This was Ryan Lowe's first Argyle league game last season....a 3-0 win at Crewe.....a long time twelve months.
M Cooper, Watts, Aimson, Wootton, Canavan, Fornah, Camara, G Cooper, Moore, Mayor, Nouble. Subs McCormick, Edwards, Hardie, Grant, MacLeod, Opoku, Jephcott. What the hell is Lowe trying....looks like a back four...with Nouble up front alone. Three of his best players on the bench...Jephcott, Grant and Edwards....is he trying for a 0-0 draw....surely not with Wootton and Canavan in the team. Maybe Lowe is showing signs of desperation....or are they all Covid supercharged.
2-0...H/T. Argyle have had 44% of possession.....Shots... nil...On target...nil...Corners...nil...and one yellow (Fornah). Not much to say is there......no defence....and no attack...who coaches them. At least I haven't wasted £10 watching it.
Despite the score (which you can't say really) we look more robust but toothless up front. You can't have everything or in our case, anything. I can't help feeling Cooper would be better crossing from the left with Mayor in the hole rather than the other way around. It's individual errors again: Watts was it on the left for the first and Wootton at the back post for the second.
Another defeat I know but that was better, especially in the second half when we reverted to 3:5:2. There's not much a manager can do about individual errors. Perhaps if we can put some results together, confidence will do the trick. Other than that, if these players can't do it, we'll have to get others.
All I could do at half time was hold my head in my hands. Our stats as said above were zero and to be fair we were lucky to have that. There just seemed to be no energy or heart anywhere in an Argyle shirt. Agree second half was better but not at the start of it. It took 15 to 20 minutes for us to kick start that half. The goals against were once again simple errors. How it was only 2 at the break god alone knows. Crewe ran us ragged and their No.10 was everywhere. They received the ball and passed it quickly knowing there would be a player in a huge great space. We just sat there and let that happen. When we did get the ball they closed us down quickly and we kindly gave it back. Lowe appeared to do nothing at all about any of that. I think he is only any use when his team are winning. When they aren't he hasn't a clue how to beef them up. You would have to ask if he has just been lucky in his managerial career so far and has never had it tough to test him. Now he has he is found wanting and perhaps isn't quite the manager we thought he was. Once again not impressed tonight.
Half time was lunch time here. A soup and sandwich, then back to the game. Not a chance that Argyle would tie it up. All I could do at half time was hold my head in my hands. Our stats as said above were zero and to be fair we were lucky to have that. There just seemed to be no energy or heart anywhere in an Argyle shirt. Agree second half was better but not at the start of it. It took 15 to 20 minutes for us to kick start that half. The goals against were once again simple errors. How it was only 2 at the break god alone knows. Crewe ran us ragged and their No.10 was everywhere. They received the ball and passed it quickly knowing there would be a player in a huge great space. We just sat there and let that happen. When we did get the ball they closed us down quickly and we kindly gave it back. Lowe appeared to do nothing at all about any of that. I think he is only any use when his team are winning. When they aren't he hasn't a clue how to beef them up. You would have to ask if he has just been lucky in his managerial career so far and has never had it tough to test him. Now he has he is found wanting and perhaps isn't quite the manager we thought he was. Once again not impressed tonight. I just used your report Sensible, saved me from writing it..
So even with only half a game Jephcott is the only scorer....I just wonder what he might do in 90 minutes.....trouble is it's so long ago since he got 90 minutes no one can remember. To start without Jephcott, Edwards, Grant on the field looks like we have to play with a handicap against us. As sensible said it looks like Lowe only looks good when his team is willing....I agree....I have mention something similar recently. When we're not performing and you have to take off your golden boy Mayor...you wonder if Lowe has any idea how to reverse his losing streak....now 6 league games on the trot....managers have been sacked for that level of performance.
Be my guest BC. There is not a chance Lowe will be sacked. He has got a couple of years left on his contract and there is no way we can pay compo to him and all his backroom boys. I think it is unfair to disparage Mayor and class him as golden boy. He is skillfull at what he does but he does the same thing almost every time. These players in league one suss him out too easily and he is now almost ineffective in the games. He needs to be varied in where he plays and how he plays but not sure he can. Don't think Lowe is the man to change that either. He is being marked out of the game and once out of it disappears. You also have to remember that Jephcott is a young player and he cannot realistic play two games a week for 90 minutes and remain effective. I think Lowe is right to give him less time rather than wear him out completely with half the season left to go.
You're all getting a bit overwrought I think. Firstly, the Jephcott thing. There is no way he can be expected to play two full matches a week plus the travelling. The problem isn't Jephcott, it's Hardie, Nouble & Telford not scoring. You can add Danny Mayor and George Cooper to that list too as our other most creative players. Every manager in the league is complaining about fixture congestion due the season starting late and that's why 5 substitutions are being allowed. Lowe needs to be able to rely on all of his players. He started last night with a 4:4:1:1 arrangement to try to stop the flood of early goals we've conceded. You can argue whether that was the best option: personally I think a 5:3:2 might have been better: it just means the WBs playing as full backs and easily morphs back into 3:5:2 when the time is right. If you are playing with a single striker, Nouble is the only one big enough and ornery enough to play that physically demanding role. As it happens the tactical plan was yet again undone by two silly defensive errors. There is room for complaint about recruitment. In the closed season, we all said strengthening the defence was key. We brought in two Premier League youngsters and a Championship youngster who's been deployed in the key DM role. I think Kelland Watts has done OK, Opoku doesn't look ready for the League 1 battlefield and Fornah looks better going forward than doing the ugly stuff. Of the CBs available to us, Niall Canavan is big and strong and has 200 ish league appearances under his belt, a lot more than Scott Wootton, and has made fewer obvious howlers than Wootton and Opoku. To me, he has to start between Watts and Aimson. Back to the future in fact. We looked better with Lewis Mcleod on and perhaps he's the man to shield the back 3. The situation is grim but somehow confidence needs to be rebuilt. Lowe has clearly been knocked back by a string of terrible performances none of us expected. He needs to pick a team and avoid knee jerk changes fuelled in part by fans flip flopping from "we're going to piss this league" to " they're all useless, Lowe out" in a matter of weeks. Sensible will confirm that the Mayor/Cooper combination has been a devasting weapon at times. Maybe we do need a more solid combination using the likes of Conor Grant and Joe Edwards for the time being.
