Got to get back in the groove for raising threads for this. Nearly forgot. So, squad not complete and the nervous are worried we have nobody who can score goals. Shock horror this is Argyle for christ sake. Of course we can win the opening game. COYG
Barnsley finished 12th in League 1 last year but took only 9 points from their last 10 games: quite a limp finish if you will pardon the phrase. We took 16 from our last 10. But this is a new season in a new division with new players and in out case, a new manager. Barnsley are managed by Conor Hourihane, once of this parish, who took over only in April this year. In other words.... who knows? I've put it down as a home win on the basis of the stats, such as they are. Those stats would also lead you to expect a high scoring game.... I've gone for 2-1 but 3-2 wouldn't be a shock.
Ashby-Hammond...Sorinola...Szucs...Palsson...Galloway...Wiredu...Boateng...Amaechi...Ibrahim...Mumba...Watts. Subs. Baker...Edwards...Benarous...Paterson...Oseni...Issaka...Finn.
0-2.....H/T Wiredu (13mins og).....Phillips (30mins). Not going to plan......started well but an early goal ruled out because of a foul.
1-3.....F/T. Watts (50mins)................Wiredu (13og).....Phillips (30mins).....Keillor-Dunn (86mins) .........................................Shepherd (63mins Red Card) Not quite stronghold Home Park especially against 10 men for half an hour. 22nd in the league.....not one drawn match ?
Just been reading thru pasoti.....and now I'm depressed. Watts sounds to be the MoM by far.....and we got him from Exeter... After only three pre-season warm ups..... where we ready for the real thing....most players didn't seem to be. Tom Cleverley needs to sort this mess out.....even playing 10 men for half an hour didn't give them any advantage.
Sunny afternoon, 16,000+ and only 800 of them, what could go wrong? Well, a complete inability to defend in the first half, that’s what. I was surprised by a back 3 with Sorinola and and Mumba as wing backs. It wasn’t the shape that failed so much as the lack of a Dan Scarr type figure to enforce the basics. I appreciate Cleverley wants to play football but you only get away with so many square passes across the back before disaster strikes. And strikes again. It was a bad tempered affair with Barnsley showing all the dark arts and we weren’t given a fair run of the green by a poor referee. The more promising bits were Watts and Amaechi, particularly the latter, who not only played well but orchestrated the crowd and instructed the ball-boys how to return the ball.
OMG............................................... You could write a book about this one and I don't intend to go that far. Basically we gave them 3 goals today. The first I could not understand at all. Weirdu poked out his foot when he could have just let the ball go by, with no pressure, and scored an own goal at the back post. It was bizaar to watch from my lofty seat. The second was a failure by anyone to defend a ball. They seemed to looka ta each other expecting something and then did nothing much. The third was another case of looking at each other and letting the opposition have the ball. From todays specatacle you would be forgiven for thinking there has been no defensive training at all in the close season. Despite that going forward we were quite reasonable but failed to do enough when we did. Generally poor finishing even if there were some bright moments and effort. I will not even try to explain the officials today. My son said "this is league one dad, remember what it was like?" Sadly I do. If I was a conspiracy theorist I might even have sugested this lot had a bet on an outcome. Can't say score because none were responsible for the three against except ourselves. Watts was by far the MOM today even if he did come from Exeter. He is our's now so that part of his career doesn't count. I agree with you notdistant. We need a Scar type at the back. Somebody needs to lead them and they were not on the pitch today. If we carry on with that sort of performance at the back then we will be in league two never mind fighting to return to Championship level.
I don’t know much about how referees are selected. Now we’re down here again, do we get a lesser breed of referee as a matter of policy? Now I know fans would complain about a referee if he was the Archangel Gabriel in disguise, come to bring God’s Will direct to the football field. However, that bloke yesterday was absolutely dreadful. At around the hour mark, he booked their player Shepherd and was about to let play restart when a voice in his earpiece obviously said “Errmm you’ve already booked that guy”. Would he have booked him if he’d realised it would mean a red? Would he have even given the free kick? Because he should assess each incident on its own merits but I think from the rest of his performance, he’d have bottled it. This was never more clearly seen than in the first half when their keeper wiped out the excellent Watts 10 or more yards outside the penalty box in an offence more like Grievous Bodily Harm With An Intent To Endanger Life than a bookable offence. Incredibly, he didn’t even give a free kick because surely if he had, he’d have had to red card him. Keepers can’t just charge that far out of their area and then just body-check the player who’s on the ball. They can’t have a hall-pass to come out of their area and just flatten someone just because keepers can’t be expected to tackle like proper players. Well this guy seems to think they can.
Seems to me that Argyle weren't ready for the start of the season yesterday....so many new faces playing their first league game for the club. Only three friendlies played....two against lesser opposition that did nothing else but put a few more miles into their legs.....and one against superior opposition that just rang alarm bells that we weren't really a team but a bunch of individuals, How ready was our new manager Tom Cleverley to the requirements of league battle.....the team nearly picked itself....because of injuries a few players that might of been available had to sit the game out......did Cleverley have a plan two etc when thing so easily went wrong.....we had three youngsters on the bench and our attacking options were limited to Oseni who has very little league football experience.....how do you think Cleverley did......was it obvious that he had them playing to his requirements....or did it look as if they had no idea what was required of them and what we saw was a bunch of individuals ....that became easy pickings in the end for a team that played over 30 minutes with ten men and had the last laugh with a third goal. Next game is away to Bolton...who are expected to be stronger opposition than yesterdays fare.....Cleverley needs to put his thinking cap on and start solving a few glaring problems that made us look bottom half opposition this season......and I put them down for tenth position come the new year.....wow i'd bite your hand off for that result at the moment.....if it doesn't improve by then Cleverley might be down the job centre looking for a new job.
It’s a bit early to be questioning the manager and the players. We played some really expansive football going forward with several magnificent (and I chose that word carefully) cross field balls from Amaechi. I haven’t seen passes like that since Graham Carey. Think on that for a moment. Mumba was a handful down the left and Watts we’ve talked about. Despite the horrendous own goal in the first public friendly, which could have been induced by a bobbly pitch (it was a small ground), the keeper did OK and produced some smart saves. Yesterday was all about bad defending. The own-goal was a shocker: he just seemed to pass it into the net under no real pressure. From there it went from bad to worse. Tom Cleverley said that our problems were “without the ball” so there’s no disagreement there. He’s also has stated that Argyle are in fact llooking to sign three players - a No 9 type striker, a centre-back and a third to cover any deficits that show up in early games. Tom Cleverley targets three more Plymouth Argyle signings https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/sp...mouth-argyle-signings-10395680?utm_source=app
Sorry, one other point. I had got the impression that we’d be playing 4 at the back but in fact we started with a 3. That means we have the “Mumba at wing-back” problem which Sorinla has a trace of too. In one of the friendlies, we seemed to have a four with Joe Edwards moving into that “inverted full back” role. It’s easy to say “we need new players” but there’s also the question of how we deploy what we’ve got.
We have been named with a few strikers in the last few weeks.....and most of them prefer to stay more local and end up with what I would say as lesser teams............moving south west does seem to be coming more of a problem in recent times.....why isn't Argyle seen as a good destination anymore. We must be getting near the bottom of our list......maybe a decent loan will appear soon as Premier and Championship team sort out who is surplus to their first choice squads.
