Keep it clean at Torquay United with a stronger defensive platform

If you asked most Torquay United supporters, and definitely manager Paul Wotton, what their first priority was at The Beveree ground last night, it would be a ‘0’ against the name of Hampton & Richmond.

‘Clean sheets’ win matches. The Gulls had 18 of them in 46 league games last season.

Throw in the least defeats (7) and the second lowest goals-against tally (42), and you have several big reasons why, in a rags-to-nearly-riches campaign, they finished second on goal-difference.

Many times, even at Plainmoor, we walked away saying ‘It wasn’t great, was it?’...’Yeah, but we won again!’

Second would rate as a success in most divisions, but in the only-champions-up National League, especially at a club like Torquay, it’s a failure in some eyes.

So this summer Wotton set about trying to sign some better-quality forwards, to play a more attacking, entertaining style.

When you also have to keep winning, it’s not a given and it’s not easy.

Sure enough, United went to Hampton last night as the second top scorers in the NLS. Only early leaders Hornchurch had been involved in more goals (22 to 21).

They’ve been great value at Plainmoor, winning all their first three home games, scoring three goals each time.

But they had also conceded more goals (nine in six games) than any side in the top-seven.

Of course, you can crush numbers like that til the sun goes down, but the fact is that the defence, which was so formidable last season, is not looking anything like as secure.

Add an injury-list which has ravaged the rest of the team, especially in midfield, and you have a recipe for the sort of criticism which often seems to ramp up when United lose to almost anyone.

Some of it has been over the top.

Despite their remarkable home gates, United do not have the biggest budget in the NLS – far from it.

Wotton has actually been accused of being too defensive in some quarters.

What, when United have played with two wingers and two strikers from Day One?

Those injuries, and another disappointing away-day at Hemel Hempstead Town last Saturday, may well have prompted Wotton to be more conservative at Hampton. Understandably so.

But let’s keep things in some sort of perspective.

Former United boss Gary Johnson used to say ‘Just when you think your ship is chugging along pretty well, there’s often an iceberg coming at you out of the fog’.

Wotton knows what he’s got going forward, especially when those injuries clear up. But it’s that once-miserly defence which suddenly needs some attention.

Clean sheets – aren’t they lovely!