2012 Prediction League; Game 35 v Torquay Utd (home)

Div3North · 28-02-2013, 13:55

Accrington Stanley

V

Torquay Utd

2012-13 Prediction League – Game 35; v Torquay (home)

You might wonder exactly when Torquay’s season went TU on them?

They’ve got some decent enough players at this level – their starting line-up against Wycombe on Tuesday included Brian Saah, Angus McDonald, Billy Bodin, and a strike-force of Ryan Jarvis, Rene Howe and Elliott Benyon – yet their recent (and not-so-recent) stats are absolute pants

……… Was it when whatever-the-problem-with-Martin-Ling-is became a problem (and it’s all gone very quiet over there)? Or was it, perhaps, the embarrassing home defeat by Harrogate Town in the FA Cup (1st Round) at the beginning of November?

At the end of October they sat quite nicely in 7th spot – played 15, 24 points, and behind Bradford and Rotherham on goal difference only (+5 as against +6 for the Yorkists) ……….OK, they’d gone out of the Capon Cup 4-0 at home to Leicester, and the Tinpot at home 5-4 to Yeovil on penalties after a 2-2 game, but then ….. But then they played Harrogate (BSP North, currently 5th) and contrived to lose at home, 1-0

……….. and from there, basically, it’s all been downhill.

In November they won 1 (2-0 at York, who aren’t out of the fertiliser yet themselves, let it be said!

) and drew 1 of four (so they lost 2!); in December they won 1 as well (2-1 against the Daggers), drew 2 and lost just the one; in January they won the (now traditional

) one game (1-0 at neighbours Exeter, who – at home – can’t hit the floor with their hats), drew one and lost another two; and then in February it hit disaster level; played 7, lost 7; scored two, conceded 11; points NIL ……………

and October’s comfort-zone became, and still is, a total nightmare; now they languish in 20th place off the back of a record that reads P34 W9 D10 L15 F37 A44 (home, it’s W6 D5 L6 F26 A27, away it’s W3 D5 L9 F12 A17). And their away record is the worst in League 2 (Plymouth are keeping them company, but their’s is 3 wins, 6 draws and 8 defeats)

Cause – or it may be effect – was that Martin Ling, their manager, has gone off at least temporarily with some unspecified problem/issue/condition, and Alan Knill (ex Bury and Scunthorpe) has stepped in pro tem. He knows there’s a problem – well, who wouldn’t?

– but it remains to be seen whether he can find a remedy; at the moment they’re simply in free-fall – doing what someone recently accused us of doing, which is “doing a Macclesfield”

. Knill said this at the weekend, after his first game in charge (a defeat at Port Vale) :

·"We're a good side (), we've just played against a top of the league side and competed really well; we just need a little bit of fine tuning to make the game more to our advantage than to the opposition's."

Then after Tuesday’s defeat he said this;

·"I think we need some game-changers off the bench; I felt we needed some experience but we couldn't get anyone in before today, but we'll continue to look."

It may be financial, despite the money they made last summer selling players on - Bobby Olejnik (25), an Austrian GK they’d bought from Falkirk, to Peterborough for £300,000, MF Eunan O’Kane (22) – who turned down a move to Crawley – to Bournemouth for £175,000 (or so it’s said, that being the figure in his contract which triggered his release clause) and defender Mark Ellis (24) to Crewe for £80,000; the fact is, though, that during the season their squad changes have been limited, as far as I can find, to just two

; Angus McDonald (20), a defender from Reading, who had loan spells at Torquay and at the Wombles during 2012 (he gets all the good jobs, doesn’t he?), signed on loan again, now extended to the end of the season, and striker Elliott Benyon (25), who left the Gulls in January 2011 for Swindon, and in December 2011 moved on to Southend, came back on loan as well …………… Could be they haven’t got a pot to pee in; could be that the joys of the English Riviera pall in the rain; I go for the first option …………………

I mentioned in the Rochdale thread about ‘the peleton’ catching up with those ahead of them, which drew a response from teach,

·“With all the references to cycling in the introduction, anyone would think there's a lot riding on this game!”

In my experience, I have to say, these things tend to go in cycles…………

What I meant, though, was that if your fortunes change – Barnet, Bristol Rovers etc – then the ‘sliding’ sides are almost more worried than the teams in the last four places …………. Any of the sides, certainly up to Chesterfield in 14th (44 points) and arguably up to Morecambe in 10th (46) could still go down, and Torquay – on the slide, no money, and a new (“interim”) manager - are at huge risk, it seems to me ……………………..

All in all they’ve scored a fairly worrying total of 40 goals in 37 matches; leading scorers are striker Rene Howe (26), who started at Bedford Town, moved on to Kettering, then to Posh, and has been on loan all over the shop (Torquay are his 9th club), with 14; Ryan Jarvis (also 26), his co-striker, has been at Norwich, Orient and Walsall in his time (plus loans all over the shop ……….), and has 7; former Aussie u23 international Aaron Downes (27), who left Chesterfield last summer after 8 years, has 4 goals (plus, according to their website, “67 clearances and 10 blocks”

– although it didn’t say what the blocks were of …….

); and “lightening-quick” (their words, not mine

) MF Billy Bodin (20) – ex Swindon, and with previous loan spells at Plainmoor and at Gresty Road (Crewe, for those who don’t know) – also has 4; seven others are on the scoresheet, one with 3 goals, one with 2, and five with one each …………

Head to headwe're all square; 2006/7 saw us win twice, 2-0 away and 1-0 at home, as they went down to the Conference; in 2009/10 we won 4-2 at home (goals from Edwards, Proccie, Luke Joyce and “Red Card” Grant) but lost 2-1 away (Symes); 2010/11 saw a goalless draw away and a win by the odd goal in one at our ‘ouse (Mr Craney getting it), last season we lost 1-0 away, but won 3-1 at home (Bryan Hughes, Jayden Stockley and Kevin Long); earlier this season we travelled more in hope than expectation, and lost 3-1, Podge getting the goal; P9 W4 D1 L4 F13 A9 Pts13 ………….

As always the deadline for entries is scheduled kick-off time, which is 3pm on Saturday 2nd March. This was a six-pointer a few weeks back

; now it may well be a twelve-pointer

, and a dagger thrust to their hopes of survival

; sorry and all, guys, but it’s every man for himself down at the foot of the table ……….

Good luck to everyone …………Keep the Faith ………… and thanks for playing!