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Obviously I wasn't there, but the BBC stats from the game, which in turn is taken from Opta, states thus:

Possession overall - us: 43%
Possession overall - them: 57%

Shots - us: 4
Shots - them: 14
Shots on target - us: 0 (zero)
Shots on target - them: 9

Corners - us: 3
Corners - them: 10

From the above, I can only conclude that Rochdale were by far the better team when it came to getting shots in on goal....they may not have had the majority of the possession, but the possession they did have was not wasted as much as ours.

Er, from your very own post the stats show they did actually have the majority of posession. Been on the juice?

You have concluded right - they were by a country mile the better side and anyone who says otherwise is talking out their arsehole.
We were freaking awful. As I keep saying the 4-4-2 cannot work whilst we have two traffic cones playing at full back.
Knill somehow managed to drag off Benyon and Chappell who were two of our better players.
The substitutions were actually tactical genius as Cameron,Hawley and Craig astonishingly contributed pecisely bugger all and actually managed to look worse than those on the pitch.
Cameron looked like bambi on ice and lost the ball every time he had. Craig did the same and Hawley stood around looking completely useless managing to pass a two yard ball into touch.
Defeat was actually a relief as we would have had a Tuesday trip up to Rochdale which would have been a wasted trip.

Their numbers look fine, but in truth their shots on target were passback strength (bar one free kick which Rice parried away. Spectacular but routine). Neither keeper was properly tested. We got a number of good balls into the box and, really, as inept as we were, Rochdale carried no more threat to our goal than we did to theirs.
They had more ball than we did, but much of it was in front of us.
You can't really point to their goal ruled out because the bloke was miles offside when he got it and stuck it in. It's not like it was a contentious one.

Yeah, they were better than us, but not much, and certainly not in the manner the stats suggest. Have a look at Spurs today. That's a team who had a similar number of shots on target as Dale did yesterday and the north Londoners were unlucky not to win 5-1. That wasn't the case for Rochdale. It would have taken a clanger from Rice for the to have scored with any of their efforts in the first 85 minutes. We got done by two late goals. One well worked to take advantage of the criminally past it Nicholson and one from a set piece.

Matt.

Southampton Gull wrote:Er, from your very own post the stats show they did actually have the majority of posession. Been on the juice?

Yes

ferrarilover wrote:Their numbers look fine, but in truth their shots on target were passback strength (bar one free kick which Rice parried away. Spectacular but routine). Neither keeper was properly tested. We got a number of good balls into the box and, really, as inept as we were, Rochdale carried no more threat to our goal than we did to theirs.
They had more ball than we did, but much of it was in front of us.
You can't really point to their goal ruled out because the bloke was miles offside when he got it and stuck it in. It's not like it was a contentious one.

Yeah, they were better than us, but not much, and certainly not in the manner the stats suggest. Have a look at Spurs today. That's a team who had a similar number of shots on target as Dale did yesterday and the north Londoners were unlucky not to win 5-1. That wasn't the case for Rochdale. It would have taken a clanger from Rice for the to have scored with any of their efforts in the first 85 minutes. We got done by two late goals. One well worked to take advantage of the criminally past it Nicholson and one from a set piece. Matt.

Matt - Rochdale were MUCH better than we were yesterday. Right from the start, we were being stretched and only last ditch tackles, mainly by Downes and O'Connor, kept us in the game. Downes and O'Connor were the busiest players on the pitch. 'Dale passed the ball around nicely ON THE GROUND !!! - we humped it up in the air and hoped. They were well organised - we were a disjointed shambles.

I honestly thought that last week's win at Bury would have kick started our season but yesterday was as bad as anything we've seen. In my view, it's the same old problem. Harding and Mansell have been criticised, and now young McCourt is coming in for stick. Knill's insistence in playing two in midfield just isn't working. I heard him on the radio saying "There wasn't much between the two teams - the match was heading for a 0 - 0 draw". If the manager can't see we were being outplayed, what hope is there for us? The players are better than what we saw yesterday. Azeez had a poor game but he is not a winger in my opinion. I'd like to see him played as a striker alongside Macullum. I blame Knill's game tactics, or lack of them, for yesterday's shambles. Let's hope for better next week - just trying to pass the ball on the ground would be a start !

The womens' team would have been better than us. They hardly cut us to bits with incisive play. They knocked it about in front of us under very little pressure. If we'd have been even vaguely adequate, they wouldn't have looked anything like as good. Superficially impressive, but never genuinely threatening or meaningfully dangerous.

Matt.

ferrarilover wrote:The womens' team would have been better than us. They hardly cut us to bits with incisive play. They knocked it about in front of us under very little pressure. If we'd have been even vaguely adequate, they wouldn't have looked anything like as good. Superficially impressive, but never genuinely threatening or meaningfully dangerous.

Matt.

My friends who did suffer it, suggested that Rochdale were much better than Torquay and whilst first half, Torquay weren't so bad, in the second half, there was a clear gulf in class and that Rochdale barely had to get out of first gear to easily brush us aside.

Just watched the "highlights" back, needless to say there was not a single attacking move of ours included! I have to say though that their first goal saw Nico get beaten by the ball inside (yet again) and their winger pulls the ball back for Hogan to slot home. What struck me though was the lack of "effort" made by Nico to try and retrieve the situation once he had been beaten by the through ball. I know it was late on in the game and he was probably out on his feet but, being generous, it was no more than an amble!



Like others have suggested, it's time to give others in the squad a chance. Pearce is certainly one of our better players and must come back into the side, we are quite simply not a good enough team to leave someone of his quality out of the side. Whether that means us playing three centre halves (probably only something you would consider away from home) or more likely a flat back four, I would prefer to see him come in alongside Downes with O'Connor moving to Right Back (Tonge was poor on Saturday) and Cruise to at last be given a chance at playing in his preferred position.

As for Saturday, well it was dire and unfortunately there have been far too many of those type of performances at Plainmoor in this calendar year. We never looked like scoring and lacked quality in too many areas, the only players to come out with any credit were young O'Connor, Downes and Ricey the rest were quite frankly inept. That said, I would applaud both Mansell and young McCourt for the effort they put in as they certainly covered some ground but sadly the quality was just not there in terms of their passing, particularly when you could see how well Rochdale retained the ball.

I also think Alan Knill should take a long hard look at himself over tactics and substitutions. It was ridiculous that he left it as late as he did(75 mins) to try and change things. It was obvious, to me at least, that neither of the wingers (Chapell and Azeez) were working but the changes should have been made at least 15 minutes earlier and personally I would have preferred us to change our shape to a 4-3-3 in an effort to bolster the centre of midfield which was being given the runaround by Rochdale. The introduction of either Craig or Mozika in the middle would have been the way I would have gone. Knill does seem to me to be a little too much stuck in his ways tactically and it seems is very reluctant to stray too far from his preferred 4-4-2 and is unwilling to really shake things up, even when things quite clearly aren't working.

Listening to Knill's post match interview on Radio Devon, quite frankly the idea that we seemed to be settling for a draw (not a bad result if League points were at stake admittedly) and going back to Rochdale (best home record in the entire League!) Tuesday week was laughable ... Alan, this was the FA Cup for goodness sake, at the very least we should have had the courage to go for it, not go out with a whimper which is what we did. In the end, I was not too disappointed to lose as there was no way I could see us winning that game and another long midweek trip to play in a game that we would almost certainly have lost would not have done us any favours at in our quest for League safety which is now of course paramount. Quite frankly, a 0-0 draw was the last result we needed, and yet it seems the Manager was quite happy to settle for that? Bizarre!

One of the things I admire about Paul Tisdale up the road is that he is constantly tinkering with shapes, formation and personnel DURING a game, constantly asking questions of the other team and management, and you have to say that he seems to get things right more often than not. Unfortunately, I do not see anything like that amount of creative thinking coming from our management team at this moment in time ... in short, we have become far too predictable. Quite honestly, you don't need a "SUPERGULLS EXCLUSIVE" to figure out how we are going to play, or indeed what the team is likely to be!

I still think there is enough quality in and around the squad to get us out of trouble and when everyone is fully fit I would like to see us try something like this ...

4-2-1-2-1

Poke

O'Connor, Pearce, Downes, Cruise;

Mozika, Harding;

Craig;

Chapell, Bodin;

McCallum

I don't suppose for one minute that that team (or formation) would ever see the light of day under Alan Knill, but I do think the time has come to look at some fresh ideas, particularly at home, as we really don't seem to be creating enough chances or indeed giving the fans enough entertainment at the moment!

In the first 15 minutes we were all over the shop. Rochdale were waltzing into our penalty at will. Granted after that they sank to our level but they passed the ball better than we did.
The 4-4-2 just doesn't work at all - as Tomo said our two in midfield are always outnumbered. I am sure Knill said that McCourt was signed to provide decent ball to our forwards but he isn't that sort of player - he is the same as Lathrope,Mansell,Harding (and probably Mozika for that matter) - christ we have got midfielders and forwards in abundance and Knill is no nearer sorting this mess out.
The glaring weakness is at left back though. Knill and Brass need a complete rethink - he needs to start making us hard to beat instead of the wide open formation we play every game.
He needs to address the left back position and he has a good defence - Pearce,O'Connor and Downes. All three have to play - leaving Pearce out with the sea of dross we have is criminal.
He needs to play an extra midfielder.

I wrote the above post before seeing Cp gulls post - why is it that Knill cannot see what is staring him in the face.

So you want 5 at the back and 5 in midfield, so we're either leaving out the keeper, or playing with no strikers.

That's sure to get us up the league.

Matt.

ferrarilover wrote:So you want 5 at the back and 5 in midfield, so we're either leaving out the keeper, or playing with no strikers.

That's sure to get us up the league.

Matt.

Eh?

Not sure if you are referring to my post, or not? I am proposing a 4-3-3 with Craig playing an advanced role in that, and Chapell and Bodin playing off a target man (McCallum) and not as out and out wingers, a role I think both of them would do well with and I would suggest they might even prefer.

As for O'Connor, good centre half though he is, we KNOW he can do a good job at Right Back as evidenced by the fact he played the whole season in that position for Burton last season.

I'd like to see

Poke
O'connor Pearce Downes
Tonge Cruise

Craig Mccourt
Chappell Bodin

Hawley/Mccallum


or
Poke
O'connor Pearce Downes
Tonge Cruise

Craig Mozika Mccourt

Chappell

Hawley

Having listened to alan knills post match thoughts on the game on sat i have to conclude hes either stubborn stupid or down right inept . A few weeks ago nico was dropped from the starting line up in favour of tom cruise tom came in and did a decent job at left back his preferred position then we go to Newport understandably we had downes out injured and pearse ill athough he did play so nico despite asking to leave the club comes back in and tom is moved across to a position alongside pearse who despite his efforts ended up in hospital that night. We lost the game and also losing at wycome and burton with cruise playing out of position again and to be fair struggling. However since downes has returned the opportunity to drop nico and replace cruise to the left back spot has been spurned stupidly in my opinion. Do chesterfield next week need much of a scouting report now mr right winger all you need to do is push the ball down the line and run the forwards will do the rest. Wake up for god sake gaffer nico is gone totally not just in ability but in confidence make the changes that is so blatantly staring you in the face the lad mcourt should be sent back hes a kid trying to do a mans job in there we have a player of our own that could do that job better in lathrope or give craig a run could he do any worse i very much doubt it.

Plainmoor is like a morgue it was the fa cup on sat less than 2000 o dear the board of directors looking at each other and the end of the game wandering what the hell has happened . Well i suggest the board be it thea bill phillips simon baker and the rest start asking questions of our management team what exactly is chris brass doing cos all i see is him swearing from the sideline and mr knill with hands on head. This club needs sorting right now or we will end up once again playing in the fa vase we wont die as a club as some have alluded to on here but torquay united as we know it will be very different Perhaps a part time conference club things have to change now no more messing about either sack knill and get get in a fire fighter or tell the man to buck his ideas up at least look like you wanna be here and be torquay uniteds manager.