FL2: Cheltenham v Torquay United 23rd Feb 2010

If ever their was a case for both sides to receive no points.......then tonight was the night.

It was poor, desperate stuff alright.......you can see why our manager is taking flack, there is no doubt that our side of the last two years would have made a better fist of beating a very mediocre Cheltenham side......the likes of Rendell, Carlisle and Smith and even Mansell were missed tonight and their re-appearance can't come soon enough.

What we have at the moment is a team of strangers lacking confidence and not producing much quality.........toothless summed up our attacking play, second best and pedestrian in midfield, thankfully pretty solid at the back......all night long we gave the ball away needlessly, our second touch was so often a tackle.

The goals.........a miss hit cross by hayles that wen't through Bevans hands and a really unlikely equalizer by Carayol that seemed to squirm in (had a bad view of it) to the delight and amazement of the good number of away fans.
I'm claiming an assist because 5 seconds before the goal i said to the bloke next to me "we could be here all night and we wouldn't score".......i'm sure many who were there felt the same.

Some individual observations;

Bevan - made a dreadful error, didn't let it affect him, othewise had a good game.
Robertson - distribution poor, not a RB.
Rowe-Turner - I can see the promise but tough for inexperienced players in our side......Nicho would be more effective at the mo.
Branston/Ellis - up against two wily old pro's, coped pretty well.

Wroe - seems to have the world on his shoulders at the mo, a good player in a good side, plenty of endeavour but no end product, set pieces poor tonight.
Thompson - needs to be taken out of the side, his confidence looks shot.
Macklin - had a poor night, couldn't beat his man, had one very good shot though...........i believe their's a player in there though.
Zebroski - achieved little out wide, his strength is coming inside to feed off a big man......he went hungry tonight.

Barnes - shows glimpses of talent and strength, being played as a target man, not big or physical enough for that role.
Benyon - bucks falls for it every time, he scores from the bench and then is ineffective when started with......battled hard as ever but no threat tonight.

Subs
Thomson - nice to see he hasn't left, should have come on earlier, a couple of nice runs.
Carayol - scored with a typical Muzzy shot....lacking conviction!
Smith - didn't start or come on......?

A defeat tonight would have been terrible for us, so to come out with a draw and the fact that results went for us was a nice bit of fortune.

We're going to need to play a lot better than this to get that elusive win though....

in picture number 3, is Robertson showing Alsop how to correctly insert a banana into a bottom?? ;D