We've been found out!!

[SBGULL]

Went to the game Saturday and have to say it was pretty dismall. We just dont look good enough. Realistically I'd say we have maybe 3 players that are Div 3 standard ...the rest just seem to make up the numbers and lack the quality needed. Even at the start of the season I felt we rode our luck a little but now that has all caught up and we are progressively slipping down the table with lacklustre performances. Time to dip in the loan market. A temporary fix but survival is important.

[cambgull]

Wow, you'd think the world had ended...

I'm not worried yet, another couple losses and maybe but I never really expected us to be competing for the play offs. Mid table is decent and that's where we are. We all said 12 games in is a good indication of where we are and I won't complain at 14th.

[usagullmichigan]

we need a good quality young loaned striker.

[AustrianAndyGull]

Wow, you'd think the world had ended...

I'm not worried yet, another couple losses and maybe but I never really expected us to be competing for the play offs. Mid table is decent and that's where we are. We all said 12 games in is a good indication of where we are and I won't complain at 14th.

I know its doom and gloom at the moment cambgull but if you had seen what i had seen on saturday i believe there are good grounds for thinking we are starting to struggle. Many people posted after the Shrewsbury game that it was maybe the worst they had ever seen the gulls play, i wasn't there so i can't comment but i witnessed the Bradford mess and THAT was the worst i had ever seen them play. All i can say is that we need new faces along with Bodin and a fit again Morris to stand any chance of avoiding slumping near the bottom and for Christ's sake Ling. Play Ellis, enough is enough now. The main problem is that generally we concede comedy goals in most games and if we aren't gonna stamp that out then we at least need to score a couple each game to be in with a shout of some points. We haven't got the quality upfront to sustain this. Ling needs to sort out the back 4. Regardless of how dire we were on saturday, if we had defended properly then we would have still got a point. Sort this shit out Ling because you are a million miles from it at the minute.

[tufcbrett]

Some people are taking things a bit to far. Yes i know we all want to win every game of the season. But the play offs last season has got to some peoples heads and now expect the maximum or its a crisis.

We lost 1-0 to Bradoford and 2-0 to shrewsbury, ok the performence's wasnt amazing but on paper they are bigger clubs and doesnt matter where they are in the table. You would expect them two teams to beat us at there place.

I am as gutted as every other person that we are not playing well at all. But things will pick up and we will pick up a few results soon. I dont care what anyone says, we will not been in trouble this season.

We have a budget to finish mid table, and with all the works off the pitch going on aswell. This is a rebuilding season. Clubs like Bradford and Shrewsbury have top 6 budgets and they should be up there. Ok Bradoford are down the bottom for now but that doesnt me we will win the game.

Ling is trying thins out this season, he may now know players in our currect squad that are not good enough. He will act when he can and will remove and add what he can in Jan or next summer. There are sides in our league that are far worse than us, like hereford and macclesfield and even barnet.

Next games Gillingham at home, Southend away, Wimbledon at home, Hereford at home, Crewe away and Plymouth at home. Now all the home games are very winnable. The away games will be tough. We need to get off the teams backs and get behined them. I expect to beat Hereford. Derby games are always hard to call even though again we should beat argyle. There are bigger clubs than us doing worse so its not all going wrong for us

[AustrianAndyGull]

Agree mate but start building from the back. We all know that if we can't defend yet don't score enough either then we are gonna struggle. I'm sure Mr Ling knows that we have defensive issues but foer whatever reason errors keep on happening. All i am syaing is give Ellis a go now and see what comes of it.

[tufcbrett]

Agree mate but start building from the back. We all know that if we can't defend yet don't score enough either then we are gonna struggle. I'm sure Mr Ling knows that we have defensive issues but foer whatever reason errors keep on happening. All i am syaing is give Ellis a go now and see what comes of it.

We dont know what happends in training mate. Its all well in good saying give him a go. But who says in training Robbo and Saah are the best centre back pairing. So in that theroy you would be making it weaker. Im not saying for a moment thats the case. Could be Ling being stubon and keeping with saah or robbo.

The thing is its not always right to just blame the defence. If the team is under as much pressure as they were on saturday then mistakes will happen and its hard to defend. Bradofrd only scored 1 goal and everyone makes it sound like we let in 10. A team has to defend from the front and if there getting to our defense that easy then you have to look at the midfield and strikers just as well.

We had hardy any chances made and not many shots. And if we did they were awful. Personaly i dont have such an issue with the defence, the two cente backs are doing as well as they can in the game situation we find ourselfs in. Any good side keeps the ball well away from the defence as much as possible.

I will be honest and i dont think Tawio is good enough. He started of good but now i dont see what hes meant to be doing. He has pace and thats about it. I would rather have Stevens playing instead. Danny has more in his game, ok hes small but he can cross a good ball and we know he can score goals. Plus he does try hard to defend. Howes not a last man stiker that what Ling wants him to play. Howe comes to get the ball, so we need someone who will sit on the last man and cause issues to give Howe more space to pay in. Because Howe comes deep and hes our striker so it easy to keep him out the game. Thats where we are falling flat because the ball comes stright back at our defence.

Got to only look at Man utd. Howe is playing like what Rooney would. Comes deep for the ball and is deadly with the ball, as we seen him score goals from range or get others in the game. We need that Hernadez/Benyon sort of player to be on the last man. If Howe comes deep holds the ball up and plays it out wide. Who the hell is forward to try and play in. Instead we have to wait for Howe to get forward by then they other side had got back in numbers. So we are lacking up top which means the ball comes straight back towards our goal. You cant score goals in our own pentaly box. Its easy to blame the defence for everything but its a lot more than that.
So our 4-3-3 ends up being a defensive 4-5-1 which all sits back to defend and try and counter leaving Howe on his own and any centre back pairing in the league should be able to keep one striker quite.

[Father Jack]

Brett, Shrews and Bradford were bigger clubs than us last season as well but I dont remember losing to them (particularly in that fashion).
I'm certainly not convinced that the matches against Gills or AFCW are "very winnable" either. To be honest, the only three points I can see there is Hereford.

Whilst we had a run of duff results last season, once we got about 5 minutes into a match, I always felt "we've got a good chance of winning this one". The only matches last season that I didnt get that feeling were Maccy home, Aldershot away, Rotherham away, Crawley in the cup and Old Trafford, all pretty poor performances. This season, I have yet to see 5 or 10 minutes of a match and think we're likely to win.
I certainly dont expect us to win (or even not lose) every match but I do at least expect us to compete on the pitch, individually and as a team, but that's something that I can't say i've seen so far.

[tufcbrett]

Brett, Shrews and Bradford were bigger clubs than us last season as well but I dont remember losing to them (particularly in that fashion).
I'm certainly not convinced that the matches against Gills or AFCW are "very winnable" either. To be honest, the only three points I can see there is Hereford.

Whilst we had a run of duff results last season, once we got about 5 minutes into a match, I always felt "we've got a good chance of winning this one". The only matches last season that I didnt get that feeling were Maccy home, Aldershot away, Rotherham away, Crawley in the cup and Old Trafford, all pretty poor performances. This season, I have yet to see 5 or 10 minutes of a match and think we're likely to win.
I certainly dont expect us to win (or even not lose) every match but I do at least expect us to compete on the pitch, individually and as a team, but that's something that I can't say i've seen so far.

Mate im not arguing that at all. But im saying to saying its not as straight forward as everyone makes out. We can easiy sit there and say its the defence fault and swap Saah for Ellis but the same thing will happen.

I have always played a 4-3-3 or a 4-2-3-1 (a form of 4-3-3) as a manager but its obvious whats going wrong. I know Ling knows thats going wrong. You keep our lone centre forward out the game, as the bradford defence found they get the ball and play it straight back to the forwards and were are under pressure. Or when Howe got the ball and played the ball out wide, they had nothing to aim for.

Next week we could destroy Gillingham and we all are happy again. Its football we cant be amazing every week. But i wont fault the players effort as they will try the hardest they can in every game but sometimes it doesnt work out.

[Plymouth Gull]

This is a bit of an overexaggeration, the OP, in my opinion, but I have read the replies with interest. I do agree with Andy and the fact that for a 'transition period', it should have been a case of sorting the defence first. We look dreadfully weak back there, not so much the full back areas, but the middle - and we seem to let in several comedy goals. I do feel Ellis should get a go, I mean, afterall, he was part of the defence that did the 998 minutes unbeaten, lets not forget. He and Robbo know each other, they have differing qualities, whereas I feel Robertson is just a better version of Saah. They have the same tendencies, which I feel plays a small part in the defensive cockups.

Personally, I'm happy with the midfield. Possibly a backup would be nice, but I've been impressed with Lathrope recently, we all know O'Kane can be the best player on the park at times, and with Mansell, you get what you see. Total commitment, and non-stop energy.

A worry is the lack of potency in the frontline. Yes, Howe is good, at this level. Bodin is decent, and I don't think he'll be here after his loan ends, unfortunately. But that's all we have. Taiwoeful has the ability, and first touch that like I had 10 years ago (mines improved ). He has pace, but no skill, and seemingly very limited ability. Take the time against Morecambe, where he went round in a circle 3 times before dribbling the ball off the pitch. Chris McPhee hasn't had much chance yet. I was impressed against Macclesfield - he held the ball up well, but since then, at Shrewsbury then against Morecambe, I thought he was poor. Moreso against Morecambe when he missed two guilt-edged chances from inside the six-yard box.

For what it's worth, I would be happy to survive this year. I don't expect us to be any higher than 12th, this year. However, I do expect us to survive. I also expect us to show some grit and determination when the going gets tough. At Shrews, there wasn't much of it. It sounds like it was similar on Saturday.

[cambgull]

I will be honest and i dont think Tawio is good enough. He started of good but now i dont see what hes meant to be doing. He has pace and thats about it. I would rather have Stevens playing instead. Danny has more in his game, ok hes small but he can cross a good ball and we know he can score goals. Plus he does try hard to defend. Howes not a last man stiker that what Ling wants him to play. Howe comes to get the ball, so we need someone who will sit on the last man and cause issues to give Howe more space to pay in. Because Howe comes deep and hes our striker so it easy to keep him out the game. Thats where we are falling flat because the ball comes stright back at our defence.

I'm not normally a Danny Stevens 'knocker' but I really don't think you've been watching the same Danny Stevens as I have.

Although I haven't seen Stevens under Ling, the one I saw would constantly cut inside so would never cross the ball and scoring goals? I turn into a Werewolf more often than Danny Stevens scores...

[AustrianAndyGull]

You turn into a werewolf once in a FULL moon cambgull whilst stevens scores a goal once in a BLUE moon!!

[bengull]

No question that there is still a lot of work to do with the team, but there is still a lot of time left for that to happen. Nobody was expecting Martin Ling to walk in to the club and perform miracles straightaway. There are things we are doing very well, there are parts of our play that are terrible, the nature of an average side.

We have lost 3 matches out 12, and only really got slapped against Crawley for 50 minutes. That's not too bad. Lets see where we are after the next 12 games when I do feel it will be justifiable to form reallistic opinions of our performances and players. In that time we should have played many of the 'lesser' teams in the league, a point that Lingy was quick to bring up after the Morecambe game.

Don't get me wrong, we were awful against Shrewsbury and again on saturday. Stringing 20 passes together is fine at 0-0, but not when 1-0 down, or even worse against 10 men. Lingy changed to a 'plan b' at half time and that didn't work either. That tells me that we just didn't play well enough, not that we've been 'found out.' On saturday we were missing our best attacker in Bodin, and our only natural left sided attacker, which may go a long way to explain why we looked so imbalanced. Our already small squad was stretched, which is why as I said in my match report there should be no issue or shame in dipping into the loan market. Personally a left winger is a must in my eyes, and a fox in the box type striker.

Incidently, against Macclesfield earlier this season Mark Ellis got a 5 minute pity 'cameo' role upfront and caused a fair bit of mischief, I would like to see this avenue investigated further in times of need such as Saturday, he attacks the aerial better than anyone in our squad and is a real handful. Just a thought.

[yellowforever]

we need a good quality young loaned striker.

We are that and some defensive coaching away from being a half decent team, basically we need another Bodin for the other wing.

I very much doubt we'll go down, the team is strong enough to stay up as it is, but I'd much rather we got a good loanee in and made a push for the playoffs.

[AustrianAndyGull]

Ellis wouldn't have caused Bradford a problem on saturday Ben as we didn't even put any balls into the box but i take your point. A tricky striker like Robinson would do wonders for us but failing that anybody would do. McPhee is really laboured, sure he holds the ball up well but thats about it. That said, i would rather have him in the side than Atieno. At least McPhee actually gives a toss about playing professional football. I may have gone over the top with my scathing attack on our prospects after the Bradford game and i apologise. We will probably be ok but signs weren't great at all and i still have massive concerns. I also was putting the onus on the defence to try and tighten up as i know we have little options upfront and until this changes we need to be as tight as possible at the back. I don't agree with one post where someone said we were being put under pressure by Bradford. I don't believe we ever were, we had ample possession of the football but for whatever reason refused to play it forward therefore always being prone to losing it just in front of our back four which kept Bradford on the front foot. They didn't really have to exert themselves as we were playing ourselves into trouble by constantly passing the ball sideways from one side of the pitch to another and running into trouble because nobody was willing to create an outlet for us up top. When we managed to get the ball forward there was nobody up top as they were all camped in our own half anticipating the next pass sideways!