FA Trophy: Torquay v Maidstone 3pm ko Saturday 16th December

Definitely Clarke will start. Owers has already said as much on the OS.

I’d like to see Pittman and Gnabouyou start as we haven’t got it right so far and need to test other permutations post Murphy and (maybe) McQuoid. There is no point in playing any loanees who Owers has in his mind will be released back to their parent clubs very soon, which surely rules out Murphy and Evans from the matchday squad. I’d keep Reid in the side as he will still be with us and is a young player who needs to remain confident while we have a dearth of decent striking talent.

If Dowling is fit, he needs some game time, as he could be an important player for us during the remainder of the season. I hope he is ready to start, but would expect a bench place. I see him as someone who can play as a defensive midfielder, one of two, or as a number 10. The lad has talent and needs to be back in the thick of it.

Gosling would benefit from a behind closed doors friendly as he has been out for quite a while. Klukowski is another who Owers would likely want to see in a friendly before playing him again, although might be someone for the bench given his versatility.

I think the pressure being off from the relegation fight will suit our lot and we’ll get a decent performance out of them tomorrow. 2-1 (Gnabouyou, Pittman)

Pub club

Now there's a surprise. What side do we have out?

Straight red for Jazzi Barnum-Bobb.

What a f***ing shambles

Following the Gateshead game I got the impression that Owers didn't seem optimistic about our chances of staying up. With two away games next it's hard to be optimistic. ....

Yes Aussie I completely agree with you.

After the PSF at Tiverton I commented then that we were appalling and we would be lucky to score even a goal let alone get a win. At the time I got a lot of stick as "it was only pre season". "I knew absolutely nothing about football" (in spite of having followed it for 70 years).
What's changed? We sacked our totally incompetent manager and after a considerable delay we appointed, with much hope, the present team. Apart from improving the fitness of the players and bringing in a plethora of mainly substandard loan players there has been little improvement in results.
We have been very lucky that most of the teams around us in the league have been performing as poorly as us and the points difference between us and safety has been maintained at a reasonable level. However lately some of them are showing signs of improvement and I can see safety becoming more distant in the next few weeks.
We are definitely going to need fresh players coming in after Xmas and I can't see the sort we need exactly queuing up to want to come here.
Before the end of the season we will need a high proportion of wins to stay up and I am not very confident we can achieve that.