Barnet have recruited ex Holland international Edgar Davids as their joint head coach. Davids told the clubs website that he was happy to explore possibilities and share his knowledge and experience with Barnet FC. Good grief thats all we need at the moment.......will Fletcher be able to cope ?
Having seen Plymouth play for the first time this season as a neutral today i think you have a good manager who has got his players well organised and motivated and was encouraging throughout the game. I was standing behind the Plymouth dug out today and from what i saw you could do a lot worst for a manager at this level. The Plymouth game at Barnet last season i remember Peter Reid just standing the whole match with his arms folded in a game in which you were beaten and you have a far better team this year.
Today was a good day shenley but they are far from all like that. We seem to do better away from home but it is the Home games the supporters mainly go to see and the tactics are sadly lacking mostly from an inexperienced manager. More often than not we play one up front no matter who we are playing at home and that isn't good enough for the 6000 who pay to watch. There is a lot of unrest with Fletcher and many who are unsure if he will come good. One match isn't going to change that for most people and he will need to produce much better form in front of them to get people on his side. Not shown that so far. Given our recent history it isn't surprising that people are shaky.
Green Arrrrrrrrrmy 2 wins back to back for Fletch just to change the stats. It really is a case of glass half full, empty or Fletch stole me beer at the moment. This is not the turning point by a longway but if anyone thinks our manager is the root of all our problems well I am sorry but you are mistaken. Our problems are bankrupt, sold our best players and youth, no budget, survived last season with probably only 2 or 3 good promotion quality players and signing freebies again to try to build the team. Owner who will not throw money at the team, he said it before he took over, but will make a survivable business out of the wreckage.... well and for me that is as good as we could have got 12 months ago. Shenly when you saw PR unfortunately I think he was a broken man by then..... got lied to, stitched up by the bosses here and that came onto the pitch but will always be a legend for us in the survival stakes and a good manager for another club in the future.
Barnet improved in the latter part of the first half when they went from 4:4:2 to 4:5:1 - at home. Argyle recovered the initiative at half time when the Fletcher matched that by taking Madjo off and put Gurrieri into the hole, scoring 2 more goals in the second half and generally having the better of it. I cannot understand why anyone's hung up about playing 2 strikers: Argyle made 3 times as many chances as Barnet and ran out pretty comfortable winners. What more could you ask for?
It is encouraging that Fletcher assessed what was needed at half-time and responded and took the initiative away from Barnet........lets hope that he can assess home matches as well and improve our terrible home record.......Rochdale are a strong away team so any points obtained from them will be encouraging.....there are seven teams above us within one win of us.....lets hope this isn't the highest we rise for awhile.
Let's hope the fans get behind the team and the manager and assist in achieving results at home to match those in away games.....
Sorry but IMHO the rot is at HP. The monkey is on the players back and until they grape someone , rape but there was a bunch of them, the kids will struggle. Let Young, Houri,Wotts, Macca and whoever is on the left play it on the ground. The easy ball is into the channels but if they try to play short and get it wrong encourage them do not slaughter them!!!! Look at our home and away form and hand on heart tell me it is not pressure.
It's hard to see what else it could be other than fan behaviour. There have been some questions about the pitch but Argyle play there once every fortnight, whereas the away side get just a few minutes warm up on it. Plymouth is pretty remote for a football club: it's hard to see how travelling can be a good thing, so we ought to be adversely affected in away games and our opponents at Home Park. The balance of results suggests the opposite. It may be that playing away and seeing a 1,000 strong Green Army has come too is inspirational but then, loyal support from 6,000 home fans should be a couple of times as beneficial, if not 6 times. Then there are tactics...... if somebody can explain how those give better results away, please do.
To be fair the travelling distance is not a factor anymore, even at this level most teams will come down the day before. I started watchig Argyle fanatically in the very early 80s and it was not always great at home but it was bloody painful away. Seem to remember singing Jingle bells.....Argyle win away at about Easter one season and that was pretty much it!!!!! So many long trips home pointless but a warm feeling u knew they would travel back the same!! Now it seems a total reverse but why? HP was a fortress but no longer teams come here expecting points and that is hard to change. That is where the midfield comes in to it...... should be welcome to Plymouth, here's the ball and here is the menu for Deriford Hospital if you dare touch it again. We just do not command games but what a suprise with a 21 and 19 year old in the centre. Away from home the pressure is off, I spent 7 seasons or so never missing a match and trust me the GA sings come rain, snow or losing. It really is chicken or egg syndrone at the moment...what came first the support or the win? It is one of those things that even if the boo boys, WILL NEVER AGREE, shut their mouths it will help but only a little. The monkey is on the back and it is hard to get it off. Once it is gone GRRRRRRRReeeeeeeeen Arrrmy, good away record plus 3 points at home......THE GREENS ARE GOING UP, THE GREENS ARE GOING UP AND NOW YOUR GONNA BELIEVE ME..... PS I still believe in Santa
No team travels on the day anymore so the advantage of a 6/8/10 hour road trip and stiff legs for the opposition no longer applies. It was the reason once upon a time that it was fortress Home Park and Argyle won little away. Not like it now. But, mexijan is right. There does seem to be a mentality about home games and there is no doubt a monkey on their backs as he puts it. They don't believe in themselves at home for some bizaar reason and fear teams they should beat fairly easily. Sorry notdistant but your blaming of the home supporters is so wrong if persistent. The fans don't play the football and it is totally unfair to say they have not backed the side previously. They have in numbers the club has not deserved and very vocally as well. There is a lot of frustration with the poor performances at home and it is only really recently that this has manifested itself into booing. The supporters elsewhere would have been doing this long ago and throughout. Don't keep putting the blame on the paying customer because that is just an excuse. It is one you would not accept from any other entertainment source so why single out football as different.
Sorry, sensible, have to disagree for once. Booing is stupid and counter-productive. This is, by and large, a young team. Yes, they make mistakes but if the players are booed every time they try something and it doesn't come off then they are never going to try and it will be back to hoofball. I know we agree that fans will forgive anything for three points a match but I do believe that Fletcher is working towards something that will be really worthwhile in a year or two. I don't understand the impatience. We are doing OK compared to the last few seasons and while we all love promotion and 100 + points let's all be realistic; we are lucky to have a club of any sort and lucky to be in the League. Everyone needs to keep the faith a bit more. I'm not known for mindless optimism but I can see we are making progress. Of course we would like more but booing the team and constantly calling for the manager to be sacked (not you - a general observation) is not going to achieve very much in that direction.
Do you feel even a little bit foolish now, Plymborn? I know it's only a matter of opinion but the anti-Fletcher posts are becoming a bit of a running sore now. What does he have to do to get you to back the team while he's in charge? We've had a few false starts since Ollie left but at last we have a manager that is trying to play good football, using the kids and seems to have the dressing room solidly behind him. Yes, he does have a lot to learn but I think he, too, is making progress. Very few managers of any quality work in League Two unless they are just starting out and learning the trade. We don't have the money for a big name so we are always going to muddle along with an unknown. Perhaps the moaners would be more kindly disposed if Fletcher had come in from outside instead of being the internal choice. That seems to have bred the view that he was given the job on the cheap and undermined him with a certain section of the supporters. I may well be wrong, and if so I'll hold my hands up, but I think he's growing into the job and a another couple of wins will put more confidence into everyone's game, including Fletcher. It's hard being a new boss in any walk of life and the good ones grow into it as they get experience and learn a bit more. The bad ones usually sink without trace. Fletcher came through a pretty tough baptism last year, achieving what a vastly more experienced manager could not and still he gets no credit. Seems a bit blinkered to me...
Two things Westernmac. Firstly this booing thing. It is simply not true that the supporters boo players at the slightest hint of something bad happening. The booing, and I have been to all but one home match, only really happened when the performance of the whole team was complete and utter garbage. I've said this many time, I do not boo personally. But what are supporters supposed to do when they see play like that? How else do they show some sort of disapproval. It isn't just the young ones either. Blanchard got jeered and so did purse and Williams. I don't condone booing but I can understand, having been there watching and equally frustrated, why some do it. To imply that the supporters of Argyle have not got behind the team generally and have not been patient is simply not right. They continue to go which shows support in itself and is desperately what the club needs in the finance. A lot of other clubs would have shipped a couple of thousand out of the ground by now if they put on those performances. I just refuse to agree it is down to their actions that the form or play has been poor a number of times. The second point is the Fletcher one and I offer a defence on behalf of plymborn although he is big enough, old enough and probably ugly enough to defend himself. Fletcher has seldom shown much in the way of tactical know how. People accept he is inexperienced to a point and allow him a bit of that. It is however when the thing is going wrong, everyone within a mile of the ground can see it is going wrong and Fletcher doesn't appear to have a clue what to do about it or in most cases even seem to try. He has a lot to learn tactically and it shows. The problem a lot have, and it isn't just plymborn is that we have undergone a huge fall from grace and there has been so much to be negative about. There is fear that we cannot afford another fall and it has at times looked like happening. I don't think people genuinely expect promotion this year or ever have in reality but they also don't expect a struggle and it has looked like we are or have been struggling. Fletcher in my view needs to be bolder and set the team up to win, especially at home, and not simply not to lose. I would however agree that little credit is given for last season because in our hearts and heads we were doomed but it didn't happen according to the script. I've always said that if you knock when it goes wrong then you must praise when it goes the other way. Nothing is a oneway street. I'm not convinced about Fletcher at all but he is the man in post so we live with it. Next week I might change my view depending on the result which is ever the way with fans.
Why on earth would I feel "a little foolish"....Westernmac.....because we've reached the dizzy height of 18th in the basement Division.....and have amassed the fantastic total of 5 points at home.....these are the worst two seasons that PAFC have ever had in 125 years.....and I still can't get my head around the depths this club has sunk to...... and some say that Fletcher is doing a good job.......I do think that this squad is better than 50% of teams in this Division and if we can wait long enough for Fletcher to gain experience it might be able to prove it.....it's been a risky 12 month experiment so far which Argyle didn't need to go through.
