NL: Torquay United v Dagenham 7:45pm 15 December 2020

Don’t think we would have scored if we had gone on until midnight. Just wasn’t going to happen tonight. Thoroughly enjoyed Armani Little’s lively last 20 minutes. Time for a rest in the form of the FA Trophy. Get some more minutes into Little and some more time for our injured to recover.

A disappointing result in that we should have put the game to bed but unable to take our chances. We did start the better side and a superb cross into the 6 yard box from Nemane that could not be quite finished off stuck in my mind.

Unfortunately a deep cross from Dagenham was finished well for what must have been their only chance in the entire game and it was then a case of breaking them down. However we did not rise to the challenge and our passing was uncharacteristically poor and as has been mentioned above, MacDonald’s distribution was also poor with his kicks continually going long.

The game seem to turn on its head just before half-time with the sending off off their midfielder for a late aerial challenge with his arm out on Randell. Despite feigning injury the referee waited patiently with his red card for him to recover.

Incidentally I was socially distanced next to the ref assessor manager who pretty much agreed with the sending off decision. Coincidentally he was also at Kings Lynn on Saturday, although sat on the other side of the pitch from the Hall incident his feeling was that the red was a bit harsh. Although you have ex players now on the appeals board, the criteria to be decided upon is whether there was a clear and obvious mistake by the referee as opposed to whether it should be a red card or not.

So the second-half started with Waters coming on and almost immediately having a great chance being put through for a one on one with their keeper which couldn’t be put away. I would have liked to have seen more chances like this created as opposed to the aerial route but Dagenham were by now defending very deep and there wasn’t very much space to work with.

It became a war of attrition to create and put away chances but that moment of magic or quality was sadly missing. Not that we didn’t create chances and indeed on another day we would have comfortably won the game but that is football.......

I did think our defending for their goal looked fairly non-existent and haven’t been impressed with Gary Warren’s showings so far this season.

Agree, I would have preferred Andrews to stay at left back and Cameron in the centre. Tricky that though, as it would have needed CLE for a less advanced role while Little gets his legs. One too many injuries/suspensions to keep our momentum last night, despite the creation of numerous chances.

Danny Wright seems to blow hot and cold in front of goal and I thought, like GJ, he should have reacted quicker to get his head on to one or two crosses last night. Josh Umerah didn’t do an awful lot after coming on, either, but than I’d put that down to not enough practice as a front three and throwing the kitchen sink being the priority rather than much else at that stage.