Negativity, Negativity

[Dave]

As far as Guy Branston is concerned, what you have is a man, who is still a current professional footballer, also a licensed football coach, and now a business man running a scouting/get noticed website and soccer camps not just for young aspiring footballers but for out of work pros as well. Guy Branston may well with his career now at an end, see himself as a potential candidate in the future not just for the Torquay job, but management jobs full stop.

I would suggest that Guy Branston regardless of who he speaks and when, is acting with a great deal of professionalism, and fair play to him for that.

As for negativity, there's good reason for me, there's several things I've in recent weeks could go on for hours. But there was on thing that happened in the second half of the match that summed up our team. The ball was down in the right corner with the Plymouth right back ' Don't let him play out' What happened, a Plymouth player made a short run received a 10 yrd pass from the right back into feet, he turned, there was another Plymouth player making a run to his right, the ball went into his feet , three passes and they had a 4 v3 attacking over load..enough to make any football coach at any level tear his hair out, as we stood motionless and watched it happen.

[hector]

Branno made some very good points-could do with his no nonsense style of defending and on-field leadership at the moment.
Was sat near to Simon Baker yesterday who looked totally pissed-off at the end of the match and would have been made well aware of the frustration of the fans as he mingled with us before and during the game.The tone of Dave Thomas's match report in today's Herald suggests he thinks Knill's time is almost up too.

If you have a moment, would you mind putting the link up. I was looking on Herald site but couldn't find it. Thanks

[Matt]

We have enough good players, realistically if you look at our squad most of our regular players would be taken on by other league 2 teams in a heartbeat. Poke is a solid keeper at this level, Tonge admittedly wouldn't look out of place at Buckland or a team at that level, Downes has to be happy to not have had his knee fall apart this season yet but although his performance at Argyle was in no way his finest he's still a proven performer at this level. Criticism of Cruise is in my opinion a bit harsh, his positional ability is hampered by the fact he spends half his time trying to cover for us not having a left midfielder so he's attacking, defending, pressing, marking, which all sounds reasonable for a professional but let's be honest, there are players in the premier league who can't stick to a position to save their lives also. Mansell would be taken on in a flash by teams in our league even if only for his passion. Mozika has the ability to play some nice football but lacks fitness which doesn't help. Chappell and Bodin are both in the same bracket in that they both possess undeniable ability but for whatever reason aren't displaying it regularly, perhaps a game plan based around not conceding doesn't help their attacking instincts flourish, who knows. Both however are players that when they leave us, as they undoubtedly will, will have strong careers at a bigger and better club and we will all sit and bemoan the fact that they didn't deliver for us. In reality they are confidence players as are so many attackers, and their confidence level is at rock bottom. Hawley would have been a great signing 8 years ago, but unfortunately although he holds up the ball and has a good touch he isn't in a team set up to play to his strengths. So he isn't cutting it with us. All 3 of the attackers listed would easily be signed up once released. I'm not going to mention loanees, because it's obvious that both O'Connor and McCourt will have good careers at a higher level than league 2. Honourable mention also goes to Nathan Craig who, as pointed out earlier, can strike a ball as well as anyone, but the reason his overall game hasn't improved is that he doesn't get any game time! It's like the Dan Sullivan situation. We all get wound up that we never bring through our own players, even Exeter have 5 or 6 youth graduates playing in their squad. We will undoubtedly do to Sullivan what we did to Halpin, and to a degree, Yeoman. These are lads who at 16/17 showed great potential, so we do the right thing and give them a deal. Great, good move. This is what the other clubs do. Then we fall down, because we don't play them! Halpin looked decent at 17, I remember him coming on and skinning a full back numerous times in his cameo, but then never got a chance again. We need to have faith to change the team and play attacking football instead of focusing on not conceding. Get these decent players happy and we will start to turn it around. Sorry for such a long post, needed to get it out.

[tomogull]

lot of sense in your posting, Matt, especially with reference to younger players not being given more opportunities. Rather harsh on Dale Tonge, though. I know he's come in for some stick on the Forum but personally I think he's a reasonable right back ..... not the best full back in the division but far from being the worst.

[Colorado Gull]

We have some good players in this squad, I'm not denying that, but they are all below par. I agree with the statement that we are lacking a great deal of leadership, a manager with some passion for the club may be a start? I have no doubt that this is the main reason why the players are not playing as well as they could at the moment.

[nickbrod]

I started this thread in all good faith but now trying to type and eat humble pie at the same time.