NL: Torquay United v Southend 3pm 25 February 2023

Mensah replaces Evans with Collins taking his place on the bench.

No width other than De Silva.

Guess Mensah right back?

Either Donnellan right and De Silva left in a 4-4-2, or a 4-3-3 with DeSilva and Fadahunsi either side of Jarvis?

Or a diamond with Donnellan at the base and De Silva in a free role at the tip??

I just can't juggle those eleven into a shape that really works

What on earth has happened to Omar? He can't be any worse than some of those in the squad today.

We're incredibly poor and deserve to be relegated. To concede so easily once again after getting back into it exposes our many weaknesses. Feel for the supporters who attended and watched that shower of dog poo and one or two of the players who are good enough for this level, lawrence , lapslie, and jarvis. Damage was done before a ball was kicked this season six months ago.

I think that has all been abundantly clear since the end of September tbh.

As well as we played against Barnet, how poorly we’ve played in the last two games and for me that is it: we’re down. Whilst there are 14 games left, we just are not good enough and losing these two matches will have knocked any stuffing left out of the side, the fanbase and that’s it.

We are likely to be relegated with Maidstone, Scunthorpe and one out of Yeovil and Dorking. That means three teams going into the NLS and that means it won’t be as easy as last time and that’s discounting the fact that our 2019 side had a smattering of EFL quality players in it and was far superior to this version.

Yesterday was an abysmal match; Southend didn’t look that great themselves but they were better than us, as pretty much everyone is. Looking at the players we fielded yesterday and thinking about the side we had two years ago and last year, there are only Lawrence, Jarvis and Lapslie who could potentially not look out of place in the squad we had previously (Moxey was obviously in it anyway, and Halstead maybe as a squad player). The rest are just poor. I don’t know if this is the worst team in our history (I feel like I’ve probably seen worse) but even under Nicholson things weren’t this bad.

I’m not anti-Johnson in the way some are: I’m not about to go apoplectic about it as rather resigned to relegation and have got used to the idea. I hate the National League anyway (although I’d feather leave it going upwards) but how depressing that we’ve become not even good enough to stay in it, collapsing so quickly from almost winning it to falling out of it, in the way we used to when we were in the EFL. Regarding Johnson, I find all so sad and when the time comes for him to go (which most assume will be at the end of the season) I will feel for him personally that it’s all ended where it started but as Stewart points out, with a team that is probably weaker than the one that even Gary Owers left us with.