FL2: Torquay Utd v Burton Albion - 22/9/12

Your are probably right about my analogy of the FA cup tie not being a good one, all I will add to that is I like you have seen games where the lower league team looked more like the higher league team and that is because they went out with the mentally to over come the odds against them.

I’m very sure or team is sent out to try and win games, but winning games also comes down to getting the tactics right and sorry but sitting deep for long periods in the game, is a recipe for disaster. As I said I only heard part of the second half driving home in my car yesterday, I think about 20 minutes of the second half had been played. I just knew that Burton were likely to score as if you let a team attack and attack you, it does pay off for them in the end in most cases.

For now I sit in a different place and view the events at Plainmoor and so my views and feelings are a bit different from the days when I was attending every home match. I’m not a purest but I do like to watch entertaining football. Yesterday all that mattered was we won the three points, I had not paid to watch the match and so the result for me was the bee and all.
I have been going to matches long enough to know there will be games like yesterdays and when I was going regularly, I think I always took the view that the next game would be better and so one bad game or a poor run of results would never stop me going.

But things have changed in my life and gone are the days when I would shell out the money to watch Torquay United play and not miss it. For now I’m still enjoying my Saturday afternoons as I’m still watching football even if it’s only park football. I do get to combine my love of photography into the bargain and that is a big plus for me.

It does hurt me not to be up at Plainmoor,. But I could not go on spending more than was coming in and that’s the only reason this season I have missed all the games so far. Things should change a bit over the next month or so and then I hope as I have said to attend at least some of the remaining games this season.

I maybe could have stretched my finances this week to attend yesterday’s game, I knew I could afford to go and watch Buckland play, but decided I should not do that and put up a match report as some may have felt I should have made the effort to get up to Plainmoor. So instead I went and watched( well the second half anyway) a local park game.

I know my own mentality, If I had made those extra sacrifices yesterday to attend Plainmoor and was treated to what I believe was a very poor performance, I would have questioned my decision to go in the first place.

So yes these days I’m just a floater and not a diehard as I was once and so I see things from a different perspective than I used too. I’m still very proud of our club and the progress it has made since the day Roberts walked into town. I do not think there is too much wrong with our squad and maybe we just need to add to it a bit to replace the quality we have recently lost.

Is it the case as Rags suggested the players did not do as asked by Martin Ling? Is it the case we are not quite good enough right now? Is it the case we have got the tactics wrong and need to change them?

I can’t believe that all fans are just happy paying to watch week in and week out as long as the result is right in the end. Entertainment does have a big part to play in keeping fans coming back through the turnstiles and always will.

You are right about one thing and that is things do change from week to week. If the team goes on a good winning run then the mood of the fans change. But we are not doing that and after reading reports on a number of games we have played so far this season, I feel on the whole we are not playing as well as fans would have hoped.

Ling's thoughts on the game...

www.torquayunited.com/news/article/got-what-we-deserved-383819.aspx

Did the meerkat go?

Another thing I noticed was despite there being less than 20 seated Burton suppoters, the flags separating the sections were still there and just looked like overkill!

I didn't see yesterday's game so I can't comment. Nor am I going to voice any judgements over what I have read.

Yet I can't help thinking that it's a funny old world where supporters are prone to behave as if their team is actually doing rather worse than it is in reality.

Hard to put a quantitative value on this but let 's say it's often around six or seven league places. I know this because I've sometimes been there myself.

You know the sort of thing. We're top of the table and you're saying: "actually we're not that good. I reckon they'll find us out eventually. Especially as there's no Plan B. We'll be lucky to make the play-offs".

Or we're in a play-off position: "we've not been playing well, have we? Riding our luck, especially with those two away wins. I think we're pretty average and he should shake it up a bit. We'll fade, mark my words. Could be in for a hard time next year".

Maybe we're 13th or 14th: "well, that was bloody awful. Worst football I've seen up here for years. No wonder crowds are dropping. I think he's taken us as far as he can. Least he can do is get some new players in and stop picking his favourites".

Anything below 17th or 18th and we're doomed. Doomed, I tell you, doomed.

Yes, a funny old world. Has anybody else noticed this strange phenomena? But it keeps Internet forums alive and probably keeps us going to matches. Maybe too, the fact that it's rarely as bad as we insist acts as some kind of psychological prop.

Indeed, plenty of excellent debate on this site recently. And, like a lot of fine discussion, it might not be about very much at all. We may also go around in the odd circle or two. But eight games in; 14th in the table; just been watched by a home crowd of 2438. None of this is particularly outrageous and, you could argue, it's as realistically "par for the course"as you could imagine should you put a load of data into a computer at the start of the season.

So, not much to talk about really.

But I'm sure we'll find a way.

An excellent take on what life can be like on a forum Nick and so very true. We lost away to Rotherham and as a result, we got 65 posts on the matchday thread, we then go and win away at Wimbledon and only got 35 posts on the matchday thread. You would think a matchday thread where we actually won a game, would see much more posts on it. But I suppose even the best of us like a moan from time to time, so its no real surprise a poor result or performance generates more posts.



I think we all know the difficulties faced by a club our size and located where it is, so I’m sure most of us do not expect anything more than is possible to deliver. Do we as a club often punch above our weight in this division? Well Bateson sure felt we did and just maybe that is the case.

We have had good sides over the years who did manage to play attractive football and one only needs to go as far back as the Leroy promotion team to find one. There has been many more and I’m sure some of our older members here on the TFF, could come up with sides there were a joy to watch.

Barton Downs started a thread about the changes over the years we have seen in football. We talked about how the technical skill levels of the players have increased over the years and as that is a fact, does that not mean the standard of the game has gone up?

Or are we to believe it’s only in the premiership that we can see the difference and lower league footballers have stood still over the last 50 years. The question is do we think that the players we have at the club today, are more technically brilliant and have more tactical ability than the players of old. If your answer is no then the standard of the game at our level has not improved one single bit. If your answer is yes, than why is it hard to produce good quality football that’s entertaining to watch.

I’m sure today’s players train much harder than players did 50 years ago and as I believe they are more skilful, I would expect to see a better class of game being played. Yet we so often see simple passes going astray, shots so far off target you wonder if they even know where the goal is. That’s what I find hard to understand at times and I think it’s all too easy to hide behind those facts, by saying we are just a small sea side town club.

Yes maintaining our league status is the most important thing, are you telling me the only way we can do that is by playing a brand of football that is boring to watch. Why can’t what needs to be achieved, be achieved by playing the game in such a way that fans enjoy watching what they are seeing and can’t get enough of it...

I know there will always be games when nothing seems to go right no matter how hard the players try, but how often do such games come along?

I should point out I’m talking generally here about the game of football as I’m not in a position to talk about our current team. My only thoughts reading what I have recently is, playing one up front is not going to get us many goals and is not the sort of line up we should be using at home. I’m not saying it does not work away because it often has in the past. But we should not let away teams come to Plainmoor and let them end up thinking they are the home team, by sitting back in our own half and just letting them attack us.

Two attempts on goal at home is very poor and while our defence is doing a fine job, I will argue to the cows come home that the best form of defence is attack attack and attack some more.

I do not think on the whole we have started off this season to badly, but if we do not start turning these draws into wins, we will find ourselves slipping down the table and then we really might have something to worry about.

But he did, didn't he?

He brought on Thompson to press Burton's defence back into their own half and all of a sudden our midfield had space to play in.

A poor result generates more posts ? Do you not think its a case that most posters on here out working on a weekday rather than a leisurely Sunday for most ! Just a thought...

I didn't think we were that bad, at least on an individual level - certainly all 4 defenders didn't have bad games. We just didn't seem to have much of a grip on the midfield. Jon, Rags and I concluded that if anyone was to "blame", it was Easton, as he was the man sat in front of the back 4 and yet numerous times the defence was exposed. Mansell is also supposed to be a more defensively-minded player - maybe whoever said Mansell was past it was right, or at least right in the sense that he doesn't fit our system at the moment. It's asking a lot of Morris and our wingers to create, especially when Morris isn't especially creative and wingers are by their very nature often on the fringes of the match

Perhaps the way forward is a midfield 3 of Morris, Easton and Lathrope away from home and Morris, Lathrope and Craig (as creator) at home