NLS: Torquay United v Eastbourne Borough 3pm 6/1/24

Unless we get a last minute surprise, we are down to our last 16 with Thomas replacing Williams in the squad.

Minimum change would see Collins replacing Williams up top and Hanson coming in to give a bit more bite to midfield. De Silva would surely be preferred to Foyo on the right after Foyo’s dreadful Boxing Day display. He may be better having the last fifteen minutes up front against a tiring defence.

But do we want to repeat the 4-3-3 / 4-1-4-1 formation that saw us so totally overrun by Truro?

Would be good to have two up front, but not blessed with fit strikers. Marshall up front with Crowe replacing him at right back? Archer - maybe just behind Collins? Might Foyo look less dreadful up front?

And if you go two up front, is it a 3-5-2 or a 4-4-2? We have had spells where if is difficult to tell which of those we are playing. De Silva could be a notional wing back who would push on so much that Marshall would be almost permanently shuffled over to right back, with Jenkins Davies drifting out left from a midfield three.

Despite the injuries, we really should have enough to beat a very poor Eastbourne team. I am not quite as confident as I should be though. Let’s hope they do not have enough about them to get on the front foot and run through our porous midfield.

Will they get a new manager bounce? Adam Murray signed for us when it looked like we would have a solid team under Ian Atkins. The ridiculous events that followed meant Murray had stumbled into a nightmare and you cannot blame him for activating the ejector seat and joining Paul Ince at Macc. I wish him well - but NOT today.

So this is the last of what looked five winnable games after the Hemel win. Fifteen gettable points on the table, with eleven or twelve the minimum expectation to establish ourselves in second place and maybe even put some pressure on Yeovil.

So far, we have had two bad defeats and two postponements. This isn’t a “must win” but it feels like it.

This season feels so weird because it is all a bit of a phoney war before our season is decided over two or three playoff games.

I cannot believe we can fail to finish in the top seven, but when I look at how cluelessly we went about the first half hour on Boxing Day, eighth place or lower is well within our grasp.

I would not fancy our chances in a do or die battle of wits against any of the half decent sides in a playoff. As things stand, we would be out-thought and out-played. I suppose the return of the injured would give us chance though. If we do fluke promotion, we need very fast action to make major changes if we want to survive in the league above. Muddling along would lead to more disaster.

What odds on Lee Johnson next manager?

Will be interesting to see where Archer, Foyo and Collins play.

Foyo lone striker. Collins wide left. Archer centre midfield. 4-3-3 / 4-1-4-1.

Utter disgrace. Outplayed by a terrible team. Nothing on the bench to buck things up. This is so bad that even George Edwards might start to see it.Or maybe not.

That's effectively what Dave Thomas is saying. He must have overheard you..

I thought Eastbourne played the ball well, moving forwards rather than side to side or side to back or backside.

I did manage to get back in time from Cardiff for this one. Not quite sure why I bothered! The two goals scored were Quality and Mc Gavin had a long shot that just went over the bar but other than that we offered very little…