Crawley V Torquay United 23rd August 2008

Thanks for your views witneygull, It is clear that something needs to be done and fast, If we are not going to slip to far behind and into a position that we would then find hard to even make the play offs.

Two home games coming up to try and get some faith back into the supporters, It won't be easy.

First of all the "reliable source" is way off the mark............tittle tattle that begins in the the golf club (and don't read into it that it came from the Chairman - it didn't!) is NOT reliable information. It was relayed to me today and I would say it is just another example of people not being able to deal with their own disappointment and spouting off all sorts of crap.

I thought Crooky's summing up to be pretty good whilst Adam's was, I felt; way off beam.

It doesn't matter who you pick, how much preparation you put in or what tactics you settle on; when someone does something as stupid as Thompson did after 8minutes one can only despair at the individual stupidity and poor professionalism. Thommo went in with BOTH feet off the ground (as so many are these days) and was rightfully red carded. That the "victim" then almost immediately committed the same offence yet wasn't even penalised led one to question whether the youthful referee from neighbouring Surrey was allowing Paul Raynor to referee the match from the nearby (in both instances) technical area.

We were already one down as Hargreaves had the ball taken from off his head by a tiny deflection from the attacker in front of him at a free kick which left both him and the right back (Thompson) out of contention. When Mansell then made his hopeless challenge. Yet it wasn't his foot that made contact with the Crawley player, and therefore the correct penalty would have been an indirect free kick for dangerous play; it was his head that caught the opponent's temple and it was all caused by the deflection in my opinion. In my opinion the wrong decision and also totally unnecessary to book Mansell.

To give another example of the downright heavy influence over the ref from the home dugout,right on half time Quinn the home centre half went right through Green off the ball and flattened him to which Green stupidly got up and elbowed Quinn in full view of the lino and ref who then did nothing about it until Raynor's ranting got the fourth official involved and his "chat" with the ref resulted in a yellow card for each player. Question: why did the officials do nothing about it until Raynor got involved and then why two yellows when it should have been two reds?

Perhaps that's why Green didn't come out for the second half. I thought Buckle's starting lineup was spot on as regards Green and Dsane up front as their pace was going to be too much for Crawley's slow defence, but then all the promise was undone by Thommo's stupidity although both Dsane and Green were left up front as a two pronged attack splitting wide from one another when the occasion allowed. We went one short in midfield and I thought generally that the play and individual performances were OK with Carlisle at right wing back especially impressive and Nicho too made well of the situation. Brough and Hodges were OK in the centre of the defence and at least their distribution is a whole different ball game to that of Woods, Robertson and Ellis so I guess that's why the boss goes with them for now.

To me, Sills body language and demeanour is poor at the moment; he didn't exactly go the extra mile to put himself about as Green had done and the marked drop in pace between him and Green certainly bailed Crawley out to an extent.

For our goal Rayner had one of those "statuesque" moments as he stood motionless until it was too late to prevent Dsane getting his scoring effort in...................I've seen it before from him and I guess it remains one of his weaknesses.

The second penalty was a stitch on definite pen with (in my opinion) Brough trying too hard to get his body in the correct position to play his way out of trouble instead of hoofing it out and subsequently getting caught helpless as his upper arm came into contact with the ball..................handball for sure and a shame as it effectively killed the game off when we had been on top.

I would be quite happy to see the two pronged Green/Dsane pairing go against any slow defence in this league and I thought in the time he was allotted Adams showed true passing class and composure....................the quality of which should provide a good service for these two who would surely make better use of it than the currently pedestrian Sills.

I guess Mansell will need to return to right back now, so for me a midfield of Adams as anchor man with Hargreaves, Carlisle and the excellent today Caryol just in front of him. Leave the other back three in situ and try to get some continuity of positions over the next couple of games.

You kept us waiting Merse, but it was worth it

Further on the subject of the "Buckle 3 game rumour".............I spent some of the pre-match time chatting to three directors and overriding impression I got was that there is plenty of satisfaction in the playing set up and plenty of patience in allowing the squad time to gel.

Of course there was dissatisfaction and disappointment over Monday's game but there was also an expression of but for one fateful lapse in the last minute at Histon we would have been on two victories out of three.

All the eggs have NOT been thrown in the basket of "promotion this season or bust" and it is readily recognised that this is indeed a dammned sight harder league to win promotion from than Football League 2.

The "presumably reliable" source also had it on "good authority" that Buckle was leaving after the Rayner fiasco last November and again just before the end of last season...................so I would guess there's a certain personal issue over the manager here, especially as he was also touting for Rosenior at some stage last season.....................certainly something that happens at all clubs, but perhaps something that OUR small town club could well do without!

I've said it before, but I'm glad I'm so far gone from the professional game now with it's rumour mongering, playground politics and dangerous gossip!

Buster what a first class post, I think I will have to have 10 posters of the week this week ;D

As others have highlighted, it is very difficult to offer an appraisal of a team's performance when they are reduced to ten men so early on. Who knows what would have happened - that said, Crawley were a poor, poor side gifted all of their goals from our inability to defend. It could also be argued that Buckle should not be held responsible for the type of individual errors that littered our play today. However, some of these mistakes are coming, in my opinion, as a result of many of our players playing out of position......or having little or no experience of playing with their team mates- either up front or at the back.

It really is amazing how a game can throw up so many different views. Of the opinions outlined so far Witney's would be closest to my own........although I may not have been quite so harsh. We certainly looked clueless in the ten minutes of 11 against 11 and it should be remembered that we were already one down at the time of the sending off. A failure to defend a routine ball into the centre of our box. A soft goal. It just seemed like a continuation of Monday - we still looked like strangers thrown together in a haphazard manner - the only difference was it was different personel. Must have been another midfielders turn to play centre back.

Mansell then made one of the most reckless penalty box challenges I have ever seen to gift Crawley a penalty. I don't know what contact was made and I daresay the Crawley player made a meal of it, but when a player raises his foot that high when challenging in the penalty area, he is taking a huge gamble for himself and his team. He was reckless in the extreme. I found it strange that Buckle prefered Carlise to switch to right back ahead of Mansell - only two weeks ago it appeared that Buckle was fully prepared to use Mansell as his number 1 right back. It nearly cost us immediately as Carlisle was very lucky not to give away another penalty as he manhandled a Crawley forward as a cross came in. Like most of our defence he looked like a fish out of water and offered nothing as a wing back.

I can see why Buckle dropped Sills today, however when he came on in the second half, in my opinion he looked a different player to the one previously seen this season and made Buckle look a bit of a muppet for leaving him out. Sills immediately asked questions of Crawley that were not asked in the first half. Dsane and Green offered very little and I thought Dsane was particularly light weight all afternoon. That said, I would be reluctant to critisise any TUFC forward this season as the service they have received has been shocking. For just a few minutes after we scored I thought we would be camped in their half looking for the equaliser- we were not and the onslaught did not arrive. They doubled up on Sills, but he still managed flick on after flick and earned free kick after free kick. Apart from one Hargreaves header from a Hodges free kick we did not really capitalise. In truth Poke was far the busier keeper during the second half - as you might expect as our ten men pushed on. Brough finally lost patience with Crawley's inability to kill us off so decided to gift them a second penalty - raising his arm whilst controlling a ball - elemenatary defending. I don't recall him being under any pressure, but may be wrong in that regard.

I liked the look of Adams when he came on. In five minutes he passed the ball more than we have all season - his team mates looked at him as if he was from Mars.

As someone else has mentioned Buckle was in a no win situation with regard to his team selection today. Had he stuck to his conviction and given his initial side more than three games he would have been hammered by fans for being arrogant. As it was, his changes smacked of a man under pressure and not knowing what his most appropriate side is. If it is work in progress, fair enough. Buckle will find out a lot more about the squad in these dark days than if we were winning every week. I just feel that some of this work should have progressed a bit more during pre-season. Individually, all of our squad should be good enough to secure TUFC a play off berth. Together, they look a ramshackle bunch of nobodies.