FL2: Hereford v Torquay United Feb 6th 2010

It was just a lighthearted comment - not meant to be taken seriously. We know you are all important from Budleigh who writes in the program right up to the top man who writes in his diary

Maybe the time has come to stand in the away end at Plainmoor. At least you're not gonna hear "Sills this", "Hargreaves that" and "Buckle out" bollox. Boo. Rubbish.

Thats all you would hear if the whingers went in the away end after their protest

I have waited until now in order to prevent a ‘knee jerk’ posting. Having travelled to Hereford yesterday with some optimism, I have to say that I really do think that we could be in serious trouble. Like many on here I have kept thinking that a win will turn the corner and it will be ‘mid table here we come’!
Whilst I applaud the ambitious talk of having a team made up of young skilful players that will take the club onwards and upwards, I do think the removal of our older and wiser players was far too early. If we had secured mid table obscurity by now then fine, tinker with the team as much as you like but not when we were and are struggling to survive in this league.
Yesterday was a perfect example of a game that cried out for a Chris Hargreaves in midfield and a strong physical Tim Sills up front. The arguments for and against their departures have been done to death so it’s a waste of time going over it again, but the fact remains I really do believe we would have won the game yesterday at a gallop with those two players on the pitch.
I am not Benyon's biggest fan but his performance in the last few games has been much improved and I was amazed to see him left out of the starting eleven. The threat of Zebs and Benyon as a front pairing is the strongest that we have under the present circumstances. Yesterday Zebs chased and chased but with little or no real threat and surprisingly he was knocked off the ball, and his feet, with relative ease. Jake Thompson seems to have lost his desire to fight and he, amongst many others, had a shocking first touch yesterday. Time after time our players would receive the ball only to fail to control the pass and give away possession.
Nicky Wroe is too quiet to be the Captain. His passing was all over the place yesterday and all too often he would wait for the ball to come to him and failed to chase down the opposition. Tyronne Thompson huffed and puffed and did put in some good challenges for him, but he is a shadow of his predecessor I’m afraid. I had hoped that Mustapha might shine when given the chance but sadly I was wrong. O’kane is a midfield player and not a winger, although he did come away with some credit. Adam Smith was very good and the back pairing of Robertson and Branston was solid. In fact I would have given Branston man of the match yesterday. Young Cox was by far the weakest link in our team. I was looking forward to seeing him having heard all his plaudits. However he was caught wrong side of their player time and time again. He was knocked to the ground almost every time he came into contact with their players and his shirt pulling made Robertson’s normal antics looked positively tame! We are all indebted to Michael Poke for getting us back into the Football League in my opinion and I have the greatest of respect for him. However, for whatever reason, he has lost his confidence and now is more often caught in two minds as to what he should be doing. I do not know how his confidence can be regained but Scott Bevan should be in goal until such time as Michael regains it! Once only during the ninety minutes yesterday did he shout and come off his line to take a high ball, choosing instead to stand on his line hoping that those in front of him would clear the danger. I have yet to see the replay of the goal, but from where I was sat, he appeared to miss his catch of the ball and unsighted Smith on the line who would otherwise have had a fairly easy chance of clearing the ball. I wait to be corrected!
Dropping Michael would do nothing for his confidence; however our position in the league does not allow us time for sentiment.
Whatever team Paul Buckle puts out deserve our support and encouragement whilst on the field of play. The arguments for and against can be debated in bars, homes and on forums. There will always be differences of opinion and it will be a long hard fight to the end of this season. Whether a team made up of so many loan players will have that fight to give their all for our club remains to be seen. We can do our part by getting behind them every week.

it has to be said that yesterdays result was very disappointing especially as darlo won, regarding the team on the day i agree branston was superb his reading of the game was fantastic which in turn enabled the ball to hit his head so often, he also made several crucial tackles along with regimenting the team and cajoling them too !

Muzzy ty and cox vied for most ineffective player on the park closely followed by poke and at times wroe.

I thought we looked much more solid once mansell came on but like wroe passing not too hot, but for me the biggest disappointment for attitude was thomson hed make a run with the ball and would then not make the pass to open up the defence but would rather run into trouble the ball now lost rather than chase back hed get the hump and slouch back ready for the next time.

certainly the ref was having an off day benyons booking was silly to be fair some of the others could be argued for i thought wroe was lucky to stay out of trouble so long and i'mm sure he got booked for retalliating to the shirt pulling ,

i worry were not going to stay up same as you all however i think with bev on the park and branston in front there would be no point sending in crosses!! as it is its just that which is undoing us, the cross not dealt with bouncing in front of goal and voilla no points ,I cant remember poke actually having to make a save as such

as has already been said smith was superb and a runner up man of the match,

The torquay fans picked up on how mouthy thier keeper was and were telling him to shut up, but it is exactly what poke should be doing the only time he got animated was when they scored and he started shouting at the defence, (bit late mate)
Still we had a nice jolly home via tintern abbey and was home early enough to have an evening at home only an hour and a half later than going to plainmoor oh well roll on port vale

I've not been able to read the website much today so haven't had time to read the other posters, so apologies for any repetition......

It was clear that there was a lot of pace in the side - Thomson, Carayol, Zebroski (who also has the power), Smith and Cox. It was no surprise that Benyon was on the bench and Zebs would be the loan striker - it gave options later in the match.
It was a stupid, stupid challenge that caused Thompson to be booked - sliding-in on the ground getting nowhere near the ball and then lifting his leg-up to ensure he caught the opposing player. I don't feel that the referee was left much choice but to produce a yellow.

We opened with some really entertaining football - good movement and passing and created a few half chances.
Thomson left a limping Bartlett (who had just received treatment) rooted to the ground with a shot that whistled just wide of the post. Smith cut through their defence with his excellent close control and acceleration that Bartlett held fairly comfortably and O'Kane produce a cross from the right that agonisingly evaded everyone. Carayol had some good moments and I felt he worked very hard and certainly never gave up - his work down the left created some problems for Hereford.

The opening spell was as good as it got - as soon as Hereford took the lead (another p***-poor scrappy goal that should never have troubled our defence - the story of our season).
From then, our game fell apart for the first half. I turned to the ever-calm and level-headed Gipsygull and said that Hereford were "still there for the taking" and I was sure that it (the goal - not my comments to Gipsygull!) would spark us into action. Sadly it didn't - the distribution from Thompson went from bad to worse, O'Kane became more and more isolated on the right and this more or less ended his use, whenever we moved forward there seemed to be about 5 Hereford players on every one of ours.

Hereford were nothing special but Pugh and McQuilim (was that his name?) were starting to cause us problems and they could have added another two in the first half - McCallum in particular looked like he had scored his second before it cannoned back off the post.

The second half was certainly not an advert for League Two football.
Early-on Zebroski seemed to be clean-through but the referee pulled play back for a foul. The foul, however was on our player!!! The referee had a shocking second half (as did the linesman in front of the away terrace) - the booking of Benyon for "diving" was particularly bizarre.
Bartlett didn't have a save to make and our distribution was very sloppy - the amount of balls knocked into the corner for Zebroski to try and chase was worrying. Thomson caused a huge amount of frustration to team-mates and supporters alike with running the ball too far and demonstrating shoddy control. He is much better than this and hopefully this was just a blip.
The only real chance of note was Benyon hitting the woodwork with an empy goal in fornt of him. In fairness he was stretching and the ball was whipped-across with real pace - no-point dwelling what might have been the upshot if it was anyone else on the end of it.
That was it - five minutes was the on the 4th official's board but unlike the opposition throwing the kitchen sink at us when they are trailing at the end, we didn't even through one of the taps or the plug.

In summary, there was no lack of effort from most of the players. There was a total lack of leadership - I don't buy for one single minute that Tyrone Thompson is an adequate replacement for Hargreaves. I could accept Hargreaves' departure being for the best for the future - if we had a player that could give the same impact that he does and basically drag the youngsters through.
Wroe was very poor yesterday (no surprise there) - his work rate was OK for the most part, but twice when he lost possession he gave-up meekly, never tracked back and simply doesn't project any leadership on the pitch - that's the last thing needed with these young players that potentially have good futures in the game but are still learning.


I've just read Buckle's comments on .com and I don't dispute them at all. I don't think that he has "lost the dressing room" in teh way that I have seen other managers do so - the players are still trying, the team are simply lacking in so many areas - the obvious being a leader in midfield and a striker of some ability. That might tip the balance towards us staying-up, but I don't believe that this current group of players would be good enough as things stand.

The positives from yesterday were the performances of Branston and the way the defenders worked to cover him when he cut-out their attacks further up the pitch.
Zebs worked his socks off and is certainly powerful and I think is a great asset to the club, Smith worked well and shows a lot of maturity for a player of his years - I think he is the best of the young loanees.

It's obvious that we are in a nasty relegation battle and we need players that stand-up to be counted. With respect to the younger players, there are few in that squad than can do so - we might have enough players to put-out the full team and have a few "options", but we have nowhere near enough depth in terms of quality.....

I've just seen the latest installation of the Elliott "Silly Billy" Benyon show ~ that appalling late miss at Hereford on Saturday on the Gullsworld highlights.

Thoughts of Harry Redknapp and his "missus" come to mind...................I don't know about anyone else, but is one single player doing any more to drag us down at this moment through blind incompetence than Benyon?