THE Capital One Cup dream died at the first hurdle after a brutal night at Plainmoor for the Gulls.
Leicester City swept into round two with a 4-0 victory and United manager Martin Ling admitted his side played well below the required standard against a strong Championship outfit.
It is now a case of quickly dusting away the disappointment ahead of the long trip to Fleetwood for the opening fixture of the League 2 season on Saturday.
“We were well beaten on the night and if you play a team of Leicester’s quality, all 11 players need to reach their potential,” said Martin.
“We only had three or four players who did that and I know it’s a recurring sentence, but it’s even more true against Leicester because you don’t get away with sloppy mistakes.
“The first goal could have been stopped at source by Joe Oastler, the second goal saw Damon Lathrope caught in a bad position and commit a foul, although the free-kick was obviously quality. Overall, it was disappointing because we didn’t give Leicester a real game.
“We had an awful lot of people not getting away from their markers and not asking enough questions. We lacked pace out wide and that was evident, but Ian Morris wants to play in midfield and I agree entirely, while Ryan Jarvis is a centre-forward playing out there.
“We have three players unavailable out wide and Danny Stevens and Billy Bodin would have started, and Lloyd Macklin has been brilliant in pre-season. It was one area we did lack but not the only reason we lost the game.
“The centre-backs coped quite well but the full-backs were not up to the standard I expect, and I don’t think our passing asked them enough questions.
“We will assess injuries ahead of Fleetwood. Macklin has a chance, Danny Stevens has an outside chance and we hope Billy Bodin comes back with a clean bill of health from the Welsh game tonight.
“It will be a different occasion on Saturday. I was hoping Leicester would be another building block in terms of confidence after the Leeds and Stoke games, but we had a reality check. Their movement was excellent but we made it too easy for them.”