Paul Wotton ‘embarrassed, frustrated and angry’ with Worthing defeat

After a scintillating run of form that has taken Torquay United to the top of the National League South, a painful 5-1 defeat at Worthing in the FA Trophy left manager Paul Wotton in a state of embarrassed shock.

The Gulls spurned an early opportunity but were then struck by a four-goal blitz from the hosts, including a hat-trick for Muhammadu Faal, which ended United’s hopes of progress before the half-time whistle.

There was improvement after the break, substitute Jordan Young pulled one back with a free-kick, but Worthing rubbed salt into an open wound with a late fifth.

“I’m a bit embarrassed,” said Wotton. “The irony is that we missed an open goal in the first five minutes but the manner of the goals we conceded in the first half was not acceptable, and very surprising.

“It was a disappointing afternoon but the fans were unbelievable, still clapping us at the end, so it’s a tough one to take. Worthing are obviously a very good team and I heard their manager’s interview after our win at home [Plainmoor], so fair play to them.

“There is a lot of disappointment, frustration, embarrassment and anger from me, not a great day.”

The major concern for Wotton, along with conceding poor goals, was the lack of discipline from his players in failing to stick with the pre-match plan.

“We had players doing whatever they wanted on the pitch,” added Wotton. “When I say embarrassed, it’s because it looked like they hadn’t been coached. They just took it upon themselves to do whatever they wanted.

“We didn’t do any of the basics and they’ve been told.

“I’d rather it happened here than in a league game but we wanted to progress. We were lazy, looking for offsides that weren’t there, not tracking runners, it was so far away from what we are and that is where the word embarrassment comes in.

“We will have to get over it quickly because it’s a kick up the bum. Our league form has been tremendous for a reason and we didn’t carry that into the game.

“Worthing were superior to us, I’m not taking anything away from that, but we were poor. Some of the boys thought they had a divine right to just turn up.”

While this result will hurt for a while, it does not take away from United’s superb form in the league and there will be hard work in training to get things right ahead of the visit from Welling on Saturday, and a chance to cement their place as league leaders.

“We’ve got Welling at home on Saturday and we’re back into the Saturday-Saturday schedule for two weeks, so we can get on the training ground and get some good work done,” said Wotton.

“We will reset, go through it all again. The players will be bored in training this week but I’m not too bothered about that. It’s important for people to realise we are bitterly disappointed and I am very angry.”