NLS: Torquay United v Maidstone 3pm 7 October 2023

There won’t be a striker on the bench.

Not surprised to see Pearce go - it was the only logical explanation for his not being used last Saturday. Disappointing that Jenkins Davies’ injury is worse than we thought. I hope he will return when fit. Looks a decent player if used effectively.

Any chance of new loanees?

I fully expect an unchanged starting XI.

We would be down to our last 16 but Asa said on Thursday that he hopes to be back. Would expect him to get 15-20 minutes off the bench rather than start. That would drop Thomas out of the 16. Might DeSilva be back too? If so it would leave Craske, Martin and Hanson fighting for two places on the bench.

No De Silva or Martin, so Thomas makes up the bench.

God, that was shite. We're still going to be in this division next season.

100% unless we get two experienced CB, a dedicated RB and LB along with two back up strikers. I will not be at next weeks FA cup game ☹️

I think the standard is so poor that we will limp into the playoffs inspite of ourselves.

Then it is a bit of a lottery.

I made Yeovil favourites before the season started. It has taken them until now to hit the top, but would be surprised if they don't finish top.

I just hope that if we fail to secure home playoffs, we get sent to Taunton or Bath rather than to Chelmsford or Maidstone.

link - TUFC match report

So another home defeat and what grates is they weren’t a particularly good team and we could easily have won with 11 men on a well watered pitch that saw many a slip.

The players got off to a slow start with Maidstone applying moderate pressure and apart from Lapslie having a free header which he couldn’t convert, ( Possibly something he needs to work on as he had two free headers in this game) we had little cheer. Turning point was the sending off, ball didn’t need to go back to Marshall in the first place, he was put slightly under pressure, also had the option of passing to Tomlinson, but he was pointing back to Halstead and the ball was woefully under hit and he pulled their player back inside the area allowing him to gleefully go to ground for a clear red and a penalty. Well saved by Halstead with the penalty taker clearly telegraphing a low shot to the right of Halstead who duly got down to make a good save.

As so often happens with 10 men, we raised our game and just before half time created a good chance for Jarvis to force a good save from Covolan aiming for the far corner but on a tight angle. Created three good chances in the second half and disappointing that none of them were on target with Lapslie and Jarvis heading over and Ash unable to control a lob over Covolan also going over.

The Maidstone goal came from a free kick, which, if I recall three of our players, tried to head away but only succeeded in teeing up a Maidstone player on the edge of our area to hit through a crowd of players into the bottom right corner. A frustrating game although we looked the fitter team going into the closing stages despite the player deficit.