Torquay v Braintree TUE 17th

[gateman49]

Another positive word about the ref.

In the first half one of our players was fouled just inside their half, he waved play on and I thought that was that. The ball went forward and we then lost possession so he brought play right back to the original foul. Nine times out of ten when this happens play just continues but this was that exception. If it works in rugby what can't refs be given a bit more freedom to let things run on?

Well done that ref.

[arcadia]

If we are to keep Hargreaves as several seem to have rose tinted glasses and think it's everyone else's fault perhaps we could do away with his assistant and bring in an experienced manager to teach Hargreaves the ropes till the end of the season. Does he need an assistant I think he needs a father figure to guide him.

[tomogull]

If we are to keep Hargreaves as several seem to have rose tinted glasses and think it's everyone else's fault perhaps we could do away with his assistant and bring in an experienced manager to teach Hargreaves the ropes till the end of the season. Does he need an assistant I think he needs a father figure to guide him.

The thing is, Arcadia, it's not whether or not we want Hargreaves to stay - it's just that the club can't afford to dismiss him, although when the gates plummet from a more or less constant 2000 to 1200 and then 1100 resulting in the loss of roughly £16,000 - £18,000 each home game, there must come a time when it would be best to cut your losses. Bringing in an experienced manager to give him some backing wouldn't be a bad idea. Paul Sturrock, for example ? By the way, did you think last night's performance was really that dire, or did you think Braintree were flattered by the 5 - 1 scoreline?

[arcadia]

The thing is, Arcadia, it's not whether or not we want Hargreaves to stay - it's just that the club can't afford to dismiss him, although when the gates plummet from a more or less constant 2000 to 1200 and then 1100 resulting in the loss of roughly £16,000 - £18,000 each home game, there must come a time when it would be best to cut your losses. Bringing in an experienced manager to give him some backing wouldn't be a bad idea. Paul Sturrock, for example ? By the way, did you think last night's performance was really that dire, or did you think Braintree were flattered by the 5 - 1 scoreline?

When making decisions like this you've got to forget money, you make a temporary plan,set it up and then sack him and his assistant as things cannot get any worse. Appoint from within and give it a few games or get an experienced manager who you think will get us out of this for peanuts. Last night was ridiculous as team has lost it's way.
The experienced players were playing with no confidence they are good enough but the manager has not put any belief into the players. Changes needed to be made but I think Chris needs help from an experienced manager who has been there and done it if he carry's on, as team selection causes players to lose confidence if they don't think that they can do the job they are being asked to do. Last night after I heard the team announced I looked at the players and said to the chap next to me Downes should be in the middle. The right side wing back is not good enough it's harsh but fact, the midfield had no shape.
The assistant manager should tell the manager what he thinks and if he agreed with the side that was put out last night we've got two people in charge who don't know what they are doing.

My answer to your question we dug a hole for ourselves the shape of the side was wrong players did not believe in the system and they were frightened until we scored but then another mistake happened and the rest is history.
We need a strong Chairman.
Believe this or not in the forty years in football I've sacked managers in this position but not with the money involved.
Sorry SG I've done it again but football has been my life.

[arcadia]

There is absolutely no way we could sack Hargreaves, and just ''forget money'' unfortunately. Thea won't give us another freebee and rightly so. Gambling a new debt vs potential success with another manager would be exactly the kind of stupidity that has got us to where we are. A lot of people thought Knill's 'names' that he signed on 2 year contracts was a gamble worth taking - and look how that panned out.

Just remember that if the next manager also fails to get the team into a good position, the crowds will stay low and then we would be double f*cked.

I can only hope Hargreaves hands in his resignation,but no reason why he would do that, that I can think of!

Surely if you sack the manager and appoint within there is no extra cost, providing you don't replace the persons job. It's a no brainer as we can't get any worse than last night. All the club does is carries on paying their weekly wage.
The problem being a spiral if the next manager does not get things back on track. It's wrong that they gave Hargreaves a contract as long as they did not knowing our future (Relegation)

[hector]

As someone has already pointed out, the potential loss of £15,000 or more per home game, renders the 'we cannot afford to sack' argument a little meaningless. We cannot wait another year for this to change? If things carried on as they are, just what sort of state would we be in, whislt we wait for CH's contract to expire. We can't sit with him on gardening leave and leave Geoff Harrop, or god forbid, Dean Edwards (as I have seen someone suggest)for the next year, in charge.

Years ago, I remember a David Thomas headline in the Herald about Stuart Morgan 'Back him or sack him!' implored DT in an unusually combative piece of journalism. Could the same be said now of CH. Except it seems we are unable to do either and we just wait for things to get a hell of a lot worse. Is that really an option?

[Southampton Gull]

Sad but not uncommon story, Mike. The thing with Arcadia is he still thinks the principles of running a small park outfit apply to a bigger and professional club. As you rightly say there are costs to giving the fans what they're clamouring for when in reality it's 'better business' to keep the costs low while you source new owners. Perhaps he could step into Thea's shoes, open his wallet and get rid of Hargreaves. That way he could pick his team and we could all just turn up safe in the knowledge he knows what he's doing and has just been wasting his time at his keyboard telling us all how it should be done and we could ready ourselves for the ride to the Championship and start dreaming of away days at The Emirates and Old Trafford.

[Dave]

Despite my anger Tuesday into Wednesday morning and the way I posted, I do have grasp on the current situation at the club, until something is sorted regards the ownership of the club nothing is going to change. That to me however, is damning indictment of current state of our club, the good ship TUFC, has no captain, no rudder and no hope.

We're in limbo, trapped, stuck with a manager that an ever growing percentage of our fan base have no trust or confidence in, and would like right now to see the back off, supergulls posted about dressing bust ups and fall outs, I can quite well believe that, it's been obvious to me for some weeks now the players are not, and do not want to play for Chris Hargreaves, and maybe some players have lost confidence in each other as well.

My frustration with Chris Hargreaves has been growing for some time, I'm not an expert, don't claim to be one, but then I have never apply for a job as a professional football manager. But then how much of expert does anyone need to be, we all fans, we all knowledgeable. For me when a team proven to be capable at the level it plays goes on a bad run, stop, job number one, get the balance back into the team, make a decision on what the best formation and set up is, already proven 4-4-2 with team, see first ten games, settle on your best 11, of course you cant avoid injuries, stick to those decisions and let the team play it's own way out of trouble.

Is CH doing himself favours right now, in my humble opinion, no. changing the team and formation, locking the players in the changing room, for both Telford and Braintree games, come on Chris, how many more times are going to do this, please figure that approach hasn't worked, isn't going to work, how many rollicking's have you given these players, actually by the sounds of it far to many, players at all levels who turn up to training and match's days and just get shouted out time and time again, will just shut off and stop listening, of course there is a time for harsh words to be said, but the right time and place for it.

Then there's little things like when Berry left, and we found ourselves short of a right back, first Pearce gets shoved out there, then in comes Dawson, only to be replaced by Pearce for League game ( I know Dawson was cup tied) then Gueguen , when all the time he had MacDonald who'd played a right back for Salisbury and by all accounts was pretty successful in that position, Then Gueguen who CH signed and clearly stated was to cover centre back positions all of a sudden according CH was a right back all the time, make up your mind please, and then Dawson if may some sort of weird magic just happened to some previous experience at playing left back , all smacks of Buckle style arrogance to me.

[arcadia]

If we can survive this year in this division and a new owner comes in fair enough this needs to happen now as the crowd will not stay with the club their habits of football on a Saturday could change watching rubbish, we are in a no win situation. The season ticket holders need something to hook them for next season.

[stefano]

The season ticket holders need something to hook them for next season.

A blanket for my knees and a complimentary Bovril at half-time would be a start .....

[Braintree-ite]

I just wanted to pop on here and thank those people who have had kind things to say about Braintree. Much appreciated.

In answer to one question, no, we don’t always play like that! Otherwise we’d be a bit higher. We finished sixth last year and have kept more or less the same squad – although we lost two valuable players. We’re often underrated - our win at Luton in April last year when they expected to beat us and celebrate winning the championship remains a highlight - because we’re a small town team with a small home gate, average around 600, and no big money backing. But we’re sensibly run, carrying no debt and have a manager who people want to play for.

This season we’ve had a lousy run with injuries, sometimes having only four people on the bench, one goalkeeper, two trainees and one player still carrying an injury. And, yes, they’re all part time. So results have been a bit hit and miss.

Sparky has been one of those who has been in and out of the treatment room. We haven’t seen the best of him this season. You just did! He’s normally an out-and-out winger and doesn’t get many goals. We’ve always rated him and are afraid he could get talent spotted. Let’s hope there weren’t any scouts there on Tuesday.

Applauding him when he came off was a nice touch. Thanks for that.

I can’t find any video coverage anywhere. Did anyone film it?

[arcadia]

Sad but not uncommon story, Mike. The thing with Arcadia is he still thinks the principles of running a small park outfit apply to a bigger and professional club. As you rightly say there are costs to giving the fans what they're clamouring for when in reality it's 'better business' to keep the costs low while you source new owners. Perhaps he could step into Thea's shoes, open his wallet and get rid of Hargreaves. That way he could pick his team and we could all just turn up safe in the knowledge he knows what he's doing and has just been wasting his time at his keyboard telling us all how it should be done and we could ready ourselves for the ride to the Championship and start dreaming of away days at The Emirates and Old Trafford.

Your looking tired again nesting times again!

[Scott Brehaut]

He's tired because you always seem to bite onto the worm he leaves dangling for you.

[tomogull]

I just wanted to pop on here and thank those people who have had kind things to say about Braintree. Much appreciated.

In answer to one question, no, we don’t always play like that! Otherwise we’d be a bit higher. We finished sixth last year and have kept more or less the same squad – although we lost two valuable players. We’re often underrated - our win at Luton in April last year when they expected to beat us and celebrate winning the championship remains a highlight - because we’re a small town team with a small home gate, average around 600, and no big money backing. But we’re sensibly run, carrying no debt and have a manager who people want to play for.

This season we’ve had a lousy run with injuries, sometimes having only four people on the bench, one goalkeeper, two trainees and one player still carrying an injury. And, yes, they’re all part time. So results have been a bit hit and miss.

Sparky has been one of those who has been in and out of the treatment room. We haven’t seen the best of him this season. You just did! He’s normally an out-and-out winger and doesn’t get many goals. We’ve always rated him and are afraid he could get talent spotted. Let’s hope there weren’t any scouts there on Tuesday.

Applauding him when he came off was a nice touch. Thanks for that.

I can’t find any video coverage anywhere. Did anyone film it?

Yes - we're wallowing in our own misery and not giving as much credit to Braintree as they deserve. Our confidence is brittle at the moment and we disintegrated when that third goal went in (brilliantly taken goal, by the way - best goal I've seen at Plainmoor for a long, long time). Having said that, your lads played well. A long trip down to Devon but they looked up for it. Neat on the floor passing, players supporting one another and lethal finishing - five very well taken goals.

I was interested in your comment - we have a manager who people want to play for. Hmmm ...... at present, it seems we have a manager that people don't want to play for. In any case, with your manager's name, he should be managing a team in this part of the world. Video coverage? Film? Nah - it was all chucked in Torquay harbour within five minutes of the final whistle. Good luck for the rest of the season. Play like you did last Tuesday night and you'll cause several more upsets before the end of the season.

[arcadia]

He's tired because you always seem to bite onto the worm he leaves dangling for you.

Yes I know but it makes him happy.