No Joe we had already qualified before tonight for the knock-out stage. A win tonight would have given us a home tie.
The first link is Argyle's 2 minute highlights and the second, Bristol Rovers' 10 minute highlights. I've watched the Argyle 10 minute version with a Green commentary but that's behind the ArgyleTV subscription. No doubt you'd get a quite different impression from listening the Rovers' audio so I'd turn the volume down and form your own conclusion. From text commentary last night, it seemed that Argyle had taken a bit of a beating, with constant references to shots and saves at the Argyle defensive end. Looking at the video is a bit different: yes there are shots but often the corner flag is more at risk than the goal net. Yes, Ashby-Hammond made some saves but they are very routine. In the 10 minute version, you can see that Ashby-Hammond made a terrible mistake to give Rovers their goal, but right before that, the Rovers' keeper very nearly scored an almost comical own-goal. That's been the story of recent games. The event that turned it though was the sending off. The Argyle commentary made the point that the lino, who'd have been very close to the incident on the offside line didn't flag. The ref who was some distance away and potentially behind other players did. Cleverley said it was naïve and so it was. Was it a red card though? Not for me. The attacker has hold of Szucs' arm and twists him away from the ball, without which he might well have cleared it. Szucs then does the same and gets sent off. Six of one and half-a-dozen of the other. That's been the story of recent games.
EFL VERTU TROPHY....Second round. Tues 2nd Dec away at Leyton O...ko 7.00pm. Winner pockets £20,000. Lorent Tolaj will be available for this game....it does look difficult not to have to play him with the strikers we have at the club.
The game is on Sky Sports - presumably Sky Sports+ as there are also three Premier League games, Blackburn v Ipswich in the Championship and the Women's Nations League final and runners-up game.
Ashby-Hammond...Ross...Wiredu...Pleguezuelo...Paterson...Edwards...Tolaj...Oseni...Roberts...Sorinola...Dale. Subs Hazard...Mumba...Mitchell...Boateng...McCabe...Hatch...Finn. Pleguezuelo returns from injury.....Wiredu starts...Edwards in and Captain.....Ashby-Hammond gets a game.....Tolaj plays before his three game ban.
0-1.....F/T......(90+6mins) Tolaj (90+3mins) Tolaj of course ....who else can score...? Three games now without him.....
Cleverley said he liked the determined and disciplined style of the win at Port.Vale. He got the same tonight. I wouldn’t say it was pretty but Argyle certainly held their own throughout and probably looked the more likely to create something. Interestingly he seemed to have opted for two up front -Tolaj and Oseni - which worked pretty well. Orient could well have had their right back sent off for two cynical trips but the ref refused to show a second yellow. Their keeper certainly should have been given a straight red (and Argyle a penalty) for a wild charge out into a crowd of players for a high ball with his arm and fist held out like a battering ram. Keepers seem to have the dispensation to do that sort of thing. Edwards remonstrated long and loud with the ref shortly afterwards when Orient were given a free kick for a far less dangerous challenge by an Argyle outfield player. One rule for keepers and another for the rest….. With penalties looming, Argyle pressed hard in the dying minutes. Tolaj received the ball a few yards out with his back to goal. Surrounded by defenders. 999 players out of 1,000 would have laid it back to someone facing the goal. Not Tolaj, who casually back heeled it into the net. We’re going to miss him…..
Tom Cleverley in his post match interview said..."we created enough chances for others to show we can cope without him for sure"....this is regarding Lorent Tolaj being unavailable for the next three matches....... This is a team that has had no other scorer than Tolaj since Burton away....on SEPTEMBER 27TH when we won 4-0...Tolaj 2...Oseni & Pepple. We have only scored five league goal since then....all by Lorent Tolaj. PS.....Orient made nine changes for this match....we seven.
For God’s Plym, be thankful for small mercies. I watched all 90 minutes. You? Or those you have been listening to? We’ve won against a team in our league. Ten places above us actually. We made some changes; no doubt they did too. We were pretty strong at the back and with two up front, both attackers were able to receive the ball in a bit of space. That shows in the attacking stats which we win reasonably comfortably. In an almost empty stadium, our fans made most of the noise too. Impressive considering it’s NE London at 7pm on a weekday. It doesn’t surprise me though as when I was commuting into Lindon, I had one of those photocopier chats with another guy. He asked who I supported and I said Argyle, expecting him to say “Arsenal” or something. But no. Amazingly, he revealed himself to be a committee member of something called PASLIL (I think) - Plymouth Argyle Supporters Living In London. It’s a shame not everyone remembers we are supporters. Thick and thin.
Over 900 + minutes (10 matches) since any other player has scored....it's his casual attitude regarding such an embarrassing statistic ....that must be some type of record.
Well that’s what I’m telling you about 4:4:2. Old fashioned perhaps but it gave Tolaj more room and Oseni his best game for Argyle. I hope to see it again on Saturday although who then takes Tolaj’s place I have no idea.
Freda the tea lady....could put her trolly to one side for an hour or two. Maybe we should be hoping for an own goal....and a clean sheet.........
A good watch that video.....and that was a strikers goal if there ever was one.....just natural skill...and a few yards out as well.....not many players would have come up with such a finish.....we're going to miss him for the next three games.....I hope he stays until the end of the season.....we need him.
He can't play for another club in this country so unless a foreign one comes in for him then he has nowhere else to go. I watched those highlights and to me they seemed to show more attacking by them rather than us. Yet, the reports all seem to suggest Argyle should have won more comfortably. Just shows how deceptive highlights can be and aren't a reflection on things you can form an opinion by.
As I said. I watched the whole 90 minutes live. The highlights do make them look the better side but they don’t really represent the 90 minutes as a whole. TV is like that - they’ll show a 40 yard shot that sails 20 feet over the crossbar rather than a quick break that leaves a defence gasping for breath but peters out for a goal kick when the final pass is an inch too long. I’m reasonably sure it’s not just bias if I say we looked the better side. The two strikers really pulled them about with great big gaps opening up at times. Wiredu was in their faces non-stop at DM and Edwards was driving forward at every opportunity. What is he on? I want some. A miss is as good as a mile, I know that, but we created some really good situations which came to nothing as far as highlights are concerned. Yes, we have to take those chances, but we haven’t got near making them in some of our worst games. Look at fhe stats - selectively I know - interceptions: them 3, us 12. How many times have we been giving the ball away? It was us catching them this time. Them/Us Shots. 11:16 On-target 2;5 Blocked Shots 3:5 Shots from outside box 6:4 Shots from inside box 5:12 Fouls committed 14:9 Yellow cards 2:0 Just numbers but they paint a representative picture. Some of them are unusual too for an away side - more fouls and bookings for the home side? Is that normal? I don’t think so. And I’ll say it again: we should have had a penalty and they their keeper sent off for that dangerous challenge. That is in the highlights. I suppose the good news is we’ve signed a really good goal scorer - and what the highlights don’t show is how hard he works off-the-ball either. We used to joke about Ryan Hardie on the way home and say “useless, he did nothing in that game apart from scoring two goals”. That’s not Tolaj is it? The bad news is Ryan Hardie wouldn’t have got sent off for a bad tackle because he didn’t tackle back. Tolaj does. The other bad news is of course that we’ve only got one of him but he’s Bargain Of The Season at £1.2m. There’s another stat. Somewhere in all the criticism of Simon Hallett, we’ve quietly become a club that pays 7 digit sums for players, if the price being bandied about is correct. When did that start?
