FAC1: Torquay Utd v Harrogate Town 3 Nov 2012

Wise words from Jon.

Yesterday looks a calamity from here.

But not part of an ongoing disaster that is heading for the rocks. Not my view anyway. Not today.

Shrewsbury, Swindon and Colchester are bigger clubs with better teams than us.

But they lost to non-league teams yesterday.

The crowds were crap just about everywhere. Sadly, the FA Cup has lost something of its allure.

Will losing to a non-league side lead to a plague of locusts being unleashed upon Plainmoor?

I know not. I must look at the tea leaves some time.

For the record our last non-league defeat was Crawley the season before last (with them also defeating Swindon, Derby, Bury, Bristol City and Hull either side of us).

It may not be relevant to what happens next. But our league record since that Crawley defeat has been absolutely bloody superb!

Nice to read some sound common sense from Jon. When I looked in here at about midnight last night I thought it must be a full moon!

This isn't true. This whole idea that luck balances out is nonsense. The tiniest decisions have enormous impacts

The fact is we have been played off the park by some terrible teams of late, including now a team 2 divisions below who played 120 minutes on Wednesday. This isn't a one-off - it's been a consistent thing. It's only going to be a matter of time before we're going to lose at home in the league, and at some point a team is going to turn up against us and hit 5 or 6 past us

Just because we're 7th doesn't make us a good team. It just means we're less bad than the teams below us. That won't last forever - teams will find consistency. I can't see where we're going to get it from. One step forward, two steps back

I don't care where we are in the table. Look at the performances. They are a much better indicator of where we are at the moment, because it's still early in the season. We've had a lot of easy games of late against poor sides and yet we still haven't taken full advantage of them. Judge by where we should be, based on the fixtures - and where we should be is in the automatic promotion spots. And the 2nd Round of the FA Cup

Looking at the match highlights on ITV Player, it looks like Rene's offside goal was actually onside. Bodin actually does very well to win the ball and put Howe through. You do not see Howe in the film when the ball from Bodin is played but shortly afterwards Howe is seen just beyond the last defender. Howe was probably level when the ball was played.

Ofcourse it is irrelevant now but it goes to show the fine line between success and failure. One dubious decision can change everything. The other point to make is that Bodin's build up play is often very good, sadly it's just his finishing that has gone to pot. Yes yesterday was a huge downer and setback but the club on and off the pitch is still doing well. We need to get a sense of perspective. If we were at the bottom of the league, that's the time to worry. I've seen at lot worse over the years. Yesterday could have been much different if that decision had gone our way. I think Ling considering the players he has lost and the transfer money he has brought in has done quite a remarkable job since he joined on limited resources.

But this isn't just 1 poor showing. It's a series of poor showings. At the moment it's the good performance against Gillingham that's the anomaly


This may be, but we also have the same number of points after 15 matches as Macclesfield last year

Bar the top 2 who are clearly streets ahead of the mess that lies behind them, it's still far too early to read anything into this table. The table is only fully representative when every team has played every other team home and away. The difficulty of matches therefore has to be taken into account when looking at the table at this stage, and while we are 7th, we could be much higher had we beaten the "poor" teams in the division

Instead of focusing on position, which is totally unrepresentative, look at points - we are only 1 point closer to the top than we are to the relegation zone. It's not all that great. This is a very poor League Two and it's incredibly frustrating to see us blow this, because had we performed to our potential instead of consistent under-performance against teams like Wycombe and Rovers, we could be in the title hunt

There have been so many good points raised on this match day thread both positive and some showing some concerns. No one could ever say the club is not in good hands and has made great progress since the day we lost our league status.

There is a world of difference from not actually and learning the result later, than having paid to watch it and go through the whole entire emotions one does at a football match. I know both Petef and Loyalgull very well, good solid fans of Torquay United who have stood by the club through the good and the bad days.

It does concern me when I read posts from the diehard types of fans, where they start questioning if they want to turn up for the next home match, based on what they were served up. How they must have felt when they left the ground would have been far different from how I felt when I learned the result on the radio.

Our James is no Fonda and never will be and he sure is not some stupid person who talks out of his ass, he sees what he considers to be genuine concerns and does put them across very well. I happen to agree with many of the points he has raised and think it would be foolish for anyone to just look at our league placing and start ignoring our performances.

The next six or so games could see us firmly cemented in a play-off place, but they could also see us drop very close the bottom of the table. None of us can with any degree of confidence, where in the table we will be after Christmas or at the end of the season for that matters.

The question is do we have a big and strong enough squad to keep us near the top of the table? Or are we in danger of running out of steam like we did last season, only this time that situation could come much earlier.

It has rightly been pointed out that being out of the cup so soon has cost the club dearly, where can the money come from now to try and strengthen the squad because it needs to be as I can’t see how we can stay near the top with the small squad we do have.

Maybe we can and the views I have expressed as they are only my own opinions could be so far of the mark. Only time is going to tell one way or the other and I never see anyone on here as a moaner as such, just someone who has concerns because they love, support and want the best for the club.