Torquay United vs Oxford United

[brucie]

An absolutely appalling game of football which was not worth the entrance fee. Whilst I would not blame Atieno he couldn't play the Howe role. Couple that with your nearest two back up forward players (Stevens and Morris) who were normally at least 35 yards away from Atieno, and neither were remotely able to go past an opposing player meant that we wouldn't have scored if we had been playing until this time tomorrow.
In fact it is diffuicult to see us scoring against Plymouth either - if they score one we will lose.
On the plus side our defence looked really solid - thank god Saah got himself injured because Ellis was outstanding.
Oxford looked more likely winners at the end and hit the bar twice so we were lucky to get a point in the end.

[Southampton Gull]

An absolutely appalling game of football which was not worth the entrance fee. Whilst I would not blame Atieno he couldn't play the Howe role. Couple that with your nearest two back up forward players (Stevens and Morris) who were normally at least 35 yards away from Atieno, and neither were remotely able to go past an opposing player meant that we wouldn't have scored if we had been playing until this time tomorrow.
In fact it is diffuicult to see us scoring against Plymouth either - if they score one we will lose.
On the plus side our defence looked really solid - thank god Saah got himself injured because Ellis was outstanding.
Oxford looked more likely winners at the end and hit the bar twice so we were lucky to get a point in the end.

You forgot to mention that McPhee did ok when he came on...............

[Chris B]

I wasn't there but what did you all think of Morris today?

He was pretty poor, I thought. The first half was dour from all concerned, but Morris' lack of contribution was a real chore to watch. There was an improvement in the 20 mins he was on in the 2nd half, culminating in his shot straight at the keeper and a dangerous cross immediately before he was replaced.

I think playing on the left really suits Stevens as a right-footer, but the same cannot be said of Morris on the right. That said, those clamouring for Bodin's introduction have to admit he offered little threat when he came on. Let's hope with Morris suspended (5th booking today), Billy can up his game at Plymouth.

[goodluckgull]

Do you think the 1pm kick off had an influence on the game ? I thought both teams looked a bit tired. Maybe the players didnt consume enough calories before the game ? Even the fans were especially quiet and the support was virtually non existent at times. Clearly an effort was made at half time to get the crowd going, but it was to no avail. Robbo deserved his man of the match and Macca did very well. I especially liked it when Macca ran over to Mark Ellis, to tell him to calm down and focus on getting the ball .Mark was getting all bothered by an Oxford player who was shoving him just before we had a corner kick.Macca showed that he has the qualities of an experienced older player.

[Colorado Gull]

I'm sure you'll hear them on Monday

The trouble is with our singers at home is that half of them are down the end of the pop and half of them are in the middle. So obviously agreements can't be made on where the singers should be. I was down the end for the first half but the second half I went back to stand near the family stand. The atmosphere at home is never as good as it is away, I think that's the way with every club TBH. As SG said, I'm sure you'll be able to hear the Yellow Army on Monday as our away support is quite superb!

[stevegull]

He was pretty poor, I thought. The first half was dour from all concerned, but Morris' lack of contribution was a real chore to watch. There was an improvement in the 20 mins he was on in the 2nd half, culminating in his shot straight at the keeper and a dangerous cross immediately before he was replaced.

I think playing on the left really suits Stevens as a right-footer, but the same cannot be said of Morris on the right. That said, those clamouring for Bodin's introduction have to admit he offered little threat when he came on. Let's hope with Morris suspended (5th booking today), Billy can up his game at Plymouth.

Interesting Chris. I just noticed how a few people have put his name in their 'Motm' nominations. Would anyone who has done this care to comment as to why?

[gullintwoplaces]

An absolutely appalling game of football which was not worth the entrance fee. Whilst I would not blame Atieno he couldn't play the Howe role. Couple that with your nearest two back up forward players (Stevens and Morris) who were normally at least 35 yards away from Atieno, and neither were remotely able to go past an opposing player meant that we wouldn't have scored if we had been playing until this time tomorrow.
In fact it is diffuicult to see us scoring against Plymouth either - if they score one we will lose.
On the plus side our defence looked really solid - thank god Saah got himself injured because Ellis was outstanding.
Oxford looked more likely winners at the end and hit the bar twice so we were lucky to get a point in the end.

You said two weeks ago that "points would be thin on the ground" over the next few weeks, with Howe injured. We have picked up FOUR points in the two games since then, four!! I agree that it wasn't a good game today, but to say that we wouldn't have scored until this time tomorrow is cobblers. We had two clear chances and nearly scored.

Today was an even game in which the two sides cancelled each other out. Both sides went close to scoring, and a draw was a fair result. To claim that we were "lucky" to get a point in the end is again, I am afraid, cobblers. You see everything so, so, so negatively. Maybe you do this in the hope that being negative will encourage success, I dunno, but it is depressing to see. I can't imagine what the players think about your negativity.

[AustrianAndyGull]

I for one am very happy with a point today. Lets not forget that teams like Oxford and Swindon are bigger clubs than us, can attract better players than us and pay more than us. They aren't the only teams 'better off' than we are that we have earned good points from this season. We have dealt with the loss of Howe and bounced back from the Accy result with two superb results. On another day and with a bit more guile / effort ( from the sounds of it ) from our attackers we could have won the game. It's another clean sheet anyway and maybe we can go on another unbeaten run now. Monday is massive now for us and the players and i just hope they do themselves justice regardless of scoreline. If we play to our potential we will win comfortably. Well done Martin and the lads.

[Jeff]

Chance to write a few further musings having had a nice drive back to Hertfordshire:

Although it was a dreadful game of football, its definitely a point gained. We were far from our best, although that may well be because the two sides cancelled each other out as I stated in my previous post (and others predicted too). The big difference is that that match had all the hallmarks of one under Buckle where we would have cheaply given away a late goal and lost. Even though we attempted to turn the screw at the end, we maintained defensive discipline. For example, for the corner we had right at the end, Robbo didn't go forward. And even when Oxford had their late chance when Duberry headed back across goal, we had about 3 players who all got back onto the line to keep the ball out. Under Buckle, we would have thrown the kitchen sink and came away with nothing.

Taiwo didn't do a bad job today, he was just marshalled out of it by Duberry who was superb. Although McPhee did a bit better when he came on, he got the ball into feet wheras Atieno constantly got it in the air. He tried, but we never gave him the service.

Some of the passing was atrocious today, so its hardly surprising that we ended up lumping it. The normally reliable Lathrope put many passes astray early on, and set the tone really. Not having a dig at Lathrope, he's been superb but everyone has an off day. Although another criticism is that he has this total unwillingness to shoot - as seen in the first half when he let the ball run to a far worse positioned Oastler.

In answer to the earlier poster, I thought Morris did o.k. He's not perfectly suited to our system as he's not quick enough - his best match recently was when he played in the Lathrope role as he's not afraid to stick the boot in. He put himself about today, and is pretty handy in the air. It was a shame that the games best chance came to him, but the risk you have when you play left footers on the right (and vice-versa) is that when you play them in running directly at goal, they are forced to shoot with their weaker foot. Morris did a decent job with his "swinger", and half sold Clarke who was just able to stick a leg out and parry it away. You can see that Morris is a finesse rather than power player - if his cross shot had gone in it would have been a late goal of the year contender, as he would have got the ball to swing back on itself.

Some of the abuse that Stevens was getting from a section of the pop behind me was ridiculous. As soon as you could see it was going to be a dour game, they got straight onto Stevens. Granted, it wasn't his most sparkling performance but he didn't do much worse than anyone else. But he was getting flack for stuff that wasn't even his fault - for example when Mansell played one into him at point blank range (which Danny did well to control), he got some chat about having a rubbish first touch! They started calling for him to be subbed as soon as he came out for the second half, and moaned when Bodin came on for Morris - wasn't it obvious to these people that Ling didn't want to change the system too much when the game was in the balance, and didn't want left footers on both flanks?

Bearing in mind that Nico's passing was way off the radar, Lathrope ditto, Atieno didn't get a look in, Mansell wasn't really as effective as he can be etc etc we managed to get a point off a side who will definitely be up there at the end of the season. Definitely a point gained IMO.

[tktufc91]

On the subject of the atmosphere at the game yesterday, I was right in the back by the singers and there were only about 20/30 people singing around us from what I could see. I do prefer the singers being closer to the away fans as we can hear the banter coming from the away end, but because the noise doesn't spread, not everyone can hear us.

I really wish that the club would allow us to have the away end for some matches, the atmosphere in my opinion would be so much better.