Aldershot vs Torquay

[Jeff]

I wrote this last night immediately after the game, just before the big crash nearly wiped another match report! Fortunately, I managed to recover it. It's a bit late, you all probably know what happened, but it's half an hour of my life I'll never get back writing it so I'm going to post it anyway!


Oh my god. 

Normally I feel that maybe I write these reports too positively. But that was f*****g atrocious! We were so so poor, yet somehow, somehow we've come away with all 3 points when we have had 1 - yes 1 - shot on target, and it wasn't even that good! As one of my mates said leaving the game, "I thought the looting had stopped, but we've smuggled the points out of Aldershot".

It's hard to know how to break this report up. We started poorly, middle part poorly, finished poorly. After the high tempo start on Saturday, you could tell straight away that today was a different proposition. Aldershot were knocking the ball around with purpose, opening us up at will. But for all that, the chances they created wernt that clear cut and that was a pattern that followed all day. 

Their first effort on goal was a tame free header from a corner which was straight at Bobby. Before we'd even had time to regroup, Gutteridge was firing a shot narrowly wide of Bobbys left hand post. The referee - who was terrible all day - was giving them a lot of free kicks, opportunities to load the box which they did, but surprisingly few chances came of it.

The Gulls - shooting first half towards the East Bank full of the Yellow Army in full voice - had little fluency or threat. Unlike Saturday, nothing was sticking to Howe or Atieno. O'Kanes touch and passing had deserted him, and Danny was bizarrely coming deep into the centre rather than attack the full back. Our first half was summed up when a well placed O'kane went to cross, but just shanked the ball straight out of play.

We never really got a foothold in the game, but we did actually generate a really good chance. The ball was worked between Atieno, Howe and Morris. I think it was a Morris cross-shot that reared up, and Howe's acrobatic back heel was deflected for a corner. But the corner was wasted and we reverted to type.

But moments later, out of nothing, we took the lead. Mansell striding forward, wide left of goal, cut in and opened up half a yard of space about 20yards out. He took aim, the shot moved a bit but there was no power or pace in it, and it was right down the keepers throat. But inexplicably, the absolutely uselss Jamie Young put nothing behind it, and it squirmed right through him and into the net. Think that legendary Taibi moment a Old Trafford, it was that bad! 1-0 gulls!

Did we push on from that? No, if anything it was worse. Sloppy passing, terrible movement and we soaked up wave after wave of Aldershot pressure. But aside from Rankine clipping the outside of the post (amidst a succession of cheap free kicks awarded against us), all that pressure didn't really amount to much and we made it to half time.

Second half - more of the same. Nothing was sticking to Howe or Atineo so the ball just kept coming back. But, aside from one full length save from Bobby nothing ever came of it. We wernt even looking that assured at the back, just grimly hanging on. The ref got no better, cheap free kicks going Aldershots way but nothing came of the endless balls they pumped into the box. it was a dreadful game of football.

Aldershot didnt help themselves with a range of bizarre substitutions. The rangey Rankine, who was winning his fair share in the air, was withdrawn for Reading loanee Taylor who was more of a midfielder. And the Lacey, threatening winger McGlashan was taken off for the equally pacey Bubb - but effectively they removed all height from their front line. Yet they still attacked at will, but their delivery was poor. 

They did manage to cause hearts to flutter a couple of times. A twisting run from sub Rodman was cut back, but Hylton took a wild air swipe and only succeeded in flicking it away from the incoming Taylor. Closer to the end Hylton got perilously close to goal on an angled run, Robbo got too tight and pushed him to the turf but the ref waved no penalty - i thought it was a close call.

And finally, right at the death, the got a clear sight of goal. For the last 5 mins they sent centre half Brown up front, and from another aimless high ball he flicked it on to the onrushing Hylton who had finally nipped in behind. But on the volley, no more than 6yds out, Hylton lifted the ball over and the points were won.

Territorially and possession wise, we got murdered tonight. But some absolutely dire forward play from the home side, a slice of luck and some heroic defending and we were able to hold out. They have every right to feel hard done by, as we barely got out of our half. Our passing and general movement was utter dross, a number of players didnt put in much of a shift and on another day we would have got hammered tonight. The tempo, energy and quality from Saturday was missing. But, I can honestly say in 17years of supporting Torquay I have never seen us win a game like that. I suppose we defended pretty solidly, centrally anyway. And Manse was industrious as ever. And we're owed a bit of luck after the last minute goals and all that of the last few years. But today was a little glimpse into how bad we can get if it doesn't all click together.

The player ratings are hard as nobody truly stood out. But here goes

Olejnik - 7 - handling impeccable. Kicking terrible
Oastler - 6 - toasted by their sub winger. Awful distribution and poor positioning first half 
Robbo - 7 - great aerial command, but teetered on the brink of out of control
Saah - 6 - improved as the game wore on, but sloppiness crept back in first half
Nico - 6.5 - solid enough, distribution way off
Mansell - 7.5 - my MOTM. worked socks off, and proved if you don't shoot you'll never score!
O'Kane - 5.5 - worst I've seen him in a while. Lost possession too often
Morris - 5 - it's frustrating watching his non-wing play. You can cross, so get into a position where you can cross it!!!
Stevens - 5 - drifted so far inside first half we had no width. Wasteful in possession second half
Howe - 6 - put himself about but wasn't sticking today
Atieno - 7 - higher rating for defensive duties! Won a lot of balls pumped into the box (at the wrong end!)

McPhee - 5.5 - less wasteful than Stevens but offered little
Kee - 6 - well at least he ran around a bit more than Saturday!

Yellow Army - 10 - outstanding noise and atmosphere throughout, even if that wasn't reciprocated on the pitch.

So there we go. Still can't believe how lucky we were!

[Awayday]

Was the performance actually as bad as I'm reading everywhere?!?!?......

In just the 1st half it had 0-0 or an Aldershot sneaky goal written all over it.
In the 2nd half we could have been 3 or 4-1 down if they got the ball on target.

Bobby did make some good saves, but there was at least 2 occasions the shot had to be on target and no one would have stopped it.

Our defence was quite good, but our midfield and forwards couldn't hold onto the ball and was giving it straigt back to them for another attack.

[gullintwoplaces]

I would rather take a poor performance and three points than a great performance and one or zero points any day of the week. I know not everybody agrees with this, but for me it is winning that matters, always. I have seen enough games when we have murdered the opposition, only for a lucky late goal or two to rain on our parade. Well done, Martin Ling and the lads, may the luck continue (and better performances if possible)!

[WHG]

I would rather take a poor performance and three points than a great performance and one or zero points any day of the week. I know not everybody agrees with this, but for me it is winning that matters, always. I have seen enough games when we have murdered the opposition, only for a lucky late goal or two to rain on our parade. Well done, Martin Ling and the lads, may the luck continue (and better performances if possible)!

I agree totally
How many times over the last few seasons have we heard **** say We were the better team and were unlucky to draw/lose

[Southampton Gull]

About as many as the Rovers fans will hear in the next couple of seasons

[Awayday]

About as many as the Rovers fans will hear in the next couple of seasons

Me me larf

[friendlygas]

Very interesting that you seem to have played so awful last night but still got three points.We were the opposite to Saturday too,we were absolutely outstanding last night and should have won by a lot more than the 2-1 scoreline in fact 3-0 at half time would not have flattered us. Craig Stanley was absolutely superb and the defence was as tight as I have seen them in a long time. Kept Jake Robinson very quiet.Even with this when they equalised with the flukiest goal you are ever going to see I thought "Here we go again" but we got back on top and hit the post twice after scoring the winning goal. The most disappointing thing was the crowd..only 5800 which IMO was rubbish considering that Saturday there was over7600 gasheads so we lost nearly two thousand supporters because we lost. I have to say that whenever we bring a big crowd in we do not seem to win!!!
Saturdays games should be interesting. Hope you beat Crawley,we have Macclesfield which is a bit of a bogey ground for us but will be tough anyway as they won 4-0 at Hereford last night and beat Hull last week. The big plus for us is that we have had over 50 shots in our first three games but on the downside thats not a great strike rate!!! of all the teams above us at the moment I see Rotherham,Gillingham,Wimbledon and morecombe all winning saturday so we really need to win to stay in touch. I wonder whether your performance against us took a lot out of you for last nights game although they always say that the most successful teams are the ones who win when they are not playing well. Anyway good luck for saturday would really like to see you win and get revenge though it will be tough as that was a good 3-0 win they had last night.

[Gullscorer]

Very interesting that you seem to have played so awful last night but still got three points.We were the opposite to Saturday too,we were absolutely outstanding last night and should have won by a lot more than the 2-1 scoreline in fact 3-0 at half time would not have flattered us. Craig Stanley was absolutely superb and the defence was as tight as I have seen them in a long time. Kept Jake Robinson very quiet.Even with this when they equalised with the flukiest goal you are ever going to see I thought "Here we go again" but we got back on top and hit the post twice after scoring the winning goal. The most disappointing thing was the crowd..only 5800 which IMO was rubbish considering that Saturday there was over7600 gasheads so we lost nearly two thousand supporters because we lost. I have to say that whenever we bring a big crowd in we do not seem to win!!!
Saturdays games should be interesting. Hope you beat Crawley,we have Macclesfield which is a bit of a bogey ground for us but will be tough anyway as they won 4-0 at Hereford last night and beat Hull last week. The big plus for us is that we have had over 50 shots in our first three games but on the downside thats not a great strike rate!!! of all the teams above us at the moment I see Rotherham,Gillingham,Wimbledon and morecombe all winning saturday so we really need to win to stay in touch. I wonder whether your performance against us took a lot out of you for last nights game although they always say that the most successful teams are the ones who win when they are not playing well. Anyway good luck for saturday would really like to see you win and get revenge though it will be tough as that was a good 3-0 win they had last night.

Good luck to Rovers at Accrington and of course to Torquay on Saturday. I've a feeling both teams will play well though I wouldn't like to forecast any scores. Anyway, let's show Argyle and Swindon how it should be done....

[Plymouth Gull]

*Macclesfield

[Gullscorer]

*Macclesfield

Yep, that's what I meant. Why do I always get those two teams mixed up? :-|

[HRG]

Ah hell. This was the first match day thread where I stayed firmly on topic throughout and it's all gone. More importantly it was the second time I'd reached my 1000th post and now I'm back to being eight short. My third 1000th post better get all the glory it rightfully deserves regardless of how sh*te it may be.

Anyhoo, good to read the reports. So it was a shocking display but it is the points that matter. I did have concerns prior to the game that after Saturday some players may be feeling it, particularly Howe. But against Crawley they'll need to do a hell of a lot better. Ling and the team have acknowledged that it was not a good performance so hopefully mistakes will be corrected.

[yellow]

This was my view last night;

A scruffy game settled by a scruffy goal. A disjointed performance that after Saturday felt like a case of ‘After the Lord Mayor’s show’.

Both sides seemed to lack creativity and spark. At times it looked like a pre season friendly.

Aldershot were pretty clueless and so we ended up bagging a welcome 3 points that our performance barely merited.

As for Danny Stevens who conceded possession too many times. It is surely time for Dinger to try an alternative. Didn’t Macklin have a good pre-season?


Having mulled on a very unsatisfactory performance during the course of today I think I might be a touch harsh with Danny because I am not sure that Morris was much better. The performance was still woeful though. Play like that on Saturday and we will get our arses spanked by the Fact Hunt and his Tonto.

Edit

P.S.

How refreshing to read Martin Ling’s comments on the game. Buckle would have claimed credit where none was due, whilst Dinger tells the truth.

Respect.

[Gullscorer]

This was my view last night;

As for Danny Stevens who conceded possession too many times. It is surely time for Dinger to try an alternative. Didn’t Macklin have a good pre-season?

Having mulled on a very unsatisfactory performance during the course of today I think I might be a touch harsh with Danny because I am not sure that Morris was much better. The performance was still woeful though. Play like that on Saturday and we will get our arses spanked by the Fact Hunt and his Tonto.

Edit

P.S.

How refreshing to read Martin Ling’s comments on the game. Buckle would have claimed credit where none was due, whilst Dinger tells the truth.

Respect.

Agreed. But about Danny Stevens: the match report on the official Gulls website and the BBC radio commentary both said he had an excellent game. We know he has been an on and off player in the past, and may be in the future, so our view of his performance in a game may be coloured by pre-conceived notions. But he does seem to be improving gradually under Martin Ling's managership, which puts the Paul Buckle era more and more into perspective.

[yellow]

If that was an ‘excellent game’ then I’m a Dutchman.

In the first half, perhaps more than the second, Danny lacked control, gave the ball away cheaply, found his usual blind alleys, and his pass selection was poor. In the second half he started to be slightly more useful.

That being said the level of performance of the team was such that he was not the only one found wanting....

[AlexGulls]

I wrote this last night immediately after the game, just before the big crash nearly wiped another match report! Fortunately, I managed to recover it. It's a bit late, you all probably know what happened, but it's half an hour of my life I'll never get back writing it so I'm going to post it anyway!


Oh my god. 

Normally I feel that maybe I write these reports too positively. But that was f*****g atrocious! We were so so poor, yet somehow, somehow we've come away with all 3 points when we have had 1 - yes 1 - shot on target, and it wasn't even that good! As one of my mates said leaving the game, "I thought the looting had stopped, but we've smuggled the points out of Aldershot".

It's hard to know how to break this report up. We started poorly, middle part poorly, finished poorly. After the high tempo start on Saturday, you could tell straight away that today was a different proposition. Aldershot were knocking the ball around with purpose, opening us up at will. But for all that, the chances they created wernt that clear cut and that was a pattern that followed all day. 

Their first effort on goal was a tame free header from a corner which was straight at Bobby. Before we'd even had time to regroup, Gutteridge was firing a shot narrowly wide of Bobbys left hand post. The referee - who was terrible all day - was giving them a lot of free kicks, opportunities to load the box which they did, but surprisingly few chances came of it.

The Gulls - shooting first half towards the East Bank full of the Yellow Army in full voice - had little fluency or threat. Unlike Saturday, nothing was sticking to Howe or Atieno. O'Kanes touch and passing had deserted him, and Danny was bizarrely coming deep into the centre rather than attack the full back. Our first half was summed up when a well placed O'kane went to cross, but just shanked the ball straight out of play.

We never really got a foothold in the game, but we did actually generate a really good chance. The ball was worked between Atieno, Howe and Morris. I think it was a Morris cross-shot that reared up, and Howe's acrobatic back heel was deflected for a corner. But the corner was wasted and we reverted to type.

But moments later, out of nothing, we took the lead. Mansell striding forward, wide left of goal, cut in and opened up half a yard of space about 20yards out. He took aim, the shot moved a bit but there was no power or pace in it, and it was right down the keepers throat. But inexplicably, the absolutely uselss Jamie Young put nothing behind it, and it squirmed right through him and into the net. Think that legendary Taibi moment a Old Trafford, it was that bad! 1-0 gulls!

Did we push on from that? No, if anything it was worse. Sloppy passing, terrible movement and we soaked up wave after wave of Aldershot pressure. But aside from Rankine clipping the outside of the post (amidst a succession of cheap free kicks awarded against us), all that pressure didn't really amount to much and we made it to half time.

Second half - more of the same. Nothing was sticking to Howe or Atineo so the ball just kept coming back. But, aside from one full length save from Bobby nothing ever came of it. We wernt even looking that assured at the back, just grimly hanging on. The ref got no better, cheap free kicks going Aldershots way but nothing came of the endless balls they pumped into the box. it was a dreadful game of football.

Aldershot didnt help themselves with a range of bizarre substitutions. The rangey Rankine, who was winning his fair share in the air, was withdrawn for Reading loanee Taylor who was more of a midfielder. And the Lacey, threatening winger McGlashan was taken off for the equally pacey Bubb - but effectively they removed all height from their front line. Yet they still attacked at will, but their delivery was poor. 

They did manage to cause hearts to flutter a couple of times. A twisting run from sub Rodman was cut back, but Hylton took a wild air swipe and only succeeded in flicking it away from the incoming Taylor. Closer to the end Hylton got perilously close to goal on an angled run, Robbo got too tight and pushed him to the turf but the ref waved no penalty - i thought it was a close call.

And finally, right at the death, the got a clear sight of goal. For the last 5 mins they sent centre half Brown up front, and from another aimless high ball he flicked it on to the onrushing Hylton who had finally nipped in behind. But on the volley, no more than 6yds out, Hylton lifted the ball over and the points were won.

Territorially and possession wise, we got murdered tonight. But some absolutely dire forward play from the home side, a slice of luck and some heroic defending and we were able to hold out. They have every right to feel hard done by, as we barely got out of our half. Our passing and general movement was utter dross, a number of players didnt put in much of a shift and on another day we would have got hammered tonight. The tempo, energy and quality from Saturday was missing. But, I can honestly say in 17years of supporting Torquay I have never seen us win a game like that. I suppose we defended pretty solidly, centrally anyway. And Manse was industrious as ever. And we're owed a bit of luck after the last minute goals and all that of the last few years. But today was a little glimpse into how bad we can get if it doesn't all click together.

The player ratings are hard as nobody truly stood out. But here goes

Olejnik - 7 - handling impeccable. Kicking terrible
Oastler - 6 - toasted by their sub winger. Awful distribution and poor positioning first half 
Robbo - 7 - great aerial command, but teetered on the brink of out of control
Saah - 6 - improved as the game wore on, but sloppiness crept back in first half
Nico - 6.5 - solid enough, distribution way off
Mansell - 7.5 - my MOTM. worked socks off, and proved if you don't shoot you'll never score!
O'Kane - 5.5 - worst I've seen him in a while. Lost possession too often
Morris - 5 - it's frustrating watching his non-wing play. You can cross, so get into a position where you can cross it!!!
Stevens - 5 - drifted so far inside first half we had no width. Wasteful in possession second half
Howe - 6 - put himself about but wasn't sticking today
Atieno - 7 - higher rating for defensive duties! Won a lot of balls pumped into the box (at the wrong end!)

McPhee - 5.5 - less wasteful than Stevens but offered little
Kee - 6 - well at least he ran around a bit more than Saturday!

Yellow Army - 10 - outstanding noise and atmosphere throughout, even if that wasn't reciprocated on the pitch.

So there we go. Still can't believe how lucky we were!

Completley agree with this. As always a top quality post Jeff.