Torquay United: October 2010

Hello friends and a warm welcome back as I bring you the latest update from my Torquay adventure.

We entered the Autumn months with a home game against Carlisle and were looking  to make a solid to October. We did just that. Steve Irwing put us ahead after only 7 minutes being the first to pounce on a defelcted Simpson shot and after 14 minutes Simpson doubled the lead as his speed was too much for the Carlisle defenders and was first to react from an Arnaud Mendy long clearance. Simpson scored either side of half time in to complete his hat-trick before setting up Barrowman to make it five just after the hour mark and wrap up the demolition. Jake Livermore was absolutely superb controlling the midfield and the flow of the game.

After a two week break due to international fixtures we remained at home for the visit of  3^rd place Colchester who were deemed as favorites even though we had just won 5-1! We took an early lead as Sam Hewson cutting ball found Simpson who placed the it neatly into the corner after 11 minutes.Colchester then took over tha remainder of the half dominating the play and getting shots off frequently keeping Scott Bevan busy between the sticks. At th interval I remembered by assistants pre match advice about playing with a high defensive line and sure enough we took over the second half. Jay Simpson had our only real chance in the second 45 but shot too early and his effort was easily saved. As the game drew to a close Colchester snatched a late equalizer from a free kick and those lost  points saw us drop to 4^th place in the table.

A trip to Brighton was up next and again the bookies had us down as the second best team on the park. They were right too. We struggled in the first half rarely giving anything the Brighton keeper to worry about though the good news was Carolan and Wiktorski were back in the team after injury and looking good. The second half was more promising and eventually Steve Irwin forced a penalty after being tripped in the box and Barrowman stepped up and …hit the post. Soon after he was replaced by Guidetti who in the dying seconds played a lovely ball to Irwin who smashed in the back of the net and we snatched three points out of the bag!

We stayed on the road for our next game against Bradford and quite frankly put in our worst performance of the season creating very litle up front and if it were not for the acrobatic saves of Scott Bevan the scorline would have looked completely different. We need to pick ourselves up and start playing like we did at the beginning of the season.

The final game of the month saw us return to the Plainmoor Stadium to face Southend in front of an almost capacity crowd. After a very even opening half an hour the speed of Jay Simpson became the telling factor scoring two goals within two minutes both in similiar fashion running through the heart of the Southend defence to fire home. Southend scored from a corner early in the second half though four minutes later Ryan Carolan restored the two goal lead having gone forward for a free kick and was first to react to the loose ball. A long goalkick by Southend caught Wiktorski completely off guard and we conceded a second goal as the Southend forwards took advantage of the youngsters mistake. We held on to the lead and heard the news that Southampton had lost at home and so we were back on top of the table.

Results at a glance

Current League Table

Current squad ratings

Here’s Jay Simpson who has been just outstanding this past month and seems to be in a class of his own at this level.

Next months fixtures

So, we struggled a bit this month with our form and are very fortunate to keep the top spot but Southampton will be always on us I suspect. We start the Road to Wembley next month with the visit of Dagenham and which hopefully will kick start a decent cup run.

Thanks for reading.