FL2: Torquay v Southend 17th November 2012

Over the moon to see a post from you Rich had a lovely chat with your mum at Homers Heath a few weeks ago.Down in Plymouth right now but will reply to your points when I get home later. Hope you will stick around as you were always a very valued member on the TFF

Bobby who?

I went into the match with an open mind, expecting to see that we hadn't been playing that badly lately and I'd been basing my opinion on a few negative folk. But if that's the way we've been playing lately I'm not surprised people are upset. I didn't want to come on here after the match and say that but I have no option, because that was worse than my lowest expectations

The only time I've seen us play as badly as we were in the first half yesterday is in the first half at Hereford. I was angry that day. But yesterday I couldn't even find it within myself to be angry. It was just a case of "oh, well there's a surprise, another goal conceded". And without wanting to put words in people's mouths, I think a lot of people are feeling the same way, and that's dangerous, because people will stop coming if they feel like that. There's certainly no motivation for me to come down from Coventry to watch the team again

GK - We were saying at Plainmoor that Rice wasn't at fault for any of the goals but watching them back I think he could have saved the first, though it was primarily Nicholson's fault, as was the 3rd

RB - Oastler did pretty much nothing useful all afternoon, and struggled with the pace of the Southend attack. Surely Ling would have known they had a quick attack, so why not play Leadbitter?

CB - Ironically while we defended abysmally the two people least to blame for all of this were Saah and Downes who I thought were pretty good as usual. The innocent victims in all of this

LB - Nicholson needs to be dropped now. He was utterly dire. He couldn't handle pace of the attackers and yet still bombed forward, including ending up in the middle of the park for the 3rd goal. His set pieces were also poor, and I'm told that that's not a one-off. I think we've seen the best of him - I get the same feeling watching him as I had when Woods was nearing the end

DM - Lathrope wasn't his usual tidy self but definitely shouldn't have been taken off. The result of that was the 4th goal which killed the game off

CM - I'd be very disappointed if Mansell is restored to the side immediately after his ban, because he too was dreadful. This was more 2007-vintage Mansell - running around like a headless chicken in midfield and stupidly and needlessly getting himself sent off (the stupidest challenge I can remember in a long time, and that's saying a lot considering I remember Tony Bedeau's "tackling"). He doesn't fit the style of football Ling wants to play and he isn't playing well

CM - When I was at the Burton game, we picked up that Easton didn't seem to be doing a great job. On the basis of yesterday's performance, he shouldn't be anywhere near the starting XI. Why a player of his experience didn't take out Assombalonga or Tomlin (whichever it was) in the lead-up to the second I don't know, and why he was even attempting the crazy shot just seconds before is equally mystifying, although I did hear a fellow player encouraging him to shoot

RW - Bodin shouldn't be playing on the right. End of

LW - Craig is not a winger. But I think he's being played in the Morris role of last year as a wide playmaker. That's what's making this formation so negative - there's no pace, the main creative source is marginalised on the wing (when he drifted centrally after the 2nd he immediately produced a good through ball for Howe) and no one is pushing forward to join Howe. I'm not saying 4-5-1 doesn't work but this iteration of it with these players certainly doesn't

ST - Howe was OK. I think the Sunday Indy rating him as the best player of the starters is wrong - he wasn't great in the first half; worked hard but made plenty of mistakes. But he's blameless. And I also wouldn't blame him if he left

Sub - Jarvis did OK too. Didn't do anything wrong and finished well for the goal. I'm sure he's not a bad player - he's just not brilliant

Sub - Thompson was deserving of the MOTM award. He instantly gave us the pace and penetration we needed, and put in some beautiful deliveries. I can understand the appeal of him as an impact player but with Macklin out he should be starting, especially ahead of a player who is clearly being played out of position

Sub - Cruise was a calming influence and passed the ball intelligently, which is more than can be said for the two CMs that started the match. It's nice to have a good utility player but it's just a shame that he can't fill every place that he can play, because we need him at LB more

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The thing is, while some have said I've been negative about recent performances, I've actually maintained a consistent line since before the season even started that we didn't have enough players to achieve the aims Ling has set out in the press. That's coming home to roost now - despite the tripe that was served up yesterday, you and I know that Ling will put out pretty much the same team again next week unless he actually grows some balls and drops some of these consistently underperforming players. As I've said before, where's the competition, and therefore, where's the motivation for them to perform? I'm not saying they're not putting the effort in during the 90 minutes, but psychologically the lack of competition for places now that Ling is flat refusing to drop players is going to have an impact

Look at Nicholson. He delivered his best football after being dropped for some time and having to fight his way back into the team. There's a total contrast between that Kevin Nicholson and the one that was made to look like an amateur yesterday, and I don't think that's just down to age

Either way, we need players. Fast. Despite my previous frustrations, I wasn't worried about relegation before yesterday. After watching that match, I am now. I don't care about current league position and points - as I've pointed out before, Macclesfield had roughly the same number of points as we have at this stage. We were as bad yesterday as they were when they came to Plainmoor last year. I know we ground out results last season without playing well but this is something else - can't defend, can't retain the ball, can't create chances, and can't score. That's a recipe for disaster

Agree entirely with 99% of that James.
I too had that air of resignation, even after the first goal went in. I wasn't anger and I, like so many others simply resigned myself to the inevitable. In fact at two nil down all I could hear around me in the Pop side were personal group conversations about work and Christmas, they werent even watching th edismal procedings such was the interest in the game itself
Sad to say Nico is looking like he is struggling with all aspects at the moment . One of my favourites over the last few seasons as has been Lee Mansell but I am beginning to wonder if its one season to far for both of them. Having said that the system played with Nathan Craig supposedly playing wide left in front of him gave him no outlet whatsoever so what can you expect? Nathan is a novice at this level and clearly has plenty to learn. Sweet left foot agreed but offers little else in truth and cant beat a man, an another who is good at playing sideways passes. Craig Easton is a lightweight and is well past his best. Can we eally see him as the creative focal point of midfield?
There is so much wrong and has been for a while I could go on and on. The only thing we can hope is that the players pride will have been hurt and we will see a response next week at York just as Steve Evans Rotherham responded against Chelts yesterday after a debacle the week previous, I bet he was red faced after that one!
Cant see it myself but who knows.

Exactly. As I think Rags said earlier, it's not the highlighting of problems that's the issue, it's the expectation that things should be any different.

Where's Ling's statement on the OS? Where's the Captain's mea culpa? When's the Chairman going to  publish the acounts?

Jesus effing Christ.

Those who are paying good money to watch games are surely entitled to ask questions and get some answers are they not? any good business needs to keep its customers happy, needs to let them know how they will fix the product, if in fact it is broken.

Fans rightly want to hear what the manager has to say after such a defeat, they want him to reassure them he will do all he can to turn things around. He needs to get on and do that as far as I'm concerned if he has not already