Fleetwood Town v Torquay United - 7/9/13

[leetufc]

We're six games into the season and our first eleven includes seven new players to the team, therefore they are going to take time to gel. We've also player four teams who currently sit in the top seven places in the league so are clearly on a good form, two of which (Oxford and Fleetwood) have squads which should be challenging for automatic promotion this year.

We need to have some perspective. Yes we haven't been pretty poor but it's too early to write our season off yet.

[Southampton Gull]

So it wasn't all accounts, just what you heard on the radio commentary? Jesus, if that's the case what is the point in going to a game any more, we only need listen to an "expert" radio commentary for our football fix.................

Calling him "flapper" is actually slating him.

If you want to be taken seriously it might be better to post such strong opinions being passed as fact based on something a little more substantial than the views of a radio pundit.

[Southampton Gull]

We're six games into the season and our first eleven includes seven new players to the team, therefore they are going to take time to gel. We've also player four teams who currently sit in the top seven places in the league so are clearly on a good form, two of which (Oxford and Fleetwood) have squads which should be challenging for automatic promotion this year.

We need to have some perspective. Yes we haven't been pretty poor but it's too early to write our season off yet.

I agree totally but I think it's about time AK started to make some decisions to kickstart the season. If he's banking on Mozika changing our fortunes it could be a fair while before things improve, you can't rely too heavily on a player returning from injury.

[hector]

I wouldn't necessarily say this team is much worse than last years but I wouldn't say that is any better either. Rice may be 'playing well' but he is not a better keeper than Poke. He will always be prone to errors and that can never instill confidence into your defence. Last year we were not letting in 3 and 4 goals, until the wheels fell off after Christmas.

Defensively we are probably worse off, as Nicholson is another year older and slower, weaker in goal. Pearce and Saah similar, whislt I prefer Tonge to Ostler.

Midfield has not recovered since O'Kane left and it is still our weak link, whilst up front, Howe and Jarvis probably eclipse Hawley and Ball, although I don't think Hawley and Ball are a bad pairing. However, this supposedly more offensive philosophy of Knills does not appear to be getting us anymore goals.

Mozika will no doubt improve midfield but I suspect he will spend a lot of time being injured. I wish we had signed the player Plymouth have just got - Manscheriff (sic).

Question marks remain about the manager. Some jumped on the bandwagon last year because he 'saved' us. But he never galvanised the team in the way Neil Warnock, Colin Lee or Ian Atkins did when they took over. With them, we looked down and out and they brought us from the brink. With Knill we actually finished closer to the drop zone and nearer in terms of points than the position we were in when he took over. The fact that Aldershot and Barnet did even worse doesn't mean he 'saved' us. You could argue that Sheridan 'saved' Plymouth because of how far adrift they were when he came in. That wasn't the case with Knill.

I am yet to be won over by Knill. I think his signings have been fairly decent but the football I have seen so far has been pretty mind-numbing and no better than the football being played under Ling.

[ferrarilover]

We conceded 3+ five times under Ling last year and four times after he left. Only two were under Knill (I think) and one of those was the last day against Rovers which didn't matter and where they scored with the last touch.

Matt.

[brucie]

I am actually concerned about that picture you have of Knill and Mozika. As well as commenting on Mozikas massive lips will you be joining the aforementioned pairing in some sort of bizzarre love triangle.

[AustrianAndyGull]

Errrr quite easily - read the above post. Flapper Rice let the third one in. If he saved it from being 10-1 then god help us, we are relegated already. Rice was also at fault for the goal at Northampton (and indeed almost cost us at home last week due to his hesitation)
I fully accept that he has been playing better this season but I am a realist and unfortunately he is always going to be prone to errors and letting cheap goals in.Unfortunately as another poster said we are probably a worse side than last season really. Its a harsh reality but its true.
Rice is worse than Poke. Full backs Nico is no better than last season. Tonge is maybe about the same as Oastler slightly better maybe but not too much difference. Centrebacks about the same Pearce is maybe slightly worse than Saah.
Central midfield is about the same. WIngers - Bodin was here last year Chapple is obviously better.
Its up front where the biggest difference is though.
As neal said Ball and Hawley are conference standard and thats where we are suffering.

You are right, Rice let the third one in yesterday and perhaps was at fault for Northampton's goal. He may even have made a costly error last week which would have meant a 1-0 home defeat to Hartlepool. I don't dispute that although I do dispute the fact that we are relegated already. That is nonsense IMO. Maybe we should be looking a bit further up the field if we are looking for answers, if we scored goals then Rice making ricks here and there wouldn't be too much of an issue but just because Ricey is under severe pressure each week (just like Poke last season) then he has a sh*t load to deal with all game. A mistake here and there is perfectly acceptable IMO considering how many attempts at goal he keeps out. If we started playing the pressing, high tempo attacking football which i thought we'd signed up to when Knill came in then all would be well. We might have still lost against Fleetwood because they are a bloody decent side but it might have been 3-2 and we could take a million positives from the game.

We lost 4-1 and were abject so let's not have a go at the blokes (plus Downes so that is two! ) that did their jobs properly and performed for the shirt yesterday. Ricey is one of them.

We have a few really good, solid players at the club and a few that are looking past it or aren't what we thought they were. If these niggles get sorted by Knill then we have the basis of a really good squad IMO. It is not major surgery we need just a few ideas, a few players to show a better attitude and a few players to shape up or ship out.

[AustrianAndyGull]

I wouldn't necessarily say this team is much worse than last years but I wouldn't say that is any better either. Rice may be 'playing well' but he is not a better keeper than Poke. He will always be prone to errors and that can never instill confidence into your defence. Last year we were not letting in 3 and 4 goals, until the wheels fell off after Christmas.

Defensively we are probably worse off, as Nicholson is another year older and slower, weaker in goal. Pearce and Saah similar, whislt I prefer Tonge to Ostler.

Midfield has not recovered since O'Kane left and it is still our weak link, whilst up front, Howe and Jarvis probably eclipse Hawley and Ball, although I don't think Hawley and Ball are a bad pairing. However, this supposedly more offensive philosophy of Knills does not appear to be getting us anymore goals.

Mozika will no doubt improve midfield but I suspect he will spend a lot of time being injured. I wish we had signed the player Plymouth have just got - Manscheriff (sic).

Question marks remain about the manager. Some jumped on the bandwagon last year because he 'saved' us. But he never galvanised the team in the way Neil Warnock, Colin Lee or Ian Atkins did when they took over. With them, we looked down and out and they brought us from the brink. With Knill we actually finished closer to the drop zone and nearer in terms of points than the position we were in when he took over. The fact that Aldershot and Barnet did even worse doesn't mean he 'saved' us. You could argue that Sheridan 'saved' Plymouth because of how far adrift they were when he came in. That wasn't the case with Knill.

I am yet to be won over by Knill. I think his signings have been fairly decent but the football I have seen so far has been pretty mind-numbing and no better than the football being played under Ling.

Totally agree, I was in the 'GIVE KNILL THE JOB' camp not because I thought he was an excellent manager but because I wanted Ling out desperately. I'd have let Mr Blobby take over if it meant Ling went. Knill came in and saved us although I don't want to get into the argument of if he really DID save us or it was just the fact that other teams were worse and he was allowed to bring in Labadie and Chappell. The fact is we stayed up and therefore by default Knill sort of assumed the position and I just think that we all went along with it thinking it cannot possibly get any worse.

Well I've seen the 3 away league games and for large parts of the game at Morecambe, especially the first half it was possibly worse than Ling, we had a good spell for about 20 minutes. The first half at Northampton was dreadful, same as the Morecambe game where we were slow, sluggish went a goal down (again) and just created zero. Yesterday the entire game was WORSE than the Rochdale away game last season (which was the worst ever Torquay performance I had seen - it was horrendous). We just don't create anything. Where is this attacking football we thought we were going to get under Knill? It needs to show itself soon because not only do we need to massively improve our tempo and style of play but we also cannot keep clean sheets unless we play Hartlepool so we need goals Alan or we're in a spot of bother. In isolation, the half hour spell in the second half at Northampton was superb, ok it wasn't Barcelona but we pressed, we played with a high tempo and desire and we showed for each other. Bodin making a bit of difference when he came on for Cameron although it doesn't look like he needed to do much in order to upstage Courtney. He looks an awful acquisition. We need to START games like that second half in Northampton Alan, can you not see that otherwise we may as well just ask for Ling to come back and I can eat my humble pie.

[Scott Brehaut]

Just a quick note to say that nowhere have I mentioned players having a bad game yesterday. On another thread somebody said that anybody who thought Harding had a bad game yesterday didn't know anything about football (I'd look for it but I'm not on the computer and doing it on the phone is too much of a faff) - I merely said that everybody else had stated Harding was useless yesterday.

My gripe is about the managerial skills (or lack of) that Knill possesses.

[royalgull]

Spoke to Ricey this morning, he's a bit annoyed about the 3rd goal but he said he simply lost it in the sun, went for the cross and just couldn't see it so more one of them things, the northampton goal was a stunning first time cross which dipped with pace he couldn't have come for that, if he had he'd never have got there. No one other than their forward expected that cross which is a lesson in itself.

I'm not surprised brucie has piped up because the bloke is a cretin of monumental proportions, in fact I called it from the start of the season, no matter what Ricey does/did the moment the first one goes in that's remotely his fault he'd pipe up saying he's useless. He did the same to Poke last year after Poke started the season pretty poorly, far worse than Rice has who for all money has been our best player thus far.

Dave Bracegirdle tweeted me yesterday, he's the bloke doing the game for Sky Soccer Saturday and said Rice was our best player with a string of brilliant saves, i'll take a neutral's and someone who as at the games view over that of some bloke 300 miles away with nothing good to say about anyone any day of the week.

Like someone has already said, while the opposition are having 10+ corners a game, 8/9 shots on target a game then one or two are going to go in that may be the keepers fault. We've got problems all over the pitch but goalkeeper is certainly not one of them.

[brucie]

My quote about relegation should have been taken in context to the post about us losing 10-1, I wasn't seriously suggesting that we are relegated already.
I fully accept your post about Rice and the problem lying further up the pitch. Andy has seen all or most of the away games. I have seen two of the home games.
The football is actually worse than it was under Ling - it has been blindingly awful. Thats the worry. Knill comes out and says the same thing every week - ie that Rice has to make too many saves in a game, and that is of course quite correct.
The problem is though that he doesn't seem to do anything about it.
I would seriously like to see Knill make a couple of changes next Saturday. We didn't score last week - we didn't score against Portsmouth and Hawley and Ball didn't score again yesterday.
I would drop them both and play Benyon and Yeoman. Both players know where the net is and at least if we lose we have tried something different.
Playing the same players week in week out when they are not doing what they are paid to do is galling.

[AustrianAndyGull]

Just a quick note to say that nowhere have I mentioned players having a bad game yesterday. On another thread somebody said that anybody who thought Harding had a bad game yesterday didn't know anything about football (I'd look for it but I'm not on the computer and doing it on the phone is too much of a faff) - I merely said that everybody else had stated Harding was useless yesterday.

My gripe is about the managerial skills (or lack of) that Knill possesses.

That may have been exilegull although I could be mistaken. If it was he is entitled to his opinion and as regards Harding being totally exposed in the middle yesterday he has a valid point, Fleetwood overwhelmed us in there but I cannot explain why Harding was so awful both at Morecambe and Northampton.

[brucie]

And I should make it clear that I was replying to Andy's message. I wouldn't reply to a horses arse.

[AustrianAndyGull]

My quote about relegation should have been taken in context to the post about us losing 10-1, I wasn't seriously suggesting that we are relegated already.
I fully accept your post about Rice and the problem lying further up the pitch. Andy has seen all or most of the away games. I have seen two of the home games.
The football is actually worse than it was under Ling - it has been blindingly awful. Thats the worry. Knill comes out and says the same thing every week - ie that Rice has to make too many saves in a game, and that is of course quite correct.
The problem is though that he doesn't seem to do anything about it.I would seriously like to see Knill make a couple of changes next Saturday. We didn't score last week - we didn't score against Portsmouth and Hawley and Ball didn't score again yesterday.
I would drop them both and play Benyon and Yeoman. Both players know where the net is and at least if we lose we have tried something different.
Playing the same players week in week out when they are not doing what they are paid to do is galling.

This is a crucial point and no, i'm not Lenny Henry. I am perfectly happy to see the same team line up at Rochdale on Saturday but when I go there I want to see some improvement and ambition, yes Rochdale are a useful side but they aren't Fleetwood so the 'they're better that us' excuse on Saturday just isn't an option. I am keeping the faith and expecting a much improved showing on Saturday and a draw at least.

Brucie makes an important point because most of us know the current first 11 isn't working and if i'm honest I can't ever SEE it working but I don't want to be reactionary to a bad defeat by suggesting we drop everyone. They do however have to give us fans some indication that Knill is getting to grips with how we should be playing otherwise Brucie's point comes into play. Will Knill drop players who aren't effective shall we say to be polite? If not then we could potentially have to find some answers from somewhere, God perhaps? (joke! )

[Southampton Gull]

And I should make it clear that I was replying to Andy's message. I wouldn't reply to a horses arse.

Preferring to come across as one instead.

It's always the same when someone blows your posts apart and exposes them for codswallop. Half a dozen games in and you want to drop a forward line denied any kind of decent service and lambast a keeper almost all other fans state has arguably been our most consistent performer.

Can't wait for your posts after the next home game when you can start prattling on about the seating arrangements, assuming you still have the desire to go and watch a team already relegated.............