TALKING POINTS

Dom Roman – @DomRoman

Dom discusses the key points

LOOKING FOR SIGNS OF LIFE

If you had said to me on the 31st January after our victory over the Hornchurch, that we’d be still looking for our next win on 10th March and that Neil Warnock would be in charge, I would’ve laughed it off very quickly! Well I’m not laughing now, the Gulls season has gone to pot in the last 6 weeks, and we’re now wondering when we’ll win again! There is injuries of course, and the importance of the Dreyer/Dyer combination has been magnified even more by their absence, but the whole squad looks battered, bruised and bereft of confidence, meaning our hopes have been lowered from ‘possible title contender’ to ‘possible play-off contender’. It’s a sad situation and so different to last season when the team had gathered themselves for an end of season surge. The positive? Well, we are still 6th, only 4 points behind Hornchurch in 2nd, and the 2025-26 campaign is salvageable. There is still a promotion to play for if these lads can pull themselves together. If Neil Warnock has magic left, we need him to use it now!

LINE-UP

Warnock lined the team up in a 3-5-2 at the weekend, looking to give the defence a buffer to make up for the lack of pace at the back…but despite a reasonable start (well we didn’t concede in the first 10 minutes), there was very little for the Yellow Army to cheer about, and once Ebbsfleet took the lead there only appeared to be one winner. Torquay had come to contain, get the ball forward quickly and hope for Jay and Young to pick up scraps and make something happen, but with such a lack of confidence in our play, the outcome was too predictable. It’s hard to know what line-up to expect this time around, but United have to be more attacking and have better width to create openings. Our only natural winger Dylan Morgan could come into the line-up, so could Kieran Wilson if NW wants to shuffle the attackers around, whilst Matt Worthington will still be available before his suspension kicks in next Saturday. There’s not much squad depth to aid the caretaker manager, but there are still enough quality players at this level to do better.

ON THE DECK

It’s been disappointing how direct United have been in the last 2 games, especially considering the lack of Cody Cooke in our attack. United’s best play last Tuesday came when they kept the ball on the deck and utilised the skills of players like Sonny Everton, Jordan Young and Matt Jay to help create opportunities. We need to see this from the start against Salisbury, and desperately need to halt this habit of conceding first. The best form of defence for United at the moment is attack, and scoring first could settle nerves and help end this wretched run of form. Here’s hoping!

THE OPPOSITION

Brian Dutton’s Salisbury FC team come to Plainmoor after a 2-0 home win over Eastbourne, and they currently sit 18th in the National League South with a 10 point buffer between them and 21st placed Bath City (though they have played 4 more games!). Salisbury have actually conceded 2 goals less than us this season, but have only scored a modest 35. It’s the sort of team we were beating comfortably at home earlier in the season when we were often scoring for fun, but this time around I think we all know anything can happen. Any win would do, something to show there is fight left in this Torquay United squad, and perhaps we will even see a new manager in the home dugout soon. See you at Plainmoor, it’s a rough time to be supporting the Gulls, but let’s do what we can.