TT BLOG

Dom Roman – @DomRoman

TYPICAL TORQUAY…

‘Typical Torquay’ is a phrase that I see or hear on numerous occasions during a football season, and unfortunately it’s not used for good reasons. Our FA Cup result and the following 1st Round draw certainly fall into the ‘Typical Torquay’ category, as we dropped out to Oxford City, who then enjoyed one of the best draws of the round, with a visit from ex-Prem champions Leicester City. I can only imagine the looks on the faces of Michael Westcott and Mark Bowes-Cavanagh that evening, and I hope no cats were kicked in the aftermath!

That’s Torquay United though, we’ve endured lots of disappointments, lots of ‘what if’ moments and heartbreak that tests our resolve and patience season in and season out, and it doesn’t take much scouring around social media to see the frustration burning amongst the Yellow Army. Indeed a discussion about Jimmy Ball gathered up well over 100 comments on our Facebook page, and the vast majority were considered and well thought-out answers. Are we worried where this season is heading? You bet. Will we keep supporting the Gulls? You bet. But we need improvement, and we need it fairly soon.

What I witnessed on Saturday was not a lethargic or lazy team in action, indeed during the first 15 minutes, our press was good and we looked like a team ready to have a go. But that is ‘Typical Torquay’ as well unfortunately – starting on the front foot with good intentions, but failing to find any hard enough punches to hurt the opposition. And then there is the counter, a sucker punch, a 0-1 score, cue the desperate subs, route one football and a team trying to get forward but lacking shape and cutting edge. I’ve seen this type of game played out at Plainmoor many many times, indeed our 2013-14 relegation season was full of them (no I’m not suggesting that there will be relegation battle).

It feels like this team desperately want to do well for the supporters, but Jimmy Ball simply doesn’t know how to get the best out of them at the moment, leading to a lack of cohesion and lack of patterns in our play. The players are too predictable in their movement and interplay, and organised teams like Oxford City can cope with us too easily. Our best avenue during the second half appeared to be a cross from Harry Shield, and no disrespect to Harry (probably our best player on the day), but when he’s your most creative component, then you’ve got some problems.

Maybe once the understanding between players has been established and belief is restored, we’ll eventually become a good team this season, there’s always hope isn’t there, and I don’t think Jimmy Ball has suddenly become a bad manager over the last couple of months. He is however, a manager who needs to prove himself and a manager who should stop discussing the behaviour of the fans, and show why he is the right man by getting results.

I don’t think a Jimmy Out discussion is worthwhile at this point of time, this season is long and I believe he should be given time to make this United team tick. Patience is thin though, and the next three games are big for a manager under the microscope. Our old foes Maidstone won’t care about any of that! No room for errors or defensive jitters in this match, a perfect weekend to remove the ‘Typical Torquay’ shackles and grab a big victory over our bogey team. Fingers crossed.