Yes bitterly disappointing result and ultimately game today. I have asked anyone and everyone I could but I have yet to understand or indeed find out why the goal was not a goal. I saw nothing at all myself and neither did anyone sat within 20 yards of me. Had that stood then who knows what might have been. I agree with lyndhurst that we started with promise and it looked at the start to me as if we would stroll this one. We created chances and Luton didn't look like any great shakes. Wasteful yes and we were having some trouble in the last third which is and has been our downfall in a few games lately. As the game went on we wasted more and more and it changed from us looking good to not looking like we played together much. Can anyone tell me if Alessandra and Reid ever pass to each other for a start. They look like they do not get on at all. Several times on both accounts they did not pass but chose to shoot when it was 10 times harder. Luton scored due to our falling asleep at a corner. They took it short and after a bit of messing about their man passed it into the net and Luke stood no chance. Marking, awareness and everything else sadly lacking. They did not deserve their lead but had one nonetheless. Second half Argyle were poor. How many times the ball was sent across the Luton 6 yard box wirhout an Argyle player making any effort to get there to connect I lost count. How many lazy passes went astray I lost count. Luton did not improve but were made to look good by us getting worse. We lost a game we should have at least drawn if not won. It was pathetic and we are now falling away from the pack. Automatic is a total none starter in my view as the top 3 are disappearing out of sight. Play off is still possible but something needs to give and soon. As Lyndhurst says the players did not look interested. We even managed to make their No.5, who looked as if he came from a pub team by his build look good.
Thanks for the reports, our dip in form is now beginning to look like a fully blown slump, very disappointing over the last month or so, what's happened?
We have no depth in our squad. If plan A doesn't work then plan B doesn't exist because the players to change anything don't exist. Lose a couple and the rest of the pyramid falls down. With certain players we seem to have at least some drive and desire but without them there seems no heart in the team at all.
So it sounds imperative that reinforcements are brought in this month or our chances of promotion are slim to downright skinny?
We need the 3 loan players back and for Hartley to be fit as well. The trouble is that most of the heart of the team are not our own players. Our own players seem to respond with these others in the side. To be honest there wasn't a lot wrong with the other 2 loanees we had today either. Not the greatest maybe but at least they seemed to try. I think it is our midfield that is lacking most of all and the strikers need to get on together. I genuinely don't think Reid and Alessandra like each other to an extent that they don't work together a lot of the time. Unfair it may be but I'm going to lay some of this at Sheridan's door. He is paid to man manage and it seems to be lacking. A lot of the time our lads don't seem that motivated or not enough anyway. I've been drifting this way for a while now so that isn't just disappointment at another home loss. If we start to lose at home then given our away form it doesn't look good does it.
Auntie Distant here. Having been to the last two home games, I listened to Sparksy for this one. He had a top quality soccer pundit alongside him, namely Mr Paul Sturrock, once of this parish. His solution is apparently to get it wide and get some crosses in which I'm sure is something too radical to have occurred to anyone else. However, we've clearly lost quite a bit in that department without Kellett and his electric pace. He also bemoaned the fact that the midfield weren't getting forward to support the strikers with both Reid and Allessandra having to fetch & carry the ball for themselves and therefore not being in the box where they should be. Where's Bobby Reid or an equivalent attcking midfeilder when you need him? We hit a sweet spot with Hartley, Nelson and O'Connor at the back and Mellor and Kellett as wingbacks and as others have noted, it's all gone to pot now through injuries and loan returns taking the heart out of a small squad. It's not all over yet but we could continue to go downwards unless Sheridan finds a way to get that blend back. On an unrelated note, I see Southend have transfer listed Connor Clifford.....
I mentioned Clifford on another thread notdistant and if I were Sheridan I would seriously take a look. I don't think Mr. Sturrock was being clever with this cross thing into the box. We did exactly that at least a dozen times with plenty of them going across the 6 yard box. No problem therefore with that part of the plan. It was the other bit that was lacking. i..e. the having somebody in there to be on the end of one. We used to have players like Friio who arrived from midfield and look how many he knocked in. There was just nobody in the team yesterday who even tried to be in there. I hear bleatings about Tyler Harvey and his goal scoring prowess not being used. He was meant to be the attacking midfield yesterday when he came on and hardly made it into the 18 yard box let alone anywhere else when a ball was coming. We need a Friio desperately so if anyone knows where one is then please tell Sheridan.
Sometimes the commentary team see things from their vantage point that aren't visible from the crowd: the commentary team's conclusion was that Harvey got a knock soon after coming on and wasn't 100% mobile after that. Given that by then only Bittner and Richards were left on the bench, there wasn't much Sheridan could do about it anyway. I'm never quite sure about Harvey: if you watch him warming up, it's all about tricks & flicks. Never wants to do things the easy way, always wanting to impress his mates as being that little bit better than them. Never enough just to put the ball in the net, wants to hit the crossbar every time. Good skills are all very well but they aren't always that relevant once in the game, where having enough skill in reserve to do the simple things really well is usually what counts.
What I do know about Harvey is that I haven't seen him do anything worthwhile this season so far when he has been on the pitch. He may have got knocked I didn't notice and Sheridan said somewhere that he did so guess it must have happened. However, nobody got in the box ever for any of the crosses and there were plenty of them. I still don't think Luton were all that apart from their back line which won everything easily. We let them so it kind of helped. We should and could be beating these sides not because we are Plymouth Argyle but because we are better than that and have shown we are. I'm still bitterly disappointed and if honest I am not looking that forward to next Saturday at the minute.
