FL2: Torquay United v Aldershot 28th Sept 2010

Yet another soul destroying evening. I'm off to stroke the dog and kick the missus!

Night all

Dear oh dear!!! Think I will switch off and retire for the night..........was looking forward to a few match reports but after that late goal the posts will be dominated by the "Meerkat"....me thinks!!!!

Why can't a player be dropped or left out of the side without it being "issues" ?

Do you seriously think that the manager would give the opposition a clue that he might not be playing (for whatever reason) tonight then?

Stuart, you beat me to it.... it might be that there is more of the discontent that has allegedly blighted PBs relations with the playing staff previously?

ATB,J.

Just back from Plainmoor.
I rarely go to mid week games even though I have season ticket but was really looking forward to the early autumn evening atmosphere and even had time for a leisurely chat before the match with Dave R, Jon and Tufc1 ( Nice to say hello to you guys!) before taking my usual place on the terrace.
I wont go into to many details about the match which was hard fought but pretty nondescript, and so frustrating to view - league two fodder spoilt even further by some bizarre refereeing with the man in the middle continually stop starting the match for the first 45 and was played out as a fairly even affair. Lathrope, in place of Nicky Wroe for whatever reason, looked eager to make his mark and had some nice early touches but unluckily picked up a foot injury in the first ten minutes and as much as he tried to continue it was only a matter of time before he would be replaced by WC. The first bad omen of the night perhaps. We huffed and puffed and so did the Shots who had a very solid back line - yet another side we have failed to to break down with any sort of result or effect.
Second half we stepped it up for a period and thankfully by this time the ref had realised that he had made a fool of himself by becoming the center of attention and actually allowed the game to flow just a little more though one or two decision were more than a little mind boggling. In reality should have been a point apiece and in all honesty we deserved something from the game but once again missed the chances we did create and not enough of the latter were again to blame for being on the wrong side of a one to zero result. It was always going to happen. The longer the game went on and you just knew that sooner or later that they would get the break and score - and they did just that. I've seen it so many times over the last 40 odd years! In any case their defence had our forwards in the palm of their hand and we would never have scored if we had payed for another hour.
In all honesty this is more or less how I thought we would perform this season. Getting off to that wonderful start and continuing where we left off last season was more than a surprise to me after the loss of Rendell and Caryoll. We have lost that early season fluency and confidence that saw that success and saw us out pass and dominate teams. The likes of Accrington Macca and Aldershot have us sussed and we seem to be wallowing around looking for the reasons why.
Cannot fault the effort but as we all know that's never enough, Eunon still looks a bit of a rough diamond at times but he is at least totally committed and put in some crunching tackles. Once again the Manager of the Month voodoo strikes strange how we have these calender months of either amazing success or abject failure isn't it?
Oh dear Shrewsbury next and I cannot see where the next goal is going to come from. How a season can change from unrealistic optimism to unrealistic pessimism in just a couple of short weeks.

I was lost for words on Saturday after the wonderful surprise presentation to me and I find I’m lost for words again as I really don’t know what to make of tonight’s game or how to even begin to describe what happened that resulted in a second home defeat on the trot.

One thing I do know however is the reason Bucks played Senda on Saturday and not Charnock who in my view did not take the chance presented to him tonight and if Ellis is still not fit for our next match, then expect to see Senda back in the starting line up.

One minute you were thinking Aldershot came here to win the game and the next you wondered why they were wasting all the time they could and being allowed to get away with by a ref who was so whistle happy its not true and one who saw fouls that no one else saw and they were always against us. I’m not one to start blaming refs for defeats and to be fair nothing came from any of the free kicks that weren’t, but he has to have been the worst ref I have seen up at Plainmoor for a very long time.

A very poor crowd of only 2167 on a very wet evening and the blame for this defeat can’t be laid at the feet of the fans as they sung their hearts out for the whole match. Our popside singers, who have rightly been complained about in the past, were just superb especially in the second half.

No Nicky Wroe in the team tonight and fans will ask why I’m afraid because if he is not injured then you would expect him to be on the bench at least. Still I was not to unhappy to see young Lathrope given a chance and he was doing OK until he went in for a tackle very hard and seemed to slip a bit and land badly, he got up and was limping very heavily and it was no surprise to see him go off.

Carlisle who came on for him didn’t do to much in the first half but had a great second half and was more like the Carlisle we know and Bucks just have to have in starting on Saturday as far as I’m concerned.

Branston was making mistakes one minute and making goal saving tackles the next and while I don’t agree with what was said in the week that Ellis makes Branston look good, I would concede he is not playing nearly as well without Ellis beside him.

I saw plenty of effort all over the pitch tonight but we are not good enough for what ever reasons and we do not have a player who will take the chances when they do come our way and that was the difference on Saturday and tonight as we had chances to score but either put them wide, over or straight at the keeper.

Aldershot flew out the traps and looked far better then we did but we dealt with most of their threats without any real problems but never really got our own passing game going. Just like Saturday it looked the only way we were going to score was from a crowded penalty box with the ball bouncing around in it. There were at least three times this happened in the first half and our players especially Benyon looked certain to get a touch and get the ball over the line and yet not one of then did.

Zebs had one run that resulted in a shooting opportunity but he dragged his shot wide of the post and from a corner on the stroke of half time, Charnock got a good head on the ball and the keeper did well to block the ball on the line with his body .

Our players sure came out for the second half with plenty of fight and Mansell was getting stuck in everywhere and winning the ball back and O’Kane was also not shy when it came to sticking his foot in, he plays some really neat passes and then some poor ones, but he put far more effort into his game than Wroe has playing in midfield all season.

Zebs got another good shooting chance after Mansell once again got in a great tackle to win the ball back, but the angle was a bit tight and Zebs missed the target. The warning signs were starting to flash at the back as far as Charnock was concerned and he allowed himself to get completely out muscled in our box by shots number ten who then hit a shot at the near post and forced Scott into making a good save.

Branson wanted to start dribbling the ball in our box and was so lucky to get away with it and then following a corner made a great saving tackle and if he had not made it then it would have been a goal for sure for Aldershot.

Big cheers went up when the ref finally gave us a free kick just outside the shots box, the ball was touched and there seemed to be some confusion between Mansell and Nico who was going to take the shot and in the end Mansell hit it low and hard and it got blocked and came back out to O’Kane who hit a first time volley that forced the shots keeper into a flying one handed save.

Grits came on and it has to be said he did well enough, he won plenty of headers and all he can do is try and flick them on to where he thinks a team mate will be. He directed one header down perfectly to Benyons feet who looked up and spotted Zebs making a good run and played a perfect pass that saw Zebs burst into the box but his shot was straight at the keeper.

We were starting to get caught out at the back as Aldershot caught us on the break and they nearly scored when Branston got beat with far too much ease and thankfully Bevan was in a good position to make the save.

I felt we were never going to score even if we stayed playing all night and we have all seen these late winners that while they hurt, you just knew were going to happen. We let Shots number ten through far too easily and once he was in our box on a one on one with Scott you just knew he was not going to miss and he didn’t.

O’Kane hit a fine dipping volley right at the death that deserved to be a goal and I thought it was going in and it must have been only inches over.

I know Saturdays game looks very tough and one after the way we have played in our last few games one you would mark on the coupon has a home win, but it’s the sort of game when the odds seem against our players that they might just go and win, here’s hoping.