Alfreton Town v Torquay United – Saturday 11th October 2014

[tomogull]

[quote="kevgull"]Arrogant arsehole springs to mind.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/29600281/quote


Agree - that smacks of an arrogance that 'I'm never wrong'. He's taking this Jesus thing a bit too far !! I'm rather surprised - many good experienced managers have from time to time held up their hands and said 'I got the team selection wrong'. As Forever has posted, he compounded the mistake by not making changes at half time and now he seems to be putting all the blame on the players rather than accepting any of the responsibility himself. He would have got more respect if he'd admitted he'd made a cock-up. He says he's not putting any blame on Courtney Richards which is fair enough. But I tell you what - Brucie can bet his mortgage that Richards will never be asked to play as a central defender again.

[yellowforever]

It's completely wrong to blame Chris Hargreaves for taking the decision to play Richards at centre back, if Richards has a storming game, we're all over this forum referring to CH as a football management genius, it's easy with the benefit of hindsight to call CH an idiot for starting Richards as it went pear shaped

What an absolutely ridiculous comment and defence of Hargreaves. Sure if he had a storming game we might have, but the fact is he didn't, and wasn't going to because he doesn't suit the position.

Tell you what, if Briscoe/Bowman/O'Achie were injured for the game, I would have started Rice upfront. If Rice scored a hat-trick you'd all be applauding me for my tactical innovation. Obviously there's a 0.000001% of that happening because he doesn't have the attributes for the role, but it doesn't matter does it? Because if it had come off then that would have been amazing. It's the same for Richards, he's not strong enough, good enough in the air nor does he understand the positioning of the role.

As for the game itself - I'm so angry I've only just been able to post on here. Why the **** was Hutchings not in defence? Richards made several mistakes, a few of which were punished. Hargreaves should have firstly not played him there at the start, and secondly taken him out of the firing line when it was going wrong.

Everyone else was poor as well really. Briscoe was a rare bright light; he took his goals well and tried to link things up in the final third, but no-one was really on his wavelength. There were patches of Ajala brilliance and others where his backside was on the floor, but at least he had some quality. Young tried second half but couldn't muster any great end product. The rest don't really deserve any more than a 4 or 5 out of 10. Pearce was unbelievably poor for an experienced defender, then again Cruise and Tonge weren't much better. Cameron didn't get the ball very much. Wakefield linked well occasionally but lacked the physicality and energy to impose himself in the game. Bowman missed a sitter and O'Achie tried but didn't really get any proper service. Rice might have done better on a few of the goals really, but when your defence leaves you one on one with a striker, there isn't much you can do. His command of the box from corners and long balls was worrying though.

Overall terrible. A note on the ground - that path you have to take down to the away end I imagine is deadly in the winter when it's icy and freezing over, how can they get away with that on health and safety grounds?

Well done to those who made the trip from Devon.

[gurneygibbs23]

i think everyone is seeing it the same way. There are several players not upto playing for a conference side aiming for promotion.

Rice, tonge,wakefield arent good enough for this. Cruise is 50/50 - capable with ball but is not good defensively. Pearce has to be dropped, downes and mcdonald are our best bet.

Cameron isnt working out of late, is he up for the fight?

Really think wakefield should be sent back and a loan right back is brought instead.

CH and the lads owe the fans a performance and 3 friggin points on saturday

[tomogull]

Ah - fickle fans ! We beat Wrexham and everyone (well, some) say this team is a better team than Buckle's side. We lose one match (which admittedly we shouldn't have lost) and the black clouds descend. It will be all okay again after we beat Grimsby on Saturday. It's going to be one of those frustrating seasons where we win games we weren't expecting to win and lose to the likes of Alfreton & Telford.

[eastmoorgull]

As Torquay fans we are used to the ups and downs but to be honest its a small group at away games and a couple of thousand at Plainmoor who share the good times and the many many bad times. When it's on TV and, if like me, you tell all your family and mates you must watch my team, then the embarrassment is more widely felt. What they saw was inept management and inept players doing their best to make a mockery of our football club. Yes, for sure we'll play well against Grimsby, but it won't be on TV and all those positives we could be taking forward; to sponsors, possible quality loan players etc etc will have been dissipated. Even that game against Wycombe wasn't that bad.

[Gloomy Gull]

My questions to Hargreaves would be.........

1) How good did Courtney Richards look and play as centre back in the week of training and tactical instruction before Saturday?
2) Having chosen him (above any other possible candidate at the club) to play in that position and to leave him there for the full period of the game ...what part of the intense (as I am sure it would have been intense given he is a midfielder playing out of position) training and advice you gave him during that week of preparation did he choose to ignore?
3) Was he completely unreceptive to your advice and instruction during the half time talk? OR
4) Did you just make a monumental mistake?

[Dave]

What an absolutely ridiculous comment and defence of Hargreaves. Sure if he had a storming game we might have, but the fact is he didn't, and wasn't going to because he doesn't suit the position.

I see I've stirred up the passion from within, I'm positively glowing with delight as I type this It's true however, no might about it, this forum would have been packed full of posts proclaiming CH to the messiah, genius, and whatever, so my comment wasn't ridiculous at all, it was spot on.

Football is all about opinions, CH was of the opinion it should be Richards, most were of the opinion Hutching's should have played, myself included, some for Harding, but it didn't matter all three could have had a nightmare, all three could have played a solid game, no one could know for sure beforehand, this can not be put down as an 'I told you so moment'

[kevgull]

If Hutchings had had a nightmare at least we would have know that he is not ready or not good enough. If he had had a stormer we would be lying 2nd

[Phipsy]

I first heard about the team selection at Saturday lunchtime.
I thought it must be wrong playing Richards at centre back.
I am led to believe the theory was for Pearce to win everything in the air,he didn't much, and Richards to pick up the pieces.
Wrong wrong wrong.
Jake Hutchings has played in this position, sometimes at full back,all through his professional,career .
He was insulted on Saturday.
I think Lee Hodges must take some of the blame as apparently he coaches the defence and C.H. Midfield and forwards.
However they have done a great job this season and I hope they learn from their massive mistake they made at Alfreton.
A good win v Grimsby and it will be carry on the good work as before.

[brucie]

Your comment was actually ridiculous. If you had taken a straw pole of the player in our squad who you wouldn't have played at centre half Richards would probably come out above Cameron,Chappell,Ajala and probably nobody else.
Really we might as well have played O'Archie there.
With the cock ups that we made against Telford the only way we were going to win was to outscore the opposition. We at least managed three.
Going into the Alfreton game with our first choice centre halves out and a keeper who has morphed back into the liability we all knew he was then probably banging in a few goals was again the only chance we had of winning.
Thats part of the reason why we should have left one of our best two midfielders in Richards in his proper position.
For all Rowe-Turners limitations and the fact that he runs like a duck - he is pretty quick. Bricoes got a a bit of skill but with his beard he looks like something off the Jeremy Kyle show who has pissed all his dole money up agains the wall. He is about three stone overweight.
As for Jesus Hargreaves it ended up more like Jesus Christ what is our manager doing. As someone else commented it looked more like he was concerned with what his hair and jacket looked like on tv rather than employing some tactics which might have won us the game.

[Lloyder5]

Think that was you on the 'BERK' thread!

[Scott Brehaut]

The one player that did anything decent on Saturday, and Brucie still finds something to moan about him.
"Three stone overweight" yet still banging in the goals - I couldn't give two shits how fat he is if he scores.

[brucie]

How many times have you seen Briscoe play this season then - oh yeah that will be precisely none. In fact his ability is hampered by the fact that he is so unfit.
Great bit of skill for the first goal, couldn't really miss the second but personally I think O'archie and Bowman are a partnership which will cause defenders more problems.

[Scott Brehaut]

I've seen him once - Saturday.

He looked more than good enough then - he's our second highest goalscorer having played less games than Bowman and O'Achie.

Like I've said - it really matters not how "unfit" he is (and he didn't look that unfit on Saturday), just how many goals he scores. That's what he's paid to do, and that's what he is currently doing. What's not to like really....

[taxilady]

. What's not to like really....

Well, if you're Brucie : the way he runs, his beard, the way he doesn't score a goal every time he gets near the opposition goalkeeper !!! Poor Brucie, he doesn't like anything about TUFC at all at the moment; :no: :aww: