League 2: Torquay United vs Port Vale

[Plymouth Gull]

Plainmoor
Saturday 16th April 2011
KO: 3pm

This game is the start of our final 5, which will pit us against 4 teams around us and one fighting for survival at the wrong end of league 2, in Burton Albion. Port Vale were alot of peoples favourites for promotion this year, and under Micky Adams, they looked like doing so, but he moved on to his boyhood club Sheffield United, over New Year. Jim Gannon came in, and if you listen to Vale fans he did everything he could to mess up their season. He was sacked in March in an attempt to salvage something from Vales season, although the duo in charge at the moment, Geoff Horsfield and Mark Grew are struggling to get the right results, too. 1 win in 7, I believe.

GULLS NEWS.

Well, Craig Stanley has the final game of his ban to sit out, but otherwise, I'd expect the same side that played Bradford out of their own backyard at the weekend. Other than that, I don't believe there are any injury concerns - the yellow cards have been wiped clean now, so Branston and Zebroski are fine, should they not get a straight red, of course!

CONSEQUENCES.

Starting with ourselves, picking up the 3 points here would create a 7 point gap over our opposition, and we could also jump up one place to 4th, should Shrewsbury lose. We lead the group of 4 teams on 64 points (the Beeb isn't updated with our -1), so a defeat would see Vale close to 1 point behind us, and as many as 3 teams jump ahead of us, should they better our result.

FORM.

Our last 6 games; WDWDWW
Vale's last 6 games; LDDWLD

So, the formbook points towards a home win. However, I am sure we'll need to work very hard to continue our good form, here. I personally wasn't that impressed with Vale up at their place, they didn't really excel up there, although that was in August.

PROBABLE LINE UP.

This is the side that conceded a late equaliser at home to Southend:

Tomlinson

Yates
McCombe
Owen
Collins

Taylor
Griffith
Loft
Roberts

Marc Richards
Justin Richards

Subs: Martin, Morsy, Taylor, Sutton, Haldane, Rigg, Dodds

PLAYERS TO WATCH.

For me, Marc Richards is a talismanic captain for our visitors. He will need to be looked after, on Saturday. The back four are the second meanest back four in the league, but it seems they've been off form recently.

PREDICTION.

As strange as it sounds, I can either see us winning convincingly, or losing 2-1.

Hopefully it's the former.

COYY!!

[Trojan 67]

I wonder if former TUFC favourite Clint Boulton (who joined Torquay from Port Vale) will be a guest of honour at the game ?

Met Clint recently in Ellacombe Conservative Club and he has kept himself in good shape. For a 76 year old he looks very youthful indeed.

[Bigman]

I've visiting the folks this weekend so hopefully I can sneak away for my first home game of the season on Saturday. More of what we saw at Bradford please.

[Jeff]

I think I read that Doug Loft will no doubt be unavailable for them with a knee injury, which will be a loss for them as he's been a regular in their side. I'd guess that they'd move Gary Roberts into centre mid in that case, and bring Haldane back in on the wing? Haldane seems to be one of those players that is known for blowing hot and cold, but generally has a good game against us which puts him down as a threat.

[ferrarilover]

I wonder if former TUFC favourite Clint Boulton (who joined Torquay from Port Vale) will be a guest of honour at the game ?

Met Clint recently in Ellacombe Conservative Club and he has kept himself in good shape. For a 76 year old he looks very youthful indeed.

I'd say the same about you, Troj.

Matt.

[Awayday]

Getting back to the subject (Matt) this is a MUST WIN game. We have got an awesome home form compared to Port Vale's away form.

For the most goals scored at home we are 5th, where as Port Vale are currently 18th in goals scored away from home (Torquay are 3rd from goals scored away from home). We are 3rd with regards to goal difference where as Vale are 12th (with only 3).

Personally I think they are as high in the table as they are due to their earlier success with Micky Adams, but I think we will have a good win on Saturday......... I won't predict the actual score because normally when I do that we lose or draw in the last minute of the game.

[ferrarilover]

I only drifted ever so slightly off topic Paulio, and it was worth it to have a pop at bathroom boy. Anyway, I made your 'good job they got the points they did under Mick Adams' point a couple of days ago and I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees it this way. Seems to me, they were doing like a number of the top teams in the division, relying on one key player to score them a load of goals, with the rest of the squad built around that one man. As soon as Adams left, the form of the good Richards brother deserted him, presumably because of something the new manager did or did not do which Adams did. This conceded with their slide down the table. The same thing can be seen at the Millers. I did an Excel thing at the turn of the year, detailing the table as it would be if certain key players were not around. Us, Vale, Chesterfield etc all dropped down, say, 6 places, but Rotherham without ALF went from second to second bottom. It's no surprise that his downturn in form has correlated precisely with their total lack of points.
They do seem to deal almost exclusively in nice goals, that Port Vale. The one which ended our 1000 minute run was pretty special, and the last few I have seen on that God forsaken Football League Show have been none too shabby either.

Matt.

[Plymouth Gull]

More twists for Vale..

http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/ne ... ticle.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Rumours so far include keeper Tomlinson, M Richards, Gary Roberts and Tom Pope (although he's returned to Rovrum)..

[Trojan 67]

I wonder what the attendance will be.

2700 ? 2800 ? More than that ?

Bearing in mind that it's a voucher redeemable day (before the match), and tickets v Chesterfield will be on general sale after the Port Vale match, attendance v Port Vale 2900 ?

Will there be queues at the ticket office before and after the match ?

As long as there isn't queue for Boots & Laces before, during and after, then I don't care what the attendance or where the queues are elsewhere (with the exception of there being a queue to the toilet) .

[Plymouth Gull]

No less than 3,500 and I'll be disappointed, Troj.

[Trojan 67]

No less than 3,500 and I'll be disappointed, Troj.

Yeah, I was touting the 2700 - 2900 to see what the response would be.

When the gate is below 3000, me and the bruv usually walk past Matt and take up our positions just before kick off. With the gate on Saturday hopefully over 3000, we'll probably get in a bit earlier at 2.55pm.

[Wisconsin_gull]

I am struggling to see how we will not fill our boots...
Watched the gull player highlights and we are looking very good indeed, the Nico freekick was top drawer.
I am feeling very chipper about the run in and believe an automatic promotion is real
After all that I have to go with 4-1 :slap:
Jake will have his shooting boots on for 2, Brano is on a drought 1 and Mansell with a rare goal to complete the job
COYY

[gullsflyinghigh]

No less than 3,500 and I'll be disappointed, Troj.

I'm not sure. I think many casual supporters will be earmarking Wycombe in six days time and might save their money and go to that, instead.

Completely off topic, but will we be able to vote for our POTS (player of the season) at the Wycombe game like we did in the penultimate home game against Macc. last season?

[Plymouth Gull]

I thought the Wycombe game was a 7.45 kick off, so it's news to me that it's at 3. Now I have to try and wangle my way out of working so I don't miss it! Friday games = 7.45pm.

[Dave]

Not going into predictions,as i am sh#te when it comes to guessing the score's,really looking forward to match now have a feeling the atmosphere at this game is going to be amazing.

A real bumper crowd for this match,Vale apparently have sold 600 tickets,so i am going for 3500+