Encouraging Signs For Cox
Torquay United continued their preparations for the new season with a second home fixture against football league opposition, when Yeovil Town came to the Launa Windows Stadium on Wednesday night.
New United manager Paul Cox continued with his formation of 3-4-1-2 with the experienced Exodud Geohaghan playing in the centre of Angus MacDonald and trialist Jamie Richards.
With the injury to James Hurst, Cox went with another trialist Sam Topliss as the right wing back and Dan Butler on the left.
The goalkeeper situation is still an area of question for Cox but for this fixture he saved the temptation to play a keeper in each half and gave 90 minutes to Fabian Spiess leaving youngster Dan Lavercombe on the bench.
Skipper Luke Young continued in the centre of the Gulls midfield with Bayan Fenwick playing alongside him. The former Palace man looked a shored in the centre and produced some quality moments to give Cox much to ponder before the start of the season.
In attack the United manager opted to go with Ashley Yeoman, Waide Fairhurst and sitting just behind the front two Louis Briscoe.
‘We tried to implement a few things tonight that we worked on following the Newport game’ Cox said ‘but there are still areas that we need to improve on in the final third’.
‘We need to address some deficiencies in the squad which I will be hopefully doing in the next 72 hours’ Cox added
Torquay took a well deserved lead on 15 minutes, when Butler produced a fine low cross for Briscoe to side foot home from a tight angle from 6 yards out.
The lead lasted 11 minutes. Shaun Jeffers getting Yeovil back on level terms after the impressive Iffy Allen produced another fine cross for the striker to head into the net with United’s keeper Spiess caught out.
The visitors winner came 3 minutes into the second half, with a great 30 yard strike from Matt Dolan with his left foot. If Spiess, in the Torquay goal had a poor position for the first, he had no chance with the second, as it flew into the bottom left hand corner.
The second half had the usual pre-season flurry of substitutions from both managers but non of which changed the scoreline, with the league two side running out 2-1 winners.
‘I’m a lot happier with our performance tonight, than against Newport’, Cox added, ‘We lost to two very good goals. The second of which I’m sure we won’t see much better here all season’.
United will now face Truo on Saturday before home games against local rivals Plymouth Argyle and Exeter City.
