Dover Athletic v Torquay United - 3pm 5th Aug

[GullsUnited]

1 game out of 46 and people are already done with the season, honestly why be a football fan when it makes such a negative impact on your day?

[cockneycockers]

If you had said that the Dover team had been recruited from the parks of South London on Friday afternoon it would not have been unkind after their shell shocked first twenty minutes. We should have been three up, it could have been more. Good, one touch triangles, Collins looking nippy, Ash running well off the back of Jarvis ( who still I think would prefer a Nouble he could run off),excellent second goal set up by McGavin (yes I’m still sticking with him). The difference came from their ‘orrible captain Dunne (Roy Kent) who growled at anything that moved, our players, the ref, but more importantly their players, who realised if they didn’t start smashing in to us we would go on to take the piss.
They won it in the midfield.
Yes we should have scored at least one of those two late chances, another day we will.
We need a Pickler at the back and Dawson or Matt Hockley back in the middle. Should be good from there.

[portugull]

I realise it is only one game but many fans who have been watching Pro Football for decades know that we need a big strong no nonsense experienced Centre Back.

Surely Gary and Aaron,who was an excellent CB, know this and will act quickly to get the right player in ASAP.

[AdrianC]

Good point Portgull! A proper experienced centre back is needed, get him in there and I think Donnellan or Tomlinson would be OK, they’ll have someone pulling their strings telling them what to do!

[Louis]

Prediction League update... thanks for all your predictions, was a good turnout, a low-scoring week with nobody getting the score and only 3 people picking up 1 point in the league. Still plenty of time to catch up if you missed it this week to be in with a chance of winning TUFC merch.

(click to enlarge)

[Gull in black]

I think we all acknowledge we need a solid central defender. If someone of the standard we want became available could we afford him (?), would he want to play in NLS (?). Answers to both questions probably no … so we need a loanee like last season. GJ has said they have a loanee in mind we can be 90% certain he’s looking at a central defender. Understandably we can’t drive the timescale of incoming loans … I just hope it’s sorted before next Saturday.

[GullsUnited]

I hope it is a defender who isn't afraid to put the ball down and play, our downfall yesterday was because we panicked and reverted to hitting the ball long, easy to iron out with the right personnel taking responsibility for playing short

[Louis]

Highlights

[MellowYellow]

His asertion that Dover were "athletic" isnt good enough.

But he is not wrong - I looked up the club registration and it clearly states "Dover Athletic".

[Admiral]

I think a lot of supporters are finding it hard to get excited about the new season, and GJ is part of that for me. I’ll support the team regardless, but GJ has to get points on the board very early to win a few over.

[Taelee73]

We need Moxey, Dawson and Stobbs back ASAP. Hopefully we'll have a better balance then, yes for an exciting pacy loan prospect at the back again. It's early days, but does Jarvis need someone to play off rather than being the solitary battering ram?

[Stickingitin]

You can't have your cake and eat it.
And you can't gaslight when the odds say you're 2-0 up and the bookies have you as favourites and yet lose that 2-0 lead to the opposite of being favourite.
For those relying on Hall and Moxey their combined age is 73 years of experience and yet you rely on them.
The strength of a team is judged by the players on the pitch and more importantly those on the bench. That is exactly where the 73 years of experience should be.
This tells us the strength of this team.

[Cheddargull]

I think a lot of supporters are finding it hard to get excited about the new season, and GJ is part of that for me. I’ll support the team regardless, but GJ has to get points on the board very early to win a few over.

I rather thought a lot of supporters were getting excited at the prospect of the team that contained several players that nearly saved us from relegation storming through this league. Sad fact is that two key players from last season are no longer with us (Lawrence and Nouble) and two other key players (Dawson and Stobbs) were absent. In other words the team yesterday was largely made up of players who got us into trouble in the first place. We really need Dawson and Stobbs back pronto.
I think in general both Pro and Anti Johnson supporters recognise we have a better team now than 12 months ago, and I also believe both camps actually expect this team and Johnson challenging at the top of this league, certainly both camps thought we were going to win yesterday. But the absence of key players shows that we still have a paper thin squad in addition to several areas that need addressing (e.g. Centre and right side of defence). It's going to be an interesting season.

[brucie]

To me Johnson's aftermatch interview was poor. He consistently harped on about our form in pre season friendlies. Everyone knows that its completely irrelevant, its what mattered yesterday. As I said before if a part time team of strangers looked athletic he maybe should be looking at his own team. Thats just not good enough.

I thought he looked drawn and tired during the interview. Maybe the reality has set in already - I dont know at his age why he needs the pressure,would have been far better if he had retired at the end of last season.

Any criticism is always said to be anti the manager. Its amazing however how many people have remarked how weak the line up and squad in general. I presumed that Craske, Tomlinson and Jenkins-Davies would be squad players, not first team starters.

Then there is the curious case of Dawson. By all accounts needed a hamstring operation in the summer so was injured before he did any training with us. It begs the question why we offered him a contract if he isnt going to be available to play?

Then there is Ryan Law - a decent full back with pace who played two leagues higher than us last season and also played games in Argyles first team . How on earth has he ended uo at Truro. You are not telling me that he would have chose Truro over us so presumably we didnt offer anything. In the summer Johnson stated that he had overspent on the budget - if that is the case we could be in trouble.

Then there is the persistant subs bench problem with no available striking option. How on earth can an experienced manager continue with this policy? What about Tyler Harvey. Big target man, still scoring goals and would be a decent part time option. Is the manager going to just burn out Ash and Jarvis?

There just doesnt seem to be any imagination at times.

Of course its early days and only one game - we may well do better at home to Worthing and Chippenham, but lets not forget they both won yesterday. Its a free hit for bothteams and the pressure will all be on us.

With the line up we had yesterday we are not getting in the top seven. Johnson simply has to strengthen at centre half and up front. We may not be able to get an experienced defender in but even a youngster who is above this level will suffice. I'd also be asking Cardiff what Keiron Evans is doing if he hasnt gone out on loan. We need to strengthen and quick, otherwise we will be als0 rans.

[brucie]

And looking at the highlights we were saved by Halstead. Shocking **** goals to give away - six players inside the box for their first goal and noone near their scorer.

Second goal is even worse. Tomlinson needs to be sent out on loan to Dorchester because hes nowhere near good enough. Put that defence out and we will get turned over by Taunton and Truro. Come on Johnson sort it out FFS.