Dartford v Torquay United – Saturday 23rd August 2014 – 3pm

[hector]

With all due respect Dartford are not a good non league side. The excuse given when we were beaten easily by Gateshead was that we came up against some sort of world beaters. Well that arguement doesn't really hold up today does it?
Hargreaves sort of worries me really - in his radio interview he stated that "this was game we would have lost last season".
Thats actually nonsense because Dartford are a couple of classes below anything we faced in League 2.
As someone else said Pearce should be in the team - because quite frankly he is our best player. I appreciate that we have kept three clean sheets but you have got to look at the standard of the opposition.
The continuing exclusion of Chapell is beginning to look ridiculous - also with so many inexperienced players in the team I would have started Benyon today.
It does seem to look as though Hargreaves is favouring his own signings ie Macdonald instead of Pearce.
Briscoe instead of Chapell.
Having seen Aldershot against Eastleigh I think we will struggle on Monday. They have had an extra days rest so its time for Hargreaves to freshen it up a bit.
Looking at what we have played so far 5 points out of 12 is a poor return.

I think you are right with much of this and I thought the same about Hargreaves comment.

[drummergull90]

Well that was appalling. A terrible game between two terrible sides. Where to start!

I've now seen Welling, Southport and Dartford and all three have been atrocious. We played well in the other two games and were unlucky. Today we were shocking.

Defensively we were ok, thought Downes was fairly solid and Rice made some good saves. Cruise was ok. Tonge's distribution was woeful, wasted the ball every time he came forward. Dartford were atrocious, no quality at all in 90 minutes.

Midfield did well, Young and Richards look a decent combination. Young especially good, always has time on the ball and has a habit of picking the right pass at the right time. Would like to see him in a more advanced role. Wingers were poor. Cameron looked a shadow of the player we have seen in the past two games. Briscoe was terrible, he is overweight and too slow to play on the wing. Bring Chapell back please.

Up front we were pretty poor. O'Achie does his job well and started brightly but faded. Not a goalscorer. Ajala is not a striker. We desperately miss Bowman, which is a concern. Decent loan signing needed.

Still, nice afternoon and I really liked their ground. Eco-friendly, nice idea. Very friendly too. Need to segregate fans though, that was a bit awkward.

Onward and upward, much better performance needed on Monday.

[eastmoorgull]

An exciting game, we got a point courtesy of Martin Rice who made 3 superb saves.
Up front we were sadly lacking but hoof ball appeared to be the order of the day as Cameron seemed unable to get in the game and Briscoe adds nothing .
Midfield buzzed well, I do like Richards and Young, but Tonge ( see ball must kick to opposition) and Cruise do all they can to bypass them - interesting that Richards had a good go at Tonge who just shrugged his shoulders as if to say 'I can't do that'!

Defence - why is our best player not in the starting line up?

Subs ; ineffective apart from one good run by Yeoman. Why was Wakefield deemed more 'playable' than Chappell?

Early days but definite tinkering is needed .

[brucie]

Looking at the league Barnet look ok but everything else looks pretty terrible. Gateshead beaten 1-6 at home today by Grimsby who themselves looked rank average when they were on the tv against Bristol Rovers. The latter scraped home 1-0 against Telford today.
Eastleigh lost to Dover despite the home side playing all second half with ten men.
Personally I think Hargreaves got his team selection all wrong today.
Playing two inexperienced strikers together was a mistake. If he wanted to play Ajala then that should have been at the expense of Briscoe who does look overweight. Yeoman or Benyon should have started up front.
I think we would have won with Bowman and Harding playing today - I cannot imagine that Briscoe will be fit enough to play another game on Monday. Ajala is by all accounts injured.
Surely this will see the return of Chapell with perhaps Niall Thompson being involved as well.
We really need to start winning games. We have now blown four points against two poor sides.

[Dave]

Failure to re-invest any of the near £1 million pounds brought in by Martin Ling in the team, ended up paying how much to pay him and Taylor off. Widely believed that Paul Benson was Alan Knill's no1 target, wonder why he didn't sign him,hmmm, couldn't score a goal, another £100k pay-off.

Yes the club now finds itself a dire financial position, to the point we cant even afford to put the team up in a poxy Travelodge. You know the sad thing for me, it's all our own fault.

[Lloyder5]

That is a pretty measured summing up of our situation. All the personal abuse dished out to managers and players over the last year has this financial/strategic context. Those that did it to the extreme contributed to a growing poisonous atmosphere around the club.
Moving on. The kind of form we have currently shown would bring us around 58 points and the lower midtable position most pundits on here have predicted. I think we'll do a bit better than that, although I haven't seen us play yet, hope to tomorrow.

[PhilGull]

Hopefully this is a period of gelling for the new team members - if we are not losing now then it should get better as they get to know each others ways .....

This.
My glass-half-full mentality is seeing the positives in this start to the season. I am confident the goals will come, the important thing is that we have a tight defence.
Need to sort out the set pieces now, look to start scoring some goals there.

[Neal]

Well made the trip from Basingstoke ( conference south ).

I actually enjoyed the non segregation, spent the whole game talking to a Dartford fan which was a new and interesting experience. We both came to the conclusion that a draw was a fair result. BUT..... They are basically a conference south club, all part time, so have a real job. He told me they usually competed for 70mins then faded.

Now if you looked at the team performances, and looked at individual players ball control etc you couldn't really see a difference between the 2 teams. I would say we had a few slick passing moves but they were rare.

This Torquay side is very average, the forward line and attacking midfielders had little threat. Young aside its very average! We might have a number of wingers but they cannot beat conference south defenders. I will still be optimistic though and keep by my 8th finish.

No no no, Hawley is NOT the answer!!!!! We will end up in a relegation fight if you start going down that route. I watch about 3 or 4 Basingstoke games a year when I'm bored, and they have a whole team better than the likes of Hawley. I know no one rates him but Macklin is a Basingstoke sub now for comparison. And I would prefer him to Hawley.

A fulltime professional club should have beaten Dartford, or at least it should have been obvious who was the full time club and who wasn't, and believe me IT WASNT!!

[Colorado Gull]

Good post Neal.

[MellowYellow]

First away trip of the season and to be honest would have been best spent decorating the bedroom and watching the paint dry. Firstly, congratulations to Dartford who hospitality was very welcoming, stewards were polite, supporters were friendly and their team (which after all is a squad of 18 part-timers) can be well pleased with a point as they commute to work on Monday morning. As for Torquay, not a lot to say really, a game with no corners about says it all on the attacking front. Man of the Match has to be Rice for pulling a out a few cracking saves in the first half, the first of which has to be described as 'world-class' how he got to it I do not know. Aside from that there was very little structure in the side and a void of tactics on how to put the ball in the back of the net. On yesterdays display the team looked very average but there is talent there and if CH can find the right balance there is a chance the team could go onto better things, but it may be a question of don't hold your breath. As for the players, well Briscoe is big and strong but no pace which does not read winger to me, would be best to try him as an inside forward and Chapel given a run on the wing. The back four were solid but where were the overlaps, poor lad Archie (who, in fairness, worked his socks off) was on his own up front most of the time and had no chance (felt sorry for him). So success in my opinion is not about the players commitment that was not is question on yesterdays display but all about structure and tactic to gel the team into a unit that read the processes of game play with the outcome of 'Goals', after all is that not what football is all about?

[Trojan 67]

"There are lies, dam lies and statistics."

TQ never had a corner against Dirtford, then again Dirtford never had a corner against TQ. TQ v Southpork again no corners for both sides. Now I know I heard the chant of "COME ON YOU YELLOWS" at least once from the Boots and Laces corner during TQ v Southpork. That chant is usually associated with a TQ corner. Upon looking at the ethnically cleansing it of white folk BBC Sport Webshite, no other team in the white vanman league has had a corner either. Don't believe everything you read in newspapers and that applies to webshites aswell.

"There are lies, dam lies and statistics."

[nickbrod]

For the record Dartford had 4 and we had 3 corners.

[Neal]

Just wanted to add this. The ground was very good, architecturally, toilets good for a FC. The bar was also good and very comfortable sat outside on the terrace. The stewards I spoke to were help full and friendly. A very well setup club, was impressed with the facilities for a club this size. I even walked into the boardroom bar by mistake, the TUFC directors all sat there, and the bar person told me very politely that she couldn't serve me. So wasnt marched out and growled at by some over zealous steward.