Operation Matador needed much stronger ground forces

What if Operation Matador had been carried out successfully?

It could disrupt the Japanese landing plan, but Britain lacked the several prepared divisions needed to make the operation viable.

Operation Matador aimed to occupy southern Thailand before Japanese landings could establish the Malayan invasion route. Britain might accept the diplomatic consequences, as it did in other wartime occupations, if the military benefit were sufficient. Success would deny or disrupt the lodgment from which Japan drove down the peninsula. The decisive problem was force availability: at least an armored division and two fully worked-up infantry divisions were needed.