartly lifted the ball past their makeshift keeper. It was short lived as a couple of minutes later a cross was headed and looped over Moore into the net. For the rest of the game Torquay were poor and could not even muster a shot of note against their suspect keeper. A corner came over and was dropped by their keeper but not one Torquay player was there to capitalize on it. This summed up the team - a lack of awareness, anticipation, intelligence etc. At the other end, Sutton were looking dangerous and made some decent moves. An open goal was blasted over and later a Deacon shot crashed off the cross bar. On went Harrad and Chaney together for Williams and Lathrope but neither made any impact.

With 10 minutes to go the unthinkable happened. Once again a header looped over the hapless Moore who was stood in no-mans land. Torquay had no response and their performance descended to an embarrassment.

Enough is enough today and we deserve to go down. We have a total lack of fire power who could not take advantage of a full-back playing in goal for most of the match. We still only played one striker at home, Nicholson did not have any imagination to change things to get shots on target. Our only decent striker, Williams, was substituted. I am resigned to us getting relegated with gives me no pleasure in saying it. But the truth is that we deserve to and today's shambles was evidence of that.

It’s been a long time since I left Plainmoor feeling so fed up after a game. Haven’t heard boos and shouts of dissatisfaction so loudly for a long time either and there was still a lot of happy clapping going on as well.

I think what can be said has already been said, why you couldn’t they pepper the Sutton goal and physically test their ‘keeper during the game is beyond me. I don’t think he had a make a save in anger and ‘touched’ the ball no more than 4 times (including picking the ball out of the net). If there was an outfield player who looked soooooooooooooo uncomfortable in goal, it was he.

I don’t profess to understand formations but I don’t think Williams is suited to playing the lone striker role. I guess the Blissett and Moore money has been spent, on what I would ask...We do need a big striker to add something a little different to our style of play. Keeting needs more than a weekly 4 to 5 minutes.

As if things couldn’t get any worse, there was no beef pie up at the Dumpling and they have stopped selling ‘Devon Dumpling’ real ale.

One point and dropping above the relegation zone.

Yesterdays incredibly naive, non performance was depressingly predictable.
Awful to watch, a non event in entertainment terms.
There is a bottom line here I feel and that is probably something we all have known for a good while and that is the playing squad is simply no where near up to the standard of this league.
Nicholson has got them working, I thought i general that the majority DID work reasonably hard for the ninety or so minutes but the level of individual skill organisation and any sort of leadership was way below anything I have ever witnessed at Plainmoor.
No flair no leaders no inspiration no individual to lift the others.
The manager and players are of course the easy target when fan frustration boils over as it did yesterday but I cannot be criticle of Nicholsons work ethic or commitment throughout his time in charge and as for the players its not there fault they are not up too this level.
The manager had a sound base to work from after last seasons escape. He had assembled a "mid table" group of players ad we all hoped he could build from that but what has happened since has been a total disaster. But who or what is that down to? Players that I rated Racchie Josh Reece, Iffy Allen even Joe Ward have been cast aside for the likes of the useless Lathrope. Scrivens who looked dangerous was played for just a few minutes in his time here and then wanted out. Incredibly we now have another bench warmer novice in the same mold in Critchlow who I doubt is good enough or will ever get ninety minutes. The list is endless -Who the f**k is making these decisions?
The last six months have been comical from a fans point of view it almost seems intentional that the squad has been weakened with the manager left to hang out to dry.
If Nicholson had anywhere else to go he should because if he isnt being backed by those behind the scenes then hes on a hiding to nothing . I can only imagine he has been told theres nothing left in the pot and he has to work with what hes got OR perhaps hes told those in charge that he will keep this club in this division and work with what hes got. Bigger fool you Nico because you are fast becoming the scape goat for this entire f**k up of a season.