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Hutchings hasn't played a great deal at right back and has got a bit to learn in a new position as he came as a center back. I think it's work in progress for him as he learns his trade. But it's good to see as I mentioned before he is very comfortable with the ball at his feet.

brucie wrote:That was bloody awful. Tiverton were by far the better side. Pick of our players was Thompson - missed a couple of sitters in first half but was very good apart from that. Worryingly in the second half we changed the team and went missing. Mostly first teamers but we really should have lost.
Went with a friend who watches Plymouth as well as Torquay. His verdict was that we will struggle to avoid relegation.
We are desperately short of at least two players - a striker and a centre half. Cooper didn't appear - rumour has that he has been fixed up with another club.

I assume that what your are saying is that Knills back up players are crap, just like Lings were last season! ie clones of Halpin etc. In other words no change.
Do you think your friend is a good judge?

Its difficult to read too much into a friendly granted, but jesus we were awful. I don't knock Bodin that much cause everybody else does but he was that bad he was embarassing. Tricks,flicks and then loses the ball - every fecking time's the same. Hutchings and Mackenzie are not good enough. If Hutchings cannot cope with Tivertons strikers what hope would he have with League 2's.
Mansell was his usual self - least he wanted to win. Craig seems to have lost a bit of weight and Cruise at least managed to pass to a team mate.
Our second half team was terrible though. Cameron was a massive disappointment and as for Harding - god we are going to be in for a treat if thats his normal standard. He sort ofstands half way between his own penalty area and the halfway line and didn't actually move for the whole forty fives minutes he was on the pitch.
If the money has run out then I hate to say it but the likes of Jarvis,Saah and Howe are going to monumental misses. We are way off.

might as well not bother for the season then brucie?

ask the league to relegate us now

deary me

brucie wrote:Its difficult to read too much into a friendly granted, but jesus we were awful. I don't knock Bodin that much cause everybody else does but he was that bad he was embarassing. Tricks,flicks and then loses the ball - every fecking time's the same. Hutchings and Mackenzie are not good enough. If Hutchings cannot cope with Tivertons strikers what hope would he have with League 2's.
Mansell was his usual self - least he wanted to win. Craig seems to have lost a bit of weight and Cruise at least managed to pass to a team mate.
Our second half team was terrible though. Cameron was a massive disappointment and as for Harding - god we are going to be in for a treat if thats his normal standard. He sort ofstands half way between his own penalty area and the halfway line and didn't actually move for the whole forty fives minutes he was on the pitch.
If the money has run out then I hate to say it but the likes of Jarvis,Saah and Howe are going to monumental misses. We are way off.

Are you trying to say that Knill has cocked the team up, & you wish that we still had Ling in charge?

A team can perform miserably for much of the first half of a season and then turn things around sufficiently to be able to make a late play-off challenge, by making judicious use of the transfer window and the loan system. The big question is, has the club budgeted for this eventuality later in the season?

The big question is where are the centre forward and centre half that will stop us from being relegation fodder.

No I am not saying the team is cocked up at all but I am saying that Howe,Saah and Jarvis have not been replaced.
Hand on heart I would say we actually have a weaker team than last year but that is because we are missing players in key positions.

brucie wrote:The big question is where are the centre forward and centre half that will stop us from being relegation fodder.

Or, where are we going to find good players who aren't going to cost money we haven't got? Any hidden diamonds in Wales or Ireland?

Gullscorer wrote:A team can perform miserably for much of the first half of a season and then turn things around sufficiently to be able to make a late play-off challenge, by making judicious use of the transfer window and the loan system. The big question is, has the club budgeted for this eventuality later in the season?

I would not worry too much about the second half of the season if I were you, look at the Aug. & Sept fixtures & work out how many points we will have by then & what position you think we will be in the league. October also looks like a difficult month.

brucie wrote: Hutchings and Mackenzie are not good enough. If Hutchings cannot cope with Tivertons strikers what hope would he have with League 2

Hutchings is 17 for god sake Manchester United Chelsea and Arsenal were looking at him last year and he got a pro contract at 16 but brucie says he's toilet so he must be useless, as for Mackenzie I watched him last year when he made his debut at port vale,he handled Tom Pope exceptionally well and he was the best player on the pitch, and looking back on the other reports from tonight he had a decent game too. I worry about you sometimes brucie your ruthless. Sometimes you make some spot on comments other times your way
of the mark.

Cameron and Chappell did not stand out at all. Chappell was anonymous, like he was during his loan spell. Cameron, perhaps, has potential but then you could have said the same about some of Tiverton's players. We looked no better than Tivvy, and you could argue that they were raising their game and Torquay had a few extra gears to go into but if that is the basis of our squad come a week on saturday, then I think we are seriously bereft of the quality required to be competitive in this league.

Our squad - on paper - or starting XI, at least, I would suggest, is weaker than the one that missed relegation by 2 points. I haven't seen Tonge, so it may be that he is an improvement on Oastler but we have nobody anywhere near the quality of Howe (and the fact we had Rendell on trial, suggests we are no where near finding anyone half as good) and we are still unable to replace Saah.

Earlier in pre-season people were saying 'start worrying in July'', well it's nearly August and the squad still feels very incomplete.

People always take too much out of friendlies.

1. You never know how hard they worked day before / maybe even a morning session
2. Frindge players throughout , for the young ones a time to shine for the pros so to speak its just a game to get through.

Friendlies idtentify what positions we could be stronger in, and without being funny I think we all knew this before hand. But with these friendlies we now know that Thompson/ Hutchins/ Mackenzie are all capable to fill in for the first team. So we have somethig positive out of it.

If we sign 2 new strikers which AK has said he wants, that will change the whole teams dynamics. We know we want another centre half whether that is Cooper or another. This will have a big impact how we play too.

Lets see who we bring in and if we don't bring anyone in then panic.

I don't see how people are slating Brucie here - he's gone to the friendly and is relaying the information from his own (perhaps pessimistic viewpoint) to us.

In the same way if you're reading the Telegraph, Labour's policies are going to be in for a hard time, so are our team if it's Brucie saying it.

Despite that, he's spot on more often than not, and his match report has confirmed some of the worries I've had about key positions in the team. Good wingers are important if you want to do well, but a good solid spine is far more essential. We're still missing two key parts at least.

Man Utd lost to some unheard Japanese team yesterday. Shall we write them off as relegation fodder too?

Come on people - get a grip.