Torquay United Fans Forum

Starting to think we may have been unlucky that we played Crawley when we did. Take away the sky high confidence they had and now look at them.

You see it all the time, particularly at this level - a player can be fantastic for one team, but then move elsewhere and they just can't recapture their form.

I did feel that for both Stanley and Branston (maybe even Zebs as well), that our team last season was an absolute perfect fit for them and while they where brilliant for us, the togetherness of the team and the level of respect they had from the rest of the team may have given them the mega confidence (from their almost untouchable status that they wouldn't necessarily have elsewhere) and as a consequence may have flattered their individual player abilities.

Morecambe have scored 5, despite only having 2 shots on target according to BBC - just proves how pants these stats are.

I think a positive is that it shows our team doesn't drop their heads when behind more than one goal after half time at least.

Although I'm slightly worried about how long it's taken us to get into both games at home - why do we only do it when we're 2 goals behind.

Actually noticed that Branston is getting slated quite a lot by Bradford fans so far.

Where is everyone? Over 12 hours and no posts is quite unusual. Been on here a fair few times now and the site doesn't seem to be down.

It doesn't matter that the trouble is only of a night - police officers need rest and sleep as well and can only work so many hours per day. I'd imagine that the policing needed for the game would be seen as less essential than bulking up their numbers to deal with the trouble at night by relocating the officers to the night time shift.

If the trouble continues into the weekend - I imagine all events that require policing will be cancelled day or night (maybe even in smaller towns) - they'll all be needed in the main cities at night.

I wouldn't panic just yet. We rotated a lot in pre-season - which is necessary for a new manager and a new squad - but the downside is no line-up has that much experience playing together - and this sounds like it could be the problem.

I'm also dubious about O'kane being 13.5 stone and therefore 2 stone heavier than Kee - unless he's decided to eat all the pies since May.

I'm finding this pretty hard - between most teams it's much of muchness.

Northampton won't do particularly well based on their current squad - improved midfield and up front, but their defence is poor and nowhere near the standard of defence needed to be promoted from this division. While their front line is decent for this level, they will struggle to counter the number of goals they're likely to concede the other end for a lot of games.

I'll put Hereford in 24th - their squad doesn't look particularly good in any position and their pre-season seems to have been woeful - losing by 2 or 3 goals to sides in the lower end of the BSP and few, if any goals.

23rd Macclesfield. I don't usually predict Macc to go down like most seem to have in previous seasons. Few seem to be tipping them to go down this year (Burton, Hereford, Barnet, Cheltenham all seem more popular predictions) and I think sods law will dictate this will be their year, as it's the first year I can think of were they have dodged under the relegation prediction radar. Plus, Macc are now the longest resident of L2. We lost the longest in Rochdale and Darlington 2 seasons a go and the next longest serving L2 team - Lincoln - last year. I reckon this could continue for a third season - no team are unrelegatable - as we were once the unrelegatable L2 team ourselves.

Personally, I'd prefer a club to go bust, than someone's livelihood destroyed as a result of the club's actions.

Some creditors may be businesses who are already struggling (likely given the economy) and such a ridiculous payout could tip them over the edge. All employees lose their jobs and in the case of small businesses, the owners may become personally liable to bankruptcy - completely screwing up the lives of themselves and their families.

On the other hand, the club goes bust and the supporters lose their club. But this is temporary - a club the size of Plymouth will reform in the lower leagues and will probably be back in the league within 6-10 years and will have plenty of promotions to celebrate along the way. It won't destroy the lives of fans - it will just make supporting the club a bit rubbish for a few more years.

For the last 8 seasons, the team finishing 24th in L2 has had significant problems behind the scenes and I can't recall any standout struggler's from the 2002/03 season - which may explain why this trend started in the 03/04 season with York, followed by Cambridge, Rushden, Ourselves, Wrexham, Luton, Darlington and Stockport

At the moment, only 2 teams fit that criteria - Southend and Plymouth.

I can't see Southend finishing bottom personally, so that just leaves Plymouth.

Bear in mind that the loan market at the start of the season is very different to the loan market in January.

You only get youngsters (bar goalkeepers perhaps) who are in desperate need of experience in the loan market before the season starts - any experienced player would have left in the summer if the club had no intention of using them.

Things change by the time the January window opens - players become out of favour with the manager for various reasons. It's a smaller window and the focus of the manager is only on the season in hand, so it's harder to shift players out permanently (plus loan contract negotiations are much easier and quicker than with permanent contracts due to minimal player/agent input, no medicals etc and the loan window is open a bit longer). As a result, you can pick up decent experienced players, such as Stanley, Robinson and Tomlin in the loan market in January, but not in August.

Obviously I'd like us to win, but realistically I'd just take a hard fought and encouraging performance by the players.

I would have thought a number of changes will be made and rockets will have been shot up the backsides of the Burnley players if their performance was as bad as both Burnley and Rovers fans make out, so comparisons to Rovers performance last week will be pretty meaningless, even if we were to do better.

Is McPhee going to be put in the right wing position perhaps? I believe that's where he played for the Tiverton friendly and I'm struggling to see where he fits into the squad exactly.