'FORGET EXETER SAYS SHERIDAN' was the headline on the back of today's Oggy wrapper-and boy didn't the team do as ordered. A totally woeful performance from front to back against a team playing a particularly unattractive type of football who were aided and abetted by a wholly inadequate referee. It is difficult to believe this was more or less the same bunch of players who played some great football, at least in parts, on Saturday. No action to report as such, Stevenage bullied their way through the game and are filled with big chaps who fall over surprisingly easily and take a long time to recover. Argyle's first shot on target was 15 mins from the end and much of the first half was like a poor pre-season friendly. Stevenage's goal came from yet another defensive lapse when McHugh tried to shield the ball out but was outfoxed by their player who crossed and a free header flew past Luke who had no chance. The referee was simple awful, you can make some allowances for it being his first season but he missed so much, elbow to the face, yellow carded Mellor for a foul that wasn't one (and if it was it should have been a red), and took no action over pushing and shoving between Tyler Harvey and the away bench when he was trying to retrieve the ball. Numerous unnecessary stoppages and lectures resulted in a very disjointed game that never real got going. He gave the penalty after 97 mins-no idea if it was one as he randomly gave handballs throughout the match. Very poor fare throughout, no one gets my MOTM vote as I don't think anyone came out of it with any credit except Luke, and he had nothing to do all night. They always say the sign of a good team is one that gets a point when playing badly, but this was more by luck than anything else. Only plus point was the Walton got a good reception by the crowd which he acknowledged both before and after the match. Never been a fan of his but he did play for nothing during the darkest days of admin and i am reliable informed that he helped others at the club who were less well off than him. Fair play. A match to forget as soon as possible-onwards and upwards.
Sorry lyndhurst I didn't see you had posted this until I had pressed send on mine. If anyone can delete it then please feel free. Agree 100% and you put it far more eloquently that me.
If your entire summing up of minutes of alleged football was "Oh bother" Sensible, I think you just about hit the nail on the head. Ignoring almost certainly the worst referee I've ever seen at Home Park (and isn't that a momentous accolade?), truly scumbag morals from Stevenage, and a poor performance from Argyle all round my positives were: 1) Dean Smalley, won the ball in the air 9 times out of 10, worked hard, had enough about him to unsettle Stevenage and took a cracking penalty 2) Lewis Alessandra, as usual 3) The only hand I saw touch the ball for the penalty was attached to a green shirt. Perhaps somebody else got there first but it would be such sublime justice if the ref did get that wrong too as well as 1001 other errors. Negatives 1) Banton. Doesn't even pretend to challenge, head the ball or chase back, let alone tackle. I know he's quick & tricky but it yielded nothing tonight and on that basis, he's a passenger. Give Nathan Thomas or Dean Smalley a go for goodness sake. 2 I'd say Reuben Reid, who had one of those ineffective games in which he has a defender attached to his back like a fridge magnet, but then again every time he won the ball it was a free kick to Stevenage and when he lost it, no matter how much the pushing & pulling, it was play on. But why not put on a second striker (e.g. Smalley) and give the opposition centre backs 2 to deal with, not just one. It's not so easy to man-to-man(handle) then. Why do I always pick the **** games?
I was stamping up and down the concourse when the ref gave the pen and to be fair I didn't actually see the handball to say who did what. I really really do hope it was an Argyle player though like you. You said about the ref what I did before I posted oh bother and deleted the rest.
The Stevenage players made a fairly token protest to the ref, at least by comparison with their efforts to get Mellor sent off earlier on, so I suppose they thought they were guilty as charged. In fact one of their CBs was having a fairly frank discussion with their keeper regarding the latter's failure to get to the ball himself. The ball definitely struck an Argyle hand at head height or above but the ball was on its way back out by then so I think in reality it had already been punched clear by a Stevenage player. The ref had to get something right eventually.... or did he? Craking penalty though under tense circumstances, the keeper had no chance.
Being on holiday with time on my hands (subject to my domestic superiors whims & desires), I found this. http://www.borochat.co.uk/ The Stevenage fans think they didn't get the win because the ref was biased against them whereas we think... you fill in the blank. What's for sure is that Reid who's vital in a 4:1:4:1 set-up hardly got a kick because he was pushed, held and generally mistreated for an hour by the Stevenage defence with no protection whatsoever from the ref. When Reid did use his own considerable strength, the ref invariably opted for the safety first decision of giving the defence a freekick. The failure to get Reid into the game, who we know can be deadly, was probably the single most important factor in last night's failure. They also seem to have no idea how badly their team behave away from home. The feigned injuries were some of the worst I've ever seen and I bet every one of those ba****ds is fit on Saturday.
I watched the incident again on the beeb news tonight. Absolutely 100% a Stevenage hand on the ball. All I can say is if their fans thought the Ref was biased against them then they are as bad as the team they support. I may be a bit biased in favour of Argyle at times but I like to think that I say it honestly as I see it without dressing it in green first. Why would I want to as it doesn't do anything to alter a result or incident. My opinion of last night is that Stevenage are one of the worst teams I have seen here for outright cheating and the Ref was in the running for the worst ever to oversee a match. On the way out of the ground last night I was waxing loudly about the ref being totally incompetant. A bloke butted in with a "don't blame the ref for Argyle being rubbish". Fact is I wasn't anyway but it isn't Argyle being rubbish that made the ref even worse is it. Argyle were not good by a long shot but to get a point out of that in the end seemed like justice of sorts to me and was despite the actions of Stevenage, their Management and the Officials. In another match without all of that they may well have deserved nothing.
I've just read a bit on the beeb football section where a certain Mr Westley has a toot about his team being "bullied" by officials. He claims that one of the Argyle players barged into him when he went to pick up the ball to hand to one of his players for a throw in. You Mr Westley are a lying scumbag. You got in the way deliberately to stop a throw in the other way around and deliberately pushed the Argyle player for which you should have been sent off. A player doing that on the pitch would walk. As for the rest of it..........it has to be a joke surely. The Ref was rubbish that is true but to say his side were deprived of decisions has to be the biggest joke in football history. His side are cheats. They feigned injury at every opportunity and a couple of challenges should have resulted in Red. Alessandra was assaulted with a forearm smash which would have been good in a WWF contest. He thinks Argyle players should have had 2 reds. Mellor incident was debateable. But he wasn't the last man as there were 2 other defenders in very close proximity so it wasn't that clear cut as a scoring chance. What the other red would have been for I don't know. That man reminds me of Evans. If ever a manager needs seeing to it is him.
Couldn't agree more sensible. The fact is that his team set out to bully Argyle , waste time and generally did everything they could to make sure the game didn't flow-both within and outside the laws of the sport. Mellor may well have been sent off by some refs but the the same refs would have dispatched the Stevenage player for the Allessandra assault. His view of the the Tyler Harvey /bench incident is simply laughable and as you say he should have been sent to the stand for that alone. Unfortunately he thinks by using unattractive spoiling tactics he can be a success, but whilst he may bully his way to a few results he will never have sustained success. Quite entertaining to have an arch-villian like Evans back in the league. I wish and expect him to fail very quickly.
But I actually think he believes in what he spouts lyndhurst. Somebody from the FA ought to sit him down with a video of the game and explain to him how football works. Then charge him for being a total prat.
I was dead in line with the Mellor incident and my honest and I believe unbiased opinion, his legs went out from under him as he tried to turn sharply to match the striker and fell under his legs. Whether he then stuck out an arm to trip the striker I don't know but then neither does the ref, so there's no way he could be sure what happened was dliberate - never mind whether it was a clear cut scoring chance. There's a series of pictures about a third of the way down this article that shows the event together with the forearm smash on Alessandro. I'd put it to Westley that in addition to running a dishonest team, that definitely should have been a red card. http://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/Ply...Match-report/story-22784271-detail/story.html PS You'll see that in the final pic of the Mellor incident, the striker was still on his feet and away from Mellor's arm. What brought him down then?
