PSF - Torquay v Plymouth - 31/07/21

[UnitedinDevon]

Peoples thoughts on todays game?

Shame to see Ali go off injured and no Dan Martin either?

Not sure there were too many postives to take from that game, left a little bit scratching my head at the way we lined up with LHE all over the shop and O'connel in the middle. Halstead has the presence of an experienced keeper and can kick well too

Both Trialist B & C aren't anywhere near good enough, certainly need some more depth!

[divingbboy]

Peoples thoughts on todays game?

Shame to see Ali go off injured and no Dan Martin either?

Not sure there were too many postives to take from that game, left a little bit scratching my head at the way we lined up with LHE all over the shop and O'connel in the middle. Halstead has the presence of an experienced keeper and can kick well too

Both Trialist B & C aren't anywhere near good enough, certainly need some more depth!

I don't read too much into today's game. I thought we looked quite tired and sluggish (not surprising, to be fair) and Plymouth looked very good. They were so quick to the ball. I completely disagree on Trialist B: I thought he looked very promising. I didn't really see enough of Trialist C to say one way or another, though. Trialist A once again impressed me. I'll be surprised if we don't sign him.

The only thing I found a bit baffling was the Argyle crowd acting like it was a bloody Cup Final rather than a pre-season friendly against a team two leagues below them. Not to be churlish, but I'm not sure you're meant to sing "can we play you every week?" to a team two leagues below. As long as they had fun, I guess...

[standupsitdown]

As would be expected Plymouth were better than us but the game was lost in the few minutes after Ali Omar went off.
Their defence was good and we struggled to make any clear chances. Too slow to break sometimes.
Some good passing from Armani Little.

I thought Trialist B looked promising.
Trialist A did a few good things but nothing outstanding.
Couldn't really judge Trialist C but hope he is good as we need another centre half.

[SBP]

We were way off in every department. Danny Wright spent most of the game moaning at his team mates. Plymouth were different class as they should be however i expected us to at least compete. But we didnt . The last 20 minutes it was completely comical we had players running into each other , nobody seemed to know what they were doing or where they were playing.

[culmstockgull]

Considering we are two leagues below Plymouth there were a lot of positives to take from the game, we took them on for good periods of the game albeit Plymouth never had to play in their top gear and this was a hugely better display to the one against Truro in terms of impetus. I also liked trialist A and B, they added something to the team, Lewis played out of his skin. on the negative side, when Plymouth scored their first goal the team collectively looked to the bench for help, something they did a lot last season as if to say "what do we do now" , with the exception of Lewis there were no leaders on the pitch.Not impressed one bit with Little or Wynter, the latter being totally repsonsible for the first goal making the same error he made on more than one occasion last season in not clearing his lines and then being muscled off the ball. Both played without urgency or much interest come to think of it as if it was an exhibition match. We were by no means embarrassed, the one stand out between us and Plymouth was they had fitness and pace, we had an abundance of neither. if we get the chance to take any Plymouth players on loan I would take the youngster Crask on the wing , he has some speed and the back four player Davidson, both have good footballing brains.

[Dave]

Plymouth are League 1 completing their pre-season today. we're only half way through, so Argyle were always going to be sharper making if virtually impossible our Torquay to close the ability gap, which would have been likely if we'd both been at the same stage of pre-season.

Ali Omar to me was the biggest plus and minus rolled into one, he was outstanding whilst on the field individually and collectively in terms organising those around him, while he was on the field our back line was coping, the minus came when he left the field Plymouth found it all to easy to get in behind and two goals followed shortly afterwards.

Very difficult for me, my first game and very unfamiliar with who's, who, no 16 thought he had a tidy game, trialist A no 14 very surprised if he doesn't get offered something with us, trialist B no 15 gets an A+ for effort, got up a few times to win headers, but difficult for him, same for Trialist C no 17 looks a strong lad, but the difference in pre season sharpness saw Argyle take complete control as our team faded badly as the game went on, will get a better idea on these against Chippenham.

There were some good passages of play, but the team didn't execute very well well today, may got Argyle under greater pressure if the team hadn't been so sloppy when they'd got into some good positions, that'll come.

Wynter looked back to his best, Connor Evans had patches, as did Andrews, they'd clearly remembered Little from the last P.S.F he was smothered every time the ball went near him, but again the difference in fitness levels made it difficult.

All in all very useful run out, the team needed to be stretched, they certainly were given a real hard run out today, to make us into a promotion team, a few additions are still needed, GJ will know I'm sure some loan players will follow.

[brucie]

Little was absolutely crap - as for good passing he seemed to give the ball away all game. As for being captain and leaders - I presume this is some sort of joke, when you have the outstanding Lewis in the side.

Little couldn't lead my spaniel. I thought Omar and Lewis were the two positives in the team. Plymouth are way ahead of us in terms of fitness and spanking so at least we didn't lose 8-0.

All that said I just get the impression that Johnson isn't that happy - he said in his after match interview that he was going to sit some of the new players down and tell them what is expected of them - hardly very promising.

We have played three friendlies and already have half a team out - Lapslie. Omar. Hall, Martin and Slough. If you add Sherring and Randell to our own players we have lost we are way off what we had last season.

[UnitedinDevon]

Agree RE Lewis, looks like our best player at the moment

[smw1989]

watching the game from the pop side and I have to say we were awful,
trialist A - I like him a lot, small player who's versatile and likes a tackle
trialist b - (think he was called Dan) lol looked more like a fitness instructor than a professional footballer
trialist c - couldn't really judge him but I guess if he was any good he would of stood out in what was a very poor team display

thank god we have more pre season games because we looked really poor and it was actually quite embarrassing.

o'connell looks way too light weight imo, Gary maybe sees him as a technical winger but he just can't beat a man without falling to his knees and has non end product and if he's taking Whitfields spot then that is a really poor bit of recruitment.

we need atleest another 4-5 players that will go straight into our lineup, little shouldn't of been the captain today as he needs to focus more on his game, shouldn't be anywhere near our starting lineup as he doesn't offer anything, waste of time and money. Jake Andrews needs to be given more of an important role and he should be Whitfields replacement as his crosses, passing and set pieces are very good.

Lewis is a solid player and has carried on his form from the tail end of last season.

[UnitedinDevon]

watching the game from the pop side and I have to say we were awful,
trialist A - I like him a lot, small player who's versatile and likes a tackle
trialist b - (think he was called Dan) lol looked more like a fitness instructor than a professional footballer
trialist c - couldn't really judge him but I guess if he was any good he would of stood out in what was a very poor team display

thank god we have more pre season games because we looked really poor and it was actually quite embarrassing.

o'connell looks way too light weight imo, Gary maybe sees him as a technical winger but he just can't beat a man without falling to his knees and has non end product and if he's taking Whitfields spot then that is a really poor bit of recruitment.

we need atleest another 4-5 players that will go straight into our lineup, little shouldn't of been the captain today as he needs to focus more on his game, shouldn't be anywhere near our starting lineup as he doesn't offer anything, waste of time and money. Jake Andrews needs to be given more of an important role and he should be Whitfields replacement as his crosses, passing and set pieces are very good.

Lewis is a solid player and has carried on his form from the tail end of last season.

Don't think you can blame O'Connell when he was playing in the middle when he's a winger

Why oh why LHE didn't swap with him I don't know

[MellowYellow]

Preseason football can be a tricky thing to figure out. I saw the match for what it was - a pre-season friendly - primarily a training match to evaluate players and tactics. The result did not count. Given we were playing a League one outfit who have completed their pre-season I thought we put up a good show and looked quite a solid outfit for a non-league club. Yes, room for improvement but isn't there always. The lesson learnt today is if you switch off for one minute you get punished. So what do we get out of these pre-season friendlies:

For our Manager, it provided time to lay down new tactical plans, analyse the squad to reveal its true strength and weaknesses and make sure any weaknesses are strengthened either in training and/or tactical systems or acquisition of new players.

For our squad, it was a time to get back into fitness and shape; increase match sharpness and get ready for the new season; improve the tactical familiarity of a specific system's; test out new players and youngsters in different positions, improve the team cohesion.

To this end, I cannot agree we were awful nor players being useless and will wait until the result of the Altrincham game on Saturday, August 21 before I resharpened my critic pencil.

[brucie]

I thought we looked ok for 40 minutes until Omar got injured - after that I would agree that we were more or less shambolic.

Luckily for us Argyle took their foot off the gas otherwise we could have lost 10 -0 which would have been considerably embarrassing. Its accepted that all the comments above are completely valid, but I don't rate O'Donnell at all either so far.

Johnson said after match that he was going to get some players in and remind them of what he expects - I reckon you can take that to be Lolos and O'Donnell for starters.

If we were improving team cohesion it didn't work because by the end we were all over the shop. You would hope that we would look better against Tiverton but Johnson seemed to be suggesting that we might not be putting out many of the first team squad because we have so many injuries - we appear to have another injury crisis and the season hasn't started yet.

The triallist who played up front was Dan Holman - played under Johnson at Cheltenham about five years ago but seems to have dropped off the planet since then. Most recently got released by Brackely after scoring 1 goal in 15 appearances.

[North Curry House]

I thought we looked ok for 40 minutes until Omar got injured - after that I would agree that we were more or less shambolic.

Luckily for us Argyle took their foot off the gas otherwise we could have lost 10 -0 which would have been considerably embarrassing. Its accepted that all the comments above are completely valid, but I don't rate O'Donnell at all either so far.

Johnson said after match that he was going to get some players in and remind them of what he expects - I reckon you can take that to be Lolos and O'Donnell for starters.

If we were improving team cohesion it didn't work because by the end we were all over the shop. You would hope that we would look better against Tiverton but Johnson seemed to be suggesting that we might not be putting out many of the first team squad because we have so many injuries - we appear to have another injury crisis and the season hasn't started yet.

The triallist who played up front was Dan Holman - played under Johnson at Cheltenham about five years ago but seems to have dropped off the planet since then. Most recently got released by Brackely after scoring 1 goal in 15 appearances.

So he is not a world beater then! Surely we can do better than that.

[MellowYellow]

The triallist who played up front was Dan Holman - played under Johnson at Cheltenham about five years ago but seems to have dropped off the planet since then. Most recently got released by Brackely after scoring 1 goal in 15 appearances.

This guy retired from playing at 30 moved to Dubai for wife's new job and was to focus on his "Mindset Mentoring" Business. That tells me the Dubai venture went tits-up with Covid but also tells me he no longer has hunger for the game and is just a 'journeyman' looking for a few bob till the travel ban is over.

https://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/s ... an-4976456

[Dave]

Personally very surprised at some of the negativity, no our team didn't put much of a fight past the 40 minute mark, but there is one huge factor that some are not giving enough credence to in my opinion.

If you had two sides from the same or closer in terms of the level they play at, playing against each other, with one side a week behind in their pre-season schedule, you would likely see a marked difference in fitness levels.

When your playing against a side two levels higher with a fully assembled squad, who could pull two players of the bench for every position, in a period where physically our race was over, not sure what some were expecting from our squad.

It was always going to be close to impossible for our players individually and collectively to shine through out the full 90 minutes, when they're 3 games behind in the pre-schedule, and our squad is not fully assembled yet, so, some of our players were played out of position to fill in gaps. I don't think there's a need for anyone to over think this, and be to harsh on the players, had we both been at the same stage with fully assembled squads, then yes, we should have expected more of fight put up by our team, the fact is, we weren't.

Wasn't planning on going next week, but another week in, another match in, might be worth going to see if there's any marked difference.