Torquay United: March 2011

Hello dear friends and welcome back to another update from The English Riviera.

We started the month off with a trip to third place Colchester for a game we could not afford to lose. Colchester absolutely pummeled us and we barely got a sniff at their end of the field as the stats clearly show. We almost snatched victory in the dying minutes when Eckersly cross ball was  drilled into the back of the net by Josh Payne but he was ruled offside. So we managed to escape with a point but the likes of Pymouth and Millwall are right behind us. If only we could regain that early season form.

The following game was back  at home agaisnt Bradford and Steve Irwin got us off to just the right start netting an early goal from an Ashley Chambers flick on just outside the box. Chambers played a part in the second when a string of passes intiated by Wiktorski fell eventually for Guidetti who slammed it past the Bradord keeper. The visitors pulled one back early in the second half taking advantage of of some poor marking but Guidetti added a third late in the game after some enterprising play once again by Chambers. Both he and Guidetti ended up with 8.6 ratings so I hope they can keep that up.

With Spanish clubs sniffing around I managed to sign John Guidetti to a new contract which I was well pleased about.

We travelled to Southend for our next game which is for some reason is a difficult ground to play on and this game would be no different. Southend easily broke down any attacking plays that we came up with and the closest we got to a goal was Wiktorski’s header against the bar in the second half. Southend though on the other hand created lots of chances and deserved their 1-0 victory.

The final game of the month was a home game against Plymouth in front of a capacity crowd. The match had been hyped up for days in the local media as it could be pivitol to the outcome of the season. A win would mean we would go above Millwall and have a 7 point cushion over Pymouth  who are in 7^th place.

After a very uneventful first half Plymouth took the lead of a long range effort from 30 yards out which stunned the home fans. Once more our attacking options were smothered by the opposition which seems to be a feature of 2011 but we did find the equalizer from an unlikely source in Barry Bannan who sneaked ino the box from the left flank to fire home from an Irwin cross. In the end it was honors even though we still manged to go above Millwall on goal difference.

Results

League Table

Fixtures

Next month will be my season wrap up post. We will have to face title challengers Southampton as well as Millall and Swansea who are both play off contenders. Can Torquay make it?