TALKING POINTS

Chris Wade – @tufcchris

Chris discusses the key points

Jimmy’s Plainmoor Bow

New manager Jimmy Ball takes charge at Plainmoor for the first time on Tuesday night as league leaders Dorking come to town. Saturday’s unfortunate 1-0 defeat at Dagenham in his first game was the first glimpse of what his new chargers can do, but this week feels like a big week in our hunt for a play-off place. Two home games must produce a minimum of four points with our suspect away form compromising our aspirations in recent weeks. But there are a number of issues for Ball to solve ahead of kick off.

Player Availability… or lack of

The frankly incredible run of injuries and illness has seriously undermined our progress in recent weeks. It is starting to slowly improve though. Jordan Dyer has played the last two games, and Sam Dreyer made his comeback from a month out in the final half an hour on Saturday. Jordan Thomas and Louis Dennis could be back from recent knocks, and Jordan Young from weekend illness. Jimmy will also be working on a couple of new faces ahead of kick off.

Front Third Quality

Whilst our performance at Dagenham wasn’t the worst by any stretch of the imagination, we lacked quality and incision in the final third. Scoring goals is the hardest part of football, and we have to be have more quality in forward areas. Yes, we have suffered with player availability, but the time is now to get on the front foot and find our cutting edge. The first goal is key in any game, but the amount of times we have given it up this year has to stop. It’s making life very hard.

The Opposition

Dorking Wanderers come to Plainmoor off the back of defeat in Berkshire ay Maidenhead on Saturday. The curious state of this league sees them arrive in Devon 6 points clear at the top, but with only 2 wins in their last 8 games. If you believe manager Marc White, they too are decimated by injuries, but we need to focus on us and how we can work out a way to claim the points.

Let’s pack Plainmoor and take those points…