SuperNickyWroe wrote:
sounds like they all did........
No.
Not to put too much of a dampener on things but for large parts of the game we were awful, 3-0 is very flattering.
Tonge can't be a footballer, it must be a joke! Disgrace how he can earn a high wage and play so badly!
Cruise had a mediocre game is he the LB answer, i don't think so, with Mcdonald in there too its a poor defence.
Downes was outstanding tonight and somehow held control!
Welling knocked the ball around really well and in the 2nd half deserved a couple of goals if it weren't for Rice who as usual had a poor kicking game.
No doubt 3-0 will give us some confidence and we should expect to beat Southport on Saturday! but allow the room and drop off like we did tonight we will get punished as we did against a better team like Gateshead
So at last I saw the Gulls win a match! The scoreline suggested it was a comfortable win but Welling can feel hard done by losing by 3 goals. Some real positives for me tonight. I think Hargreaves has made some cracking signings and addressed some major weaknesses from last season. At last we have a targetman again in Bowman, a creative midfielder in Luke Young and exciting talent like Briscoe and Ajala. When you add these to players we already had like Cameron,it's quite a mouth watering prospect going forward. In short we look like there's goals in our team this season, however there are still big concerns at the back. We just about coped at the back tonight but better teams will surely exploit it. Crowd tonight 1,895, 40 odd from Welling, sponsors MOTM Cameron.
Tonight's goals came at crucial times tonight and our first on 15 minutes was real quality. Cameron threaded a ball through to Bowman who
y took the ball around their keeper and slotted into an empty net - something our forwards could not do last season! The Gulls at times played some great stuff in the first half with some lovely interchanging of passing with Luke Young impressing. Young also took a lovely free-kick that was just tipped over. Torquay won a soft penalty when Cameron was tripped running away from goal, and Cameron himself blasted the penalty kick past the keeper.
In the second half Welling showed good character and took the game to Torquay. Torquay had some chances like when Bowman just headed over. But Welling had good sustained pressure at times hitting the post, having a stonewall penalty turned down etc. Just when things were looking increasingly uncomfortable, substitute Ajala (who replaced Briscoe) pounced on a defensive mistake and lobbed their keeper with a deft finish. Still Welling tried and only a couple of sharp saves by Rice kept a clean sheet for the Gulls. 3-0 flattered Torquay but it was a win nonetheless and just what the doctored ordered. Our new kit looks very good and very yellow.
Not to put too much of a dampener on things but for large parts of the game we were awful, 3-0 is very flattering.
Tonge can't be a footballer, it must be a joke! Disgrace how he can earn a high wage and play so badly!
Cruise had a mediocre game is he the LB answer, i don't think so, with Mcdonald in there too its a poor defence.
Downes was outstanding tonight and somehow held control!
Welling knocked the ball around really well and in the 2nd half deserved a couple of goals if it weren't for Rice who as usual had a poor kicking game.
No doubt 3-0 will give us some confidence and we should expect to beat Southport on Saturday! but allow the room and drop off like we did tonight we will get punished as we did against a better team like Gateshead
thanks for cheering me up and being so positive.
im off to ring the samaritans.........
Member of the Yorkshire Gulls Supporters Club - Sponsors of Lirak Hasani, 2024-2025
Driving South to all games!
The fact that Gateshead beat Wrexham 3-0 away should calm some supporters down about our result against them. Tonight was a great match though, thought we thoroughly bossed the first half and Bowman could've had a couple more, the pen shout was very soft I must say, if that went against us I'm sure we'd be pretty outraged. And Ajala's chip was a nice touch to end the match on, onto Southport next!
Upsettingly, I think Roar is closest to the truth here.
In short, we're good going forward but we're **** dreadful at the back. A proper team would have taken a 3-3 draw tonight against a defence which had absolutely no answer to even the most basic pass and move offered up by Dave the Plumber and Mike the Hod Carrier.
If we defended like that at Gateshead, we're **** lucky to have not lost by double figures. He wasn't uniquely poor, but Cruise's idea of defending seems to be to shit his pants and run away as fast as he can from the winger with the ball. Ives could have one leg and no eyesight and almost certainly wouldn't be worse. Cruise also manages to find an opponent with 9 in every 10 passes, no matter how simple.
On a more positive note, as the season progresses, we should see a better link up between the wide men and Bowman, who wasn't far from a couple of lovely crosses. The first goal was absolutely beautiful and will look superb on TV. Youngy was exceptional all night. Neither Ajala nor Duane were at their best, but Toby's finish was a neat demonstration of his class. Benyon would have tripped over his own feet, then been given offside.
Welling's amateurs were hopeless first half, didn't look like they'd score if we took off Rice and didn't replace him. Second half, they stepped up and, in fairness to them, considering most of them have work in the morning, they worked very hard to make things tough for us and for 20 minutes, they looked genuinely threatening. Rice had a good game, and needed to to keep our sheet clean.
Keep on like this and it could be a really exciting season. We won't do very well in terms of points, but there'll be loads of goals.
Matt.
ADMIN EDIT: Removed a load of old nonsense that didn't need to be, and shouldn't have been, mentioned.
Thank god for that, hopefully all the bedwetters have finally calmed down. Good performance all round, yes Welling weren't great (although they did have a little period of decent play early second half) but we did play as well as we've done for a while.
Rice didn't really have that much to do, but made two tidy saves in the second half when we went through a brief moment of concentration deficiency. Tonge and Cruise looked OK enough really, but they weren't exactly attacked particularly efficiently by the Welling wingers and we can most certainly do better in each position. McDonald and Downes seemed a little shakey as a pair - clearly Pearce when fit will be a must there.
Harding was much much better, got stuck in and distributed the ball well. Young was very very good; again like Harding he put his foot in more than the Plymouth fans had described to us and linked nicely with the forwards with some genuinely good technical interplay. He led the team pretty well too from the sounds of it. Cameron was skillful and was probably the best player in the first half - their defenders really couldn't handle him. Unfortunately in the second they started to double up on him and he lost effectiveness. Briscoe clearly has ability but is overweight by some distance for a winger. He reminds me a bit of Billy Kee in that sense, but right now he needs to be running in the gym.
Bowman scored a nice goal and linked well, despite jumping about a second too early for EVERY ball that was played up to him. Yeoman linked ok but he was largely anonymous. Yeo/Bow forward line seems like the best option at the moment and Ash could have got a goal today with a decent chance that the keeper manged to put behind in the end. In terms of subs, Ajala looked promising when he managed to stay on his feet (someone get him new boots), and his goal was a nice dink over the keeper (although you must question the keeper for it). O'Achie looked very poor to be honest; lots of legs but little in terms of touch and actual footballing ability. Still need to be convinced by him.
Overall, promising. Attack good, defence bad. I look forward to perhaps a sterner test on Saturday against Southport.
"We are now so far up sh*t creek our boat is actually poking out the end of someones toilet bowl."
Brucie. 27/02/14
Highly entertaining match. Camerons pass to Bowman for the first goal was sublime.
At last a cracking penalty by Courtney Cameron. Welling did really well to come back into the match in the second half given the battering they took in the first half.
Martin Rice produced an outstanding save near the end and this result will give the whole squad a huge lift after the disappointment of loosing on saturday. Lets hope we can get 2500 into Plainmoor on saturday to cheer on the lads against Southport.
ferrarilover wrote:Upsettingly, I think Roar is closest to the truth here.
In short, we're good going forward but we're f**king dreadful at the back. A proper team would have taken a 3-3 draw tonight against a defence which had absolutely no answer to even the most basic pass and move offered up by Dave the Plumber and Mike the Hod Carrier.
If we defended like that at Gateshead, we're f**king lucky to have not lost by double figures. He wasn't uniquely poor, but Cruise's idea of defending seems to be to sh*t his pants and run away as fast as he can from the winger with the ball. Ives could have one leg and no eyesight and almost certainly wouldn't be worse. Cruise also manages to find an opponent with 9 in every 10 passes, no matter how simple.
On a more positive note, as the season progresses, we should see a better link up between the wide men and Bowman, who wasn't far from a couple of lovely crosses. The first goal was absolutely beautiful and will look superb on TV. Youngy was exceptional all night. Neither Ajala nor Duane were at their best (please note: although both these players could be described as ethnically minor, nothing in this post should be interpreted as being racially motivated), but Toby's finish was a neat demonstration of his class. Benyon would have tripped over his own feet, then been given offside.
Welling's amateurs were hopeless first half, didn't look like they'd score if we took off Rice and didn't replace him. Second half, they stepped up and, in fairness to them, considering most of them have work in the morning, they worked very hard to make things tough for us and for 20 minutes, they looked genuinely threatening. Rice had a good game, and needed to to keep our sheet clean.
Keep on like this and it could be a really exciting season. We won't do very well in terms of points, but there'll be loads of goals.
Matt.
It's interesting, Pea, how others see it, as a few people who watched the same game have Downes and Cruise in their top 5.
Firstly, we were excellent coming forward. We have some real quality that was lacking all of last season. When was the last time any of you saw a through ball that lead to a goal from a Torquay side?! Not since Eunan left in my eyes. Hargreaves has bought some players with technical ability, all of whom can play specific roles within the side and are capable of knocking the ball about nicely. Very encouraging stuff.
I thought the defence coped well enough tonight, but we were never comfortable. Ricey made some nice saves but doesn't command his box. Distribution from all 4 of them was poor. There was a period where Welling were well on top, seemed to be pushing straight through our midfield which is a concern against the better sides. Young isn't there to do defensive work, and although Harding was tidy he doesn't impose himself like a man of his stature should.
Still, 3 goals scored, none conceeded, and the feel-good factor might just about be coming back to Plainmoor. It's a start, but no more. Bring on Southport.
Hector, my old fruit, if that was our defence playing well, we are bollocksed. Might as well book our place in the South Devon League now. Rice made at least 4 good saves and Welling's shonky forwards managed to fluff another couple.
You know me, Mr Optimistic, but I fear the worst if that was as good as it's likely to get.
We were very good going forward, especially in the first half when by my reckoning we had 14 attempts, 6 on target. Second half we were second best with only 5 attempts and 1 on target for Ajala's classy goal.
In defence we were quite simply shocking - Welling only had to keep the ball on the ground to have all our players sprawling whilst they ran and passed the ball around us in the second half. Cruise had a poor game again IMHO - and Tonge was only marginally better. This, in my view, is why the centre backs seem so shaky - they have no confidence in the wide defenders and no one fills in when Young or Harding go forward leaving vast holes in the midfield just in front of them.
I would have brought Richards on for Yeoman in the second half and go with 3 in midfield to counter their midfield - 442 or 424 was just not working.
Well done to Ricey for two class saves towards the end to keep the sheet clean.
Very good match report from Swanny - summed up the game very well I thought. Yes - we won comfortably but if Welling had a half-decent striker, it could well have been a different story. Several chances went begging in the second half and Rice made a couple of excellent saves near the end. Thought it was a soft penalty. We'd have been howling at the ref if a decision like that had gone against us. Credit to Welling - they never gave up trying to play decent football throughout and they were the better team in the second half. They just need a striker.
We are very much 'work in progress'. If only we'd had Luke Young and Ryan Bowman in the side last season, we may not be where we are now. Toby Ajala looked a real prospect when he came on (you're right, Matt) and the goal he scored was class. He's a bit raw but he's got quick feet, good ball control and good awareness of players around him. Not sure about Briscoe but it was the first time I've seen him play and even less sure about O'Achie. I was hoping to see Courtney Richards - perhaps he'll get some game time on Saturday. In summary, on tonight's showing, we will struggle against the better teams in the league but I feel this team will improve as the season progresses. I hope Jordan Chappell is not left out in the cold. He would have been more effective than Briscoe tonight but he wasn't even on the Bench.
hector wrote:
It's interesting, Pea, how others see it, as a few people who watched the same game have Downes and Cruise in their top 5.
Not that I want to be negative after a 3-0 win, but I really can't fathom how anyone who was at the game could give any of our defenders (+ Harding, the de facto DM, who goes missing more than lord Lucan) anything other than the bottom five places in team ranking.
We looked good going forward, but we were an utter shambles defensively in the second half. Luckily the bottom half of the conference is rubbish, so they missed all the chances they had, but really a decent team would have drew 3-3. Just look at the BBC stats; they only had three less shots and one less shot on target (and they hit the post). And a good amount of those shots were from decent positions too.
Still, you can only beat what's in front of you, and that we did. I am happy that I have walked away from the ground for once thinking about a win, rather than missed chances and what might have been. Pearse will improve the defence further, but oh for someone to sign tonge and loan us a left back!
ferrarilover wrote:Neither Ajala nor Duane were at their best
Matt.
What?????
Anyway, glad we're up and running. Reckon we'll win more than we lose, at least. Bowman in the goals is a big plus.
ADMIN EDIT: REMOVED REFERENCE TO POST CONTAINING UNNECESSARY REFERENCES. Rob, I realise this now makes the first part of the post nonsensical, and I apologise.
