Monthly Review - August
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The competitive season seems to come around a lot faster than usual these days and it's already well underway for us at Torquay having played our first full month of English league football and my what a start we've had.
We were predicted by the media to finish 9th at the start of the season and so far it seems we're living up to expectations. Eagle eyed viewers will have noticed that in the last post the screenshot of fixtures included our 2-1 win over Accrington Stanley which was a fine start however me being the blind bat I am, it was meant to be included in this update but I failed to see which month it was in at the time of taking the screenshot.
So Accrington, despite your loss there's your honourable mention.
We headed to Carlisle in our second game of the season and were left feeling blue at FT. I thought we played really well in this one, dominating most of possession and registering more shots on goal but when it came down to it Carlisle were really good at finishing off the rare chances they did have.
We were no match for Oxford in the Carabao Cup. This is the first time we've played in the competition so it's a shame to crash out so early on but we played a decent game against higher opposition and I can't fault the boys.
Salford at home, much better. 2-1 the final score. It came from Kalala, an absolute screamer from the edge of the box just at a point when it was looking like the game was going to end all equal. The character we showed to pull through this one with all three was really pleasing to see given that Salford are no easy team to beat.
Potential relegation fodder Newport met the same fate as our last two victims. 2-1 on the night and it was that man again Kevin Kalala who won it all for the Gulls. 9 points from 4 games in the league is certainly something to shout about from a recently non league side.
Chesterfield are a team we played twice in our first season at Torquay and all though we beat them both times scoring 6 in 2, but this time was a completely different story. Although we out played them in every department we somehow managed to leak a whopping 4 goals at the back. It was 0-0 at half time and im not quite sure how we managed to let this one slip so badly, we dominated.
The next match was more of the same. To a point we were fantastic but somewhere a long the lines everything just fell apart. 7 goals conceded in the last two games is really not a strong structure for survival. Much to be improved again.
Third time lucky right? This was a walkover although the scoreline may not suggest it. Southend registered two shots on goal which only goes on to reiterate our defensive issues. Luckily, Whitfield was on top form and got us a much needed win in the Leasing.com trophy.
11th is a strong point to be at to begin with. We've had a lot of defensive issues which I'm not happy about but what I think is more important is that we've had bigger issues putting the ball in the back of the net before things can develop against our favour.
Stewart has made an immediate impact scoring 4 goals but his month long injury has forced Borja into the first team, as Jamie Reid is out for 4 months already.
With Borja our only striker left, it makes perfect sense for him to just jet off on u21s international duty.
So with a grand total of zero strikers available at the club, Whitfield has been filling in up top and to the best of his ability too.