FL2: Torquay v Gillingham 22 January 2011

As much as I would like to attend the match, I’m not sure I will be well enough. During the Tuesday of the Crewe match I was feeling a bit unwell and while I went to the game, was not so good by the time I got home. I have not been able to go to work since that day and not sure when I will be well enough to go back. I did go out to watch a game with Ant last Saturday thinking some fresh air might do me some good, but it didn’t.

Gillingham certainly are the form team of the division at this time and if we are going to be the team to bring their winning streak to an end, we will need to play for the whole 90 minutes like we did for the first 45 minutes against Crewe.

While any team needs to be aware and mindful of where the dangers are likely to come from as far as the other team is concerned, I’m a firm believer in a team playing its own game and letting the other team worry about trying to stop them play their game.

If we line up like we did against Crewe and start with the same attacking mentality from the very first whistle, then I’m sure we will be good enough to come away with all three points. It was not just our willingness to run at the Crewe defence, but also our hard work in closing them down when they had the ball and winning it back that paid the real dividends.

But in our willingness to get forward we must not keep pushing to many players forward and end up getting caught on the break as we have done in some recent games.

I can see why Rob would like to see Kee start the game, but it’s not a change I would make. To play him Bucks would have to drop Stevens, O’Kane or Zebs as all the rest of the team will surely almost pick itself.

Kee has scored two very good goals coming on as a sub in the second half in recent games and while that might have earned him a start, I would still fancy him more to score coming off the bench later in the game than actually starting it.

We do need to start picking up more points and we do need to start beating the teams around us in the table if we are not going to slowly slide down the table. The FA cup game is a real bonus and possible big money earner for us, but the league is and always will be the clubs real bread and butter and doing well in the league and even getting into the play-offs, is far more important in my view.

We were a bit thin on match reports for the Morecambe game (many thanks for the excellent ones we did get) so here’s hoping we get many more for this match as we do need as many as we can get as Leigh always puts some of them in our match day programme pages “ Views from the Forum”

If I’m up to going myself I will get a match report up, but I’ll have to wait until Saturday to see how I’m feeling them. I do hope we see a good gate and our fans make as much effort to generate a great atmosphere as they have done for the last two home games.

I see this as nothing more than a stroll in the park for Gillingham!As has been mentioned on another thread, there weren't many hard tackles going in at the Morcambe match~except in their penalty area~and I don't expect there will be that many on Saturday against Gillingham! That of course is due to the game we have coming up next week. Agree or disagree, I know that Buckle always says he only thinks about the next game, but in this case it's different. So I think it's just a case of get this game out of the way without any injuries and we move on to the big one, where you will see some heavy tackles going in! An early goal for Gillingham will see them shut up shop and inflict yet another home defeat on us!

we got very fortunate at gillingham with our late late equaliser,at a time when gillingham were in poor form,very hard match tomorrow no doubt,1-1 i reckon,with us dominating but not killing them off,lets hope i am wrong though

Might have to anyway as It seems I have been spied on here by my boss, I dared feeling a little bit better last Saturday to go out and get some fresh air went with Ant just up the road and watched Stoke play. Just had such a nice phone call from him, shame he never asked how I was.

A bit of a frost in Torquay overnight but nothing to worry about.

I'm sure the players won't be worrying too much about picking up a injury a week before Crawley come to town. ;D Maybe anyone not "getting stuck in" should be dropped for next week. A tough match but if we can find some consistancy at home then we could surge up the table over the next month.

Finally, a quick remainder for those through to the second round of BBC's competition to get predicting!

I have a feeling it might go the other way. Why not use this game as a 'practice' for next Saturday.

We know Crawley will be strong in the tackle and be prepared to get stuck in. Why not then adopt this attitude today against Gillingham. Set the team line up/formation the same as for the Crawley game. Brief the players the same, tell them to get at them from the off, fight fire with fire, play that at their own game etc etc all those cliche's.

Thats why Arsenal don't like playing Stoke, they aren't used to getting a good going over,physically. Generally Arsenal have the players whose silky skills can still do enough, unfortunately we don't. We need to be able to win individual wars before we can win the battle. So lets start this afternoon. COYY. (sorry got myself well up for these next 2 games then).

Also the last thing we need is players thinking about next weeks games and pulling out of tackles, easiest way to pick up a serious injury. Just make sure no-one picks up a silly Yellow or an even sillier Red. Bucks is good enough to realise that if someone is walking a tight line then to sub them quickly.

For me today we need to get stuck in do the 'dirty' work first, so to speak, and then go on and win the game, comfortably. The win will do the players confidence the world of good.

Also looking at the table a defeat today and other results going against us could effectively rule out a challenge for a play off spot, no doubt some already have. I know its still early and just over half way through the season but we could be 6/7 points outside the zone and whilst that could be made up it would be the shear number of teams in between us and the final play off spot that would be hard to overcome.

That said I would be more than happy to settle for mid table obscurity as long as we win next Saturday. I don't think our season depends on the one game, I think the next few years does.