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The result will maybe illustrate that the team is not as good as some people seemed to think it would be - on one survey there are Torquay fans thinking we will win the league, for heaven's sake - but a defeat at Macclesfield doesn't suddenly mean we are the worst team in the division. Probably somewhere in between.

A real shame we didn't have Huth, who I really think could have been a catalytic player, in terms of not only breaking up other teams attacks but starting attacks of our own. I never really fancied us there and as Brucie points out, there are some good players missing from the team that finished last season. A real shame that Danny Racchi isn't here, when he still appears to be without a club.

A defeat on Tuesday will probably set some alarm bells ringing so hopefully we can get off to a positive start at home.

One point needs emphasising and that is the unrealistic expectations that have grown up around the great escape that are possibly responsible for placing undue pressure on the players. One or two posters have said our performance since February was promotion winning; no it wasn't. A combination of the fixture schedule and postponements gave us the perfect run in. Most of the games we won were against teams at the bottom fighting relegation, teams on the same level as us (Boreham Wood, Welling, Kidderminster, Southport, Chester, Altrincham), the other victories were against sides with virtually nothing to play for (Macclesfield, Gateshead, Bromley). The three games against promotion contenders were all lost (Dover, Eastleigh and Tranmere). I do not wish to pour cold water on the teams performance last season but we were very fortunate with the way the fixture schedule panned out. Since the end of last season we have inevitability lost key players who have not been replaced with like for like.
So it would help matters if we didn't go around expecting things which we are not capable of achieving. Given Nico's budget and the situation at the club a mid table finish would be an excellent outcome.

Another thing. The comment about the kit being to blame because it had no yellow in it. Come on, the kit we used against Cambridge in the play off final didn't have any yellow in it, but that didn't hinder us. Comments like this are just cod psychology.

hector wrote:A real shame that Danny Racchi isn't here, when he still appears to be without a club.

Think he's with Wrexham but has been sidelined for several weeks with an injury! (According to his twitter account).

There's an old line (I forget the name of the poet*): 'one swallow does not a summer make'. Similarly, one result does not define the outcome of a season. After just a handful of pre-season games, and a handful of early season games, whatever their results, nobody should presume to deduce what our end-of-season position might be.

KN has only recently put together what is, in effect, a new squad which needs a little more time to build up into a successful team on the pitch. Give it another three months, then review the situation. In the meantime, ignore the doom-mongers, get up to Plainmoor and support the team through thick and thin. If the players get to feel that the 'fans' don't care and are not supporting, that's hardly going to encourage them to make an effort, is it?

Let's get up to the game at fortress Plainmoor on Tuesday and show them what we're made of..



* I'm told it was originally said by Aristotle. He probably had a glass of cider in his hand at the time..

dannyrvtufc4life wrote:Same old Torquay United fans, never happy. Moan that I take my drum along (which is a real pain in the arse to carry) to try and create an atmosphere. If you don't like the drum, don't sit/stand near it. It wasn't my problem that Macclesfield didn't open the terrace for away fans. Ironically, these are the same people who will moan when there is no atmosphere whatsoever.

[/I took my six month old son to the game. We stood near the drumming for the first half. He loved the drum and the atmosphere. Then, 10 mins into the second half, he did an almighty shit. Given what I was witnessing on the pitch, I was grateful for the distraction.

I think its rubbish to suggest that we were fortunate with the fixture list last season. If we had started this season with the team we had last season then I would seriously have expected us to be up and around the play offs.

The team is absolutely nowhere near as good as last seasons. We have a passable midfield, a decent keeper and a good striker in Blissett.

We have a desperate lack of pace throughout the team and a major weakness in defence where our back four seems to be the weakest I can ever remember.

The new signing I would suggest probably isn't the answer either as he lacks any experience of this league whatsoever. Its galling to think we lost so much money on Yellowfest - money which could have been used to sign another three or so decent players which would have made our squad look a lot better.

I can see no better than lower mid table. Again there must be four rubbish teams in this league that we should be able to finish above but looking oat our bench on Saturday it does seem that we are struggling for players.

Terrible day all round. After setting off from home at 8.30 thought we'd have enough time to stop for a bite to eat, drink etc. M25 - jammed. M40 - jammed. M6 - Jammed. Gorleston - Jammed. Arrived at Moss Rose with 15 minutes to spare. How I wished the M25 had remained jammed - I could've turned around and gone home.

A very lacklustre performance from a team which should have shown more spirit given the feel-good factor off the end of last season. Beaten by the much better team on the day who liked to pass the ball around and use their two wide man to their full potential.

Their opener was a beauty - even my son said he felt like applauding it (he didn't otherwise I'd have slapped him around the head). Trouble is, we could all see it coming apart from our woeful defence. Moore had no chance with it, or the second for that matter.

Richards should really not be captain. Never once during the game did I see him giving any encouragement/instructions. And he should have left the free kick in the first half to Young who we all know can strike a decent ball. Just because Richards scored the one at Bromley he now thinks he's a decent footballer!

Nothing really to be encouraged about from this showing. Let's hope it was just a bad day at the office (yes, another one) and that Nicholson can get them up for the game against Bromley (and, please, ffs, no repeat of last season's debacle).

Hopefully this is a good early wake up call and we can bounce back tomorrow evening.

We have a solid team although there is no way that it is as good as the side that finished last season. Gerring, McGinty and LRT are not Smith, MacDonald and Butler. Lathrope is not in the same class as Racchi.

I think it's a little premature to be all doom and gloom after one game, no matter how bad it was. Mind you, had we won 4-0 I'm sure some would already be hailing the team as Champions...

I don't see any harm in people giving their honest opinion about the game - if people think it was bad it's ok to say so. Doesn't mean they're not backing the management and players, just means they had an off day in the writer's opinion.

Honest opinions of the game are fine, we heard that from Nicho himself. Moore was solid, he couldn't do anything about the two goals, but it's quite clear that we are missing a strong CB leading from the back. Gerring and McGinty look all over the place without MacDonald and that doesn't help the structure of LRT (who has lost a lot of pace over the years) and Verma who looked like a lost puppy at RB. Having said that, the formation didn't aid the two full backs either. Richards, who was the worst player on the pitch, the quietest captain and totally lost, kept giving the ball away, not working with the defence or the attack, along with Young (who still needs to lose about a stone) and Lathrope. This made us look so narrow and on the back foot from the very start. We weren't using the benefit of Sparks' pace and skill, who totally destroyed the Macclesfield defence when we went forward. Williams wasn't in the game at all, not the in the right position for Bliss' flick-ons.

Not all doom and gloom, remember last season we started with a 1-0 win against Macclesfield and look how that turned out! But we do need a massive improvement tomorrow.

I'm surprised we played the formation that we did tbf (I say this despite not being there, and not having seen any of pre-season).

I remember from watching a couple of the FGR games on BT Sport last season that the commentators were lauding Brett Williams, but saying it was madness for FGR to be playing him wide right of a 3-up-front set up. So what do we go and do.........!

I think with the personnel we had available a straightforward 4-4-2 would have played to people's strengths a bit more - all it needed was Scrivens for one of Lathrope or Richards.

In principle I'm ok with Richards as captain as he did a good job in the Xmas games last year. However he is so inconsistent he can sometimes reduce himself to a liability. Can't help but feel Nico has backed himself into a corner a little bit by making him captain. In my mind Lathrope is the far superior player, but seemingly would have to be the man to lose out if we changed shape

brucie wrote:I think its rubbish to suggest that we were fortunate with the fixture list last season. If we had started this season with the team we had last season then I would seriously have expected us to be up and around the play offs.

No - i don't think it's rubbish that we were fortunate with the fixture list last season. We played most of the top teams in the first half of the season, many of them twice ! And then the lower half teams in the final two or three months. It was a very lopsided fixture list. This season, it looks a better balance.

Several sensible and realistic posts, including Forever and Plainmoor78, and you can't argue with Brucie's brutal assessment about the players who aren't at Plainmoor this season, although I think Dan Sparkes and Brett Williams will prove to be good signings. It wasn't the fact that we lost which was worrying, it was that everyone who was at the match has posted we didn't compete. Oh dear - we heard that said so many times last season ! But hey - it's just one game and they have to bounce back for tomorrow night and Barrow on Saturday. Does anyone know if Callum Hall is still at Plainmoor? I know we only saw him for 45 minutes in a friendly last Monday night, but he looked a bright prospect ...... someone who could challenge LRT for that left-back position.

'brucie's brutal assessment' is good....but that's what we like about brucie. What we need now is a 'brutal' centre half - any ideas anyone?

For what it's worth I don't think Richards was our worst player - there were so many candidates for that. Even if he was I see no value in hammering him from the stands in the first game of the season. Nicho has given him the armband and I back the gaffer. Let's give it a few games.