Back and ready to moan

[Fonda]

As i said previously, I don't give massive credence to stats. In this example, they don't take account of the situations the goals are scored in. The 'chances' you quote, what constitutes a chance? It's just possible that the 'chances' presented to Ryan have been far more favourable than those presented to Rene, we'll never know. A defence that is 4-0 up is less likely to be fully focusssed than one that is 1-0 up and keen to maintain a lead, it's all about circumstance. I've watched enough football to tell a decent player from an average one. Judge players on what you see. If Rene and Ryan were available in the summer, i wonder which there would be most interest in? I fear Ryan's agent quoting stats wouldn't be enough to persuade anyone he was the better option. Jarvis is an average footballer, the fact he's benefitted from favourable circuimstances on a couple of occasions doesn't change my opinion on that. Appreciate the effort you've gone to with that though.

[ferrarilover]

It doesn't really matter what constitutes a chance, all that matters is that it is a constant between both players, so both have equal chance of sticking the ball in the net. There are all sorts of swings and roundabouts which give one player an advantage one time and a disadvantage another time. All in all, I'd suggest that it pretty much falls in favour of Rene. He gets much more game time, he's had 90 minutes against Conference North opponents (as opposed to Jarvo who got 90 mins against L1 opponents). Rene starts every week, Jarvo is lucky to get quarter of an hour at the end of a match. Rene plays with team mates who are fit and sharp, Jarvo plays with team mates who are knackered and battered.
It's hard to judge players on what one sees when the comparisons in circumstance are not really fair. Build a team around Jarvis, give him 90 minutes every week and the extra attention from which Rene benefits and then see how many goals he scores.
As it appears at the moment, Ryan isn't the best player at the club, but given how he is used, is that surprising? Rene is a better football, but could we, as a club, better utilise Jarvo and make him into a decent striker, rather than wasting time banging our heads against a wall with this hopelessly negative 4-6-0 approach?

Matt.

[Fonda]

Appreciate all that, you make some valid points. But i've seen a lot of strikers at our club over the years, and when compared just to those that have been here in recent times, Jarvy doesn't really compare.

In fairness, he's probably just about good enough to be a squad player at a League two side - and that is exactly the position he holds. Which would be fine if we had 3 other strikers ahead of him. But we don't. We have one. And that is down to poor recruitment in the summer. Undertaking a season with two forwards in the squad, only one of whom you truly trust to play? I'd question that policy.

[Plymouth Gull]

Welcome back Fonda!

[Dave]

Welcome back Shane stick around.

Do statistics really prove anything, Peter Crouch has scored 22 goals in 42 matchs for England to date, making him one of most deadly strikers ever to play for England, then add in the hat trick against Jamaica the wonder goal against Trindad, not forgeting the brace against the mighty Eygpt etc, etc .

And then does it become a statistic or a damn lie that crouchy is one of the Englands most deadly strikers of all time.

[Fonda]

Smiffy makes some good points. It would be a risk to play Craig in a midfield two (though not one i'd be adverse to trying). 4-3-3 can work - but there is a tendancy for it to revert to 4-5-1, and that is just two cautious - especially at home. Bodin has been signed to win us games - he can't do that if he's stationed in front of his full-back. 4-3-3, with Craig in a central position and the wide men in close proximity to the striker? That's fine. But 4-5-1 with a midfield trio of Lathrope, Easton and Mansell? It's unecessarily negative.

Cheers Nick, Dave. Have to be honest, probably will drift off again. I just had some spare time today and had things on my mind after the weekend!

[bixieupnorth]

i reckon at york if hes starts with rene up front we just spend the whole game chanting nothing but

MARTIN MARTIN 4 4 2, MARTIN 4 4 2 etc etc

[ferrarilover]

Welcome back Shane stick around.

Do statistics really prove anything, Peter Crouch has scored 22 goals in 42 matchs for England to date, making him one of most deadly strikers ever to play for England, then add in the hat trick against Jamaica the wonder goal against Trindad, not forgeting the brace against the mighty Eygpt etc, etc .

And then does it become a statistic or a damn lie that Crouchy is one of the Englands most deadly strikers of all time.

Surely, SURELY you're not questioning Crouch? He scores every single time he so much as smells a football pitch while wearing an England shirt. The bloke is an excellent international striker. Unfortunately, at club level, he seems to suffer with constantly being expected to play a particular way just because of his height, which really doesn't suit him at all. It's not his fault that England are better than almost everyone we are forced to play. If we're going down this route, Rene got 90 minutes against a pub team and didn't score (well, not according to the history books), Jarvis scored twice against the highest ranked opponents we will play all season. If Rene had scored a hat-trick against Harrogate, I am absolutely confident there would not be a single poster on here suggesting that we should expunge them from the record simply because of the standard of the opposition.

I think, perhaps, some of the problem being lumped on Jarvo is down to Bodin's terrible record. If he was lumping in with the goals which were surely expected of him when he signed, and perhaps even the midfield were chipping in with a couple more, no one would even be thinking about Jarvo. As it is, he is our second highest scorer this season and seems to be taking flak for it.

Matt.

[ROADRUNNER]

thing is ferrarilover i never said i would like to see lingy sacked, i said if things didnt improve he would get the sack, we cant afford to drop back to the lower part of the league as crowds will drop and then our pot to piss in will not be there, what im saying is we need to get back to an attacking formation and start winning games and then i for one will be singing martins praises, but at this present time things are not looking good and he needs to put that right, i am not and will never slag the man off, but he needs to sort this soon.

[AustrianAndyGull]

The very fact that we are discussing Lings future when we are 3 points off a play off spot tells you all you need to know about the standard of football we've been playing most of the season. It has to be excruciatingly appalling for any of us to consider whether Ling has a future here or not and yes, it IS excruciatingly appalling. I reckon even if we somehow miraculously flirt around the edge of the play offs for the rest of the season playing the same stuff, the crowds would still fall because of this. It's a pretty weird situation as we are doing ok in the league whether people think it's a false position or not but i admire the fans who choose to stay away in protest as they go to Plainmoor and away games to PAY to watch FOOTBALL. They don't pay to watch a training session of 'see if your 11 men can break down our 11 men' EVERY SINGLE WEEK. There is no reason to support a manager who doesn't have the tools in his make up to initiate changes, like i said, any of us can stick 11 men behind the ball and tell them to defend for the 90. There is no team talk involved, just chuck 'em their shirts and let them get on with it and see what happens. We all know what happens.

I think an interesting comment that Nickgull made to me in one of the threads when i said that the football under Ling was the worst i had ever seen since i have been going to watch Torquay. Some 7 or 8 years. He said that if i had seen some of our performances in the relegation season from league 1 then they had been clearly worse. Admittedly i sawa some shockers, i remember persuading a Barnsley fan mate to leave his seat in the main stand at Oakwell where he usually sat to come and accompany me in the Torquay end and if memory serves me right we were 4-0 down at half time.

Although Nickgul has a valid argument i just want to roll this into one bitesize sentence and say that: The football under Ling is the most predictable, unadventurous, dull, negative, pointless and depressing on a week to week basis that i have EVER seen. This season there have been NO bright spots, NO indication that we have just clicked and things are on the up, NO spark, NO invention, NO ideas, NO hope that this catastrophic standard of football is ever to change. It has gone on so long now that i and many others have simply been numbed by what we have seen to the point that all the excitement and hope at what we might experience at going to watch a Torquay game has been gradually fading until somewhere along the line it will be totally extinguished and we won't go at all anymore. This is not down to us not being real fans, it is down to Martin. It's a tragedy and if this crap continues we won't get relegated but we'll lose a lot of money from stay aways who previously wouldn't have even dreamed of staying away. Like myself. Football is my life, i live it and can't live without it but football is what i want to see. Not what i'm seeing now.

[goodluckgull]

Just want to remind people that the reason we could afford Bill Bodin was because a mystery woman paid fifty thousand pounds towards the seventy grand he cost. Without her generosity we couldn't have acquired Bodin's signature, which also means Torquay didn't have a budget to get 3 players in as has been suggested.

[brucie]

Excellent post Fonda and good to see you back - Lings radio interview on saturday night was pathetic. The "we're Torquay" line looks like bollocks to me.
He did after all spend 70k on Bodin who is looking more like he is worth 70 pence.
I didn't particularly rate Jarvis last year but think some of the criticism is harsh. he is a victim of Lings lunatic defensive policy as much as anything. He took his goal well on saturday.
I would give him a few games alongside Howe, but of course we all know that is not going to happen. We will line up against York with the likes of Easton,Lathrope,Cruise etc in midfield.
I cannot contemplate that Ling will ever play Martin Rice again.

[Plymouth Gull]

Andy, I was actually on about the season we went from League 2, not League 1. Under the stewardship of Roberts and his right hand man, Lubos Kubik. Complete farce. We wouldn't have looked out of place in the SW Peninsula league that season.

[Chris B]

Under the stewardship of Roberts and his right hand man, Lubos Kubik. Complete farce.

The Lubos Kubik, whose only win as Torquay manager came in the FA Cup at Martin Ling's Leyton Orient, with Brian Saah and Craig Easton lining up for the O's!

[AustrianAndyGull]

Andy, I was actually on about the season we went from League 2, not League 1. Under the stewardship of Roberts and his right hand man, Lubos Kubik. Complete farce. We wouldn't have looked out of place in the SW Peninsula league that season.

Sorry Nick, wires crossed mate but yeah we were bad obviously, we went down but like i said i remember going to Rochdale towards the back end of that campaign and we had i think Jamal Easter and Tony Thorpe up top, we created lots of chances but we were just sh*t at finishing and sh*t at defending, a deadly combination that inevitably resulted in relegation. I think we lost 2-0 on that evening but at least we weren't totally hemmed in all game with the odd chance of a shot on a breakaway. Yes there were lots of games where we were just outclassed and hammered well and truly but there is no reason to believe that would happen to the squad of today should we at least try and give games a go. I'd rather lose 2-0 to Rochdale having a go than lose or even draw on some occasions not giving it a go. Ling is the same week in, week out, week in, week out and if we can predict what he is going to do for saturday than i'm sure Gary Mills the York boss can too. We'll become so easy to play against once other managers work out we don't have any other way of playing that we'll drop down the table like a stone.