So, apparently our record against Oxford at their place is not great. In fact it is bleddy awful. Should we therefore go down the route of the pessimistic element of our green Brethren or should we invest a bit of faith in our new found streak of games? It's the usual $64,000 question when it comes to Argyle. We fight like a beast to get to the top spot in historical terms and then 99 out of a 100 throw it away with the baby and bathwater. I think we shouldn't get carried away and at best be just quietly optimistic. If we don't shout too loud and it goes tits up we can always then claim that we knew it would and not show any disappointment. Our record this season shows we can get a result here no matter what out previous history says. As we are in this season and not historical ones I'm going to be bold and say we can do it for once. COYG
From what I can see Oxford is the third shortest away trip this season...411 miles round trip....so it's literally a "local derby" for us. The two shorter journeys are....... 1.....Cheltenham....315 miles. 2.....Portsmouth...380 miles.
Cooper, Grant, Gillesphey, Scarr, Wilson, Edwards, Broom, Houghton, Camara, Jephcott, Garrick. Subs Burton, Hardie, Mayor, Agard, Galloway, Law, Jenkins-Davies. Surprisingly we have Hardie on the bench.....is he carrying an injury ?....So Garrick starts in attack....or are we going only one up front ? Also no Randell on the bench has he picked up an injury ? One comment on Hardie is that he was un-well yesterday.
Garrick has scored and is doing some things well but his positional play in this position is causing some problems. Getting caught offside a lot for one thing. Scarr booked for a professional foul to stop an Oxford breakaway. Very much an orange card and he can't afford another misdemeanor.
Mayor making the difference. He attracts defenders to him pops the ball to Grant who puts Camara in for his second. Great to see Camara scoring. Hopefully the confidence will help him get more.
Oh ye of little faith. We won't stay top etc etc. Lets hear it then. WE ARE TOP BECAUSE WE DESERVE TO BE AND WE ARE A BLEDDY GOOD TEAM.
Oxford started better but Argyle got them gripped and have played them off the park with 3 great goals.
Mayor comes on for Broom and plays well to help snuff out Oxford's attempt of getting an equaliser....wow I never thought I'd ever say that.
I just watched the 90 minutes. A 1-3 scoreline suggests this was easy. It wasn't. Oxford started the first half strongly and in truth dominated most of the second half. However, I think the first time Michael Cooper did anything notable was to dive onto a dangerous low cross... in the 88th minute. Oxford had chances but apart from the one they scored after rare slack defending, was about the only one that hit the target. They didn't quite have the pace of Garrick. They didn't quite have the stature of Houghton. They didn't quite have the energy of Camara and Broom. They certainly didn't have the elusive ability of Danny Mayor to hold the ball until someone was in space. Narrow margins but over a decent Oxford team who look like Top 10 material at least. Too early to get carried away but I've bought 4 Flexi tickets this week. It may be difficult to get tickets when there are 13 to play rather than 13 on the board.
You know what I'm not even going to comment on this. It just speaks volumes for itself. What's the saying, "Now you've gotta believe us".
No so I won't mention they also don't quite have Niall Ennis and indeed neither do we. I've gone gone from thinking our season was over without him to wondering if he'll get a game.