Torquay United Fans Forum

Jeff wrote: Isn't it a trait of Lings tenure at Cambridge that they only ever beat sides in the bottom half? Perhaps an upcoming run of games against theoretically weaker opponents could lead to a healthier points total?

It was indeed. It was also a trait that we'd end a bad run of form with a 3 or 4 goal victory. You'll go a few games unbeaten now I expect.

Like I say, really surprises me, he was very well thought of at Orient and made well over 100 appearances for them in League 1 & 2.

NickGull wrote:At least you aren't on here gloating, El Goodo, although that's not very good reading..

:-|

Why would I be gloating? I was delighted you took the burden of his wages off our finances. I will say that your some of your fans could've been somewhat more gracious when he was appointed though, there was a lot of very ill-informed postings from your end about his time with us. The one that wound me up was whoever it was claiming he failed here because "we took a s*** or bust approach" and wanted immediate success. Could not have been further from the truth.

But yes like I say, good luck & at least you're not stuck with him on a three year contract like we were. You'll be alright, there's enough tinpot tripe in League 2 that I don't you'll be in any real danger but I think you'll stagnate under him. The biggest wound he inflicted on us was the disenfranchisement of a large amount of supporters & the total apathy that became endemic throughout the club during his reign, something we're only just beginning to properly recover from now.

I'm surprised to read the negative reports about Saah though. Was a very, very good player for us & I really didn't think he'd haven any issues adapting back to the League. He was always a cut above everyone else at this level. Do wonder if he's having trouble with the relocation as he has a young child. Any idea if his partner has moved with him or are they still living in London?

hector wrote:Ling said he would wait until there was a 'crisis' because 7 games without a win is obviously nothing to worry about!

It's because he's blown all of his money up front.

NickGull wrote: Amen to this. I changed my shift to go today, but I wish I hadn't. It's strange as I've always been gutted to miss games at Plainmoor in the past, but now it's just a "meh" sort of feeling. Not sure why, but I think the above goes some way towards it.

This is exactly what happened at Cambridge. Been reading a few of the threads on here over the last week & it is all shockingly similar to our board last season. Honestly it's like falling in a time warp.

We had these awful runs under Ling's management too, runs where we looked utterly clueless, totally bereft and without any hope that it'll turn around. What'll happen is that eventually you'll get a break & win a game that will kick start a semi-decent run of form, but before too long you'll go on another barren run. In his season and a half with us we had about 4 of these spells, but the real problem was that whilst Ling obviously knew what was going wrong & was honest in identifying it in his post match interviews he was clearly utterly incapable of changing it.

We were in real trouble in his first season with us but a run of something like 9 wins out of the last 12 games (all of which were against bottom half teams, we didn't beat a single team in the top 10 all season) saw us finish in midtable & renewed the optimism, only for him to waste his budget over the summer and sign average players on long deals for big money. The reason, by the way, why he won't dip into the loan market is because he'll've done exactly what he did here: Spent all his budget up front without leaving any left over for additional reinforcements throughout the season.

Best of luck to you, I hope he turns it round but this really is all incredibly familiar. You have at least had the good sense to only give him a one year deal.