Well the law of averages has come along and Argyle have now had two consecutive draws.......some will see it as four points dropped....and if we had taken our chances we would be top of the league this morning two point clear on 21 points.....ok dream on Plym.....life isn't so simple as that. Last week we could have lost against Rovers in injury time except for a great save from Luke.......swings and roundabouts.....a possible three points could have been ziltch. Yesterday the general view was that we should have sewn this game up in the first half.....but we all know that didn't happen.....Mansfield have not yet been beaten at home......a clean sheet and a point away from home should never be sneezed at. Defence wise we have conceded seven goals in nine games.....most clubs would jump at that.......attacking wise we have scored fourteen goals and only four teams have bettered that so far..... and one of those is mid-league and they have conceded more goals than they have scored and that is Carlisle. We started the season very well....,but, have teams now cottoned on to our strengths in mid-field....mainly through Carey and the ability of Jervis to get on the score sheet......we have depended on Reuben Reid for two seasons to get the goals......is the new style bypassing him or are we expecting too much from him at present as he recovers from an injury......he used to be ever present.....being injured was new to him. We have two home games next week against Barnet and Crawley.....we need to win them both and maintain our push for automatic promotion......and follow it up with a win against Exeter in the Cup the following Tuesday.....they are struggling and are ripe for plucking.....we need to score more goals and now is a good time to start doing it.
To his credit, Adams didn't dress up the result against Bristol Rovers and classified it as 2 points dropped. Most managers aren't that honest... We'll see what he says about Saturday's result on Monday I expect. It's probably no more than the bogus correlation by which you can "prove" babies are delivered by storks, but our results seem to have slipped since Reuben Reid came back from injury. Several of Jervis' goals have come from low driven crosses from Wylde (or Tanner if you prefer I suppose) to the far post through the "corridor of uncertainty" between keeper and back four. Yesterday we started with Reid AND Brunt as well as Jervis but with no obvious width. Adams' results have earned the right to mix and match the tactics but at first look that particular combination may be one to keep in the bottom drawer rather than the top one.
I think Reid's shoulders have dropped again and he is struggling once more. He had two reasonable seasons made to look better because nobody else in the team bar Alessandra could score. Now there are others who tuck it away and he is playing second fiddle. I believe he is a confidence player and when that gets knocked then he is a bit of a passenger. I said we should have sewn up the Bristol game by halftime and still believe that despite what may have happened at the end. From what I can gather the Mansfield game was a bit the same with chances going begging. Carey had quite a few attempts and it seems if he isn't knocking one in then we do struggle a bit much in the same way as Reid last term. In the end we kept a point against Bristol but I think Adams might just say the same about Mansfield in that we should have had all the points and dropped another two. As for Barnet, they have improved from a shakey start so it won't be a given. It does seem to me though that everytime somebody says we could go top or should have gone top we bugger it up. Perhaps we shouldn't mention it.....
If Argyle miss out on promotion this year....there is the possibility at the moment that my local team (Bromley, 2miles away) could be playing Argyle next season......they have shot up to 4th in the National League ....into a play-off spot after six consecutive wins......I find that difficult to comprehend.
There always seems to be one team on the up and up from the Conference. You don't have to go back that far for Yeovil, Crawley, Fleetwood and even Stevenage. All it seems to take is for somebody to chuck a few quid at it these days and once the winning habit bites home then up they go. Outreaching themselves is the next problem as Yeovil and Crawley have found. Once in the football league then finance wise it's a whole new ball game.
No money at the Lillywhites or Ravens (Bromley)....just good players managed by Mark Goldberg.....who years back was involved with C Palace. My Son and my Grandson (Charlton Fans) popped down there the other week and were surprised by the standard of football.
It's early days: the league table means very little until well into October. Even then, who knows how well we'll go later on some of the ploughed fields that pass for pitches in this league plus we ahev one or two loanees that will have to be replaced, including Boateng. Adams has indeed said that we should have won at Mansfield but also relvealed that Carey was not 100% fit and that he played Brunt, Reid and Jervis because Mansfield have a very narrow pitch and to give extra height to defend against the aerial bombardment expected from the home side. Right or wrong, this is more meaningful explanation than we got from Sheridan in all the time he was with us!
I don't think anyone on this forum will get carried away even if we did get to No.1. For overreaction you need to go to pasoti for that but even there most posters are firmly with feet on the ground. I do like the fact that Adams seems to tell it how he really saw it and there isn't much dressing added. We all know by now that he actually has a plan B and possibly even C and does use them if things aren't going to plan. I've even seen him change it when we are winning. I would hope that when the time comes the loanees we have might be retained for the rest of the season. In Boateng's case it must be worth his clubs while to leave him here. He is getting great experience and is almost guaranteed a game every week. Has to be better than reserve team stuff or siting on a bench. Think he would opt to stay in those circumstances also.
