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Plymouth Argyle 2 - West Bromwich Albion 1
Brendan Clegg:Absolutely fuming after that one. A load of careless rubbish. Frustrated by the referee giving the penalty but it was absolutely ludicrous that we lost that match. The worst loss of the season against an abject team. I’m going to preface this rant by saying I’m a Mowbray fan, he’s my favourite manager over the last 35 years etc but, he and the players own this one. You can argue the starting 11 was fair after the win last week but going away in the championship without any midfield steel? No Molumby or Diakite… we got bullied for the opening 10 even though they were rubbish. We eased into it but with no centre forward and Swift playing like it was a testimonial we were utterly toothless. MJ a threat, Grady had no touches in the first 15 mins, Fellows with a bloodied nose. Plymouth’s new defender celebrating every tackle like he’d won the World Cup. Awful general. 2nd half, no changes same old. Triple change. I thought Mogga took off MJ (our best player by miles) and Fellows way too early, knowing what was replacing them. But still, Molumby’s desire and decent play from Jed put us ahead on a good break. It should’ve been enough. However, one ropey decision to give a pen from nowhere levelled it up and then a consequence of the previous subs making us toothless, the bizarre subs made at 1-1 and some powder puff defending allowed us to fall behind. With what was left there was never a way back. We should have won. A draw would be a let down. Losing an abomination. Careless points thrown away in a manner that made me the angriest I’ve been in a while. We needed a striker on Jan 1st. I’m amazed we’re still in touch but to be totally clear - not finishing top 6 for this squad would be an absolute failure and under-achievement. Much as I love Mowbray… no free passes here. This was crap. With all the time to review videos, think tactics etc it was poor. Hoping for a big 48 hours in the market.
Kev Buckley:Whatever your view on the pen, and for me few players can get away with having an arm raised in the box these days, not matter the letters of the laws, this was a very poor Albion performance given the same starting XI had crushed a second-string Pompey team in the previous game. Plymouth, with a team-sheet reminiscient of The World-Wide Wanderers, albeit devoid of the comic strip's Native American (as are Albion, with the large-chested Dike still injured), deployed with a back three - after all, why play two centre-halves to mark Wallace and/or Diangana - and a four in front of them, pretty much stifling any life out of the game early doors, although using long cross-field balls to good effect. Albion, for all their posession, struggled to get Johnston and Fellows into the spaces outside that back three, and indeed, over on the left, Styles was often found well ahead of his winger, including being involved multiple times in one really nice passing move that teed him up for a shot, around the thirty-five minute mark - sadly that shot went way wide. Plymouth's best chance of the half, on forty, seemed to result from the Albion defence going completely AWOL, and required Palmer to smother the opportunity, although their second best chance, some fiteen minutes earlier, had also raised a few questions about our organisation at the back, on the occasions, and there were a few of them yesterday, where our passing went well astray. Second half started a bit brighter, but, after a deep corner was headed back in the centre on fitfy-five, there was clearly no-one with the striker's instinct looking to benefit, although Diangana, a left winger being asked to play up top let's not forget, showed some instinct in reacting well to head in at the back post on the hour mark, only to be flagged for a narrow offside. The triple substitution that saw both starting wide-men go off, along with Swift, brought on Grant, Price and Molumby, which still left us with Wallace and Diangana up front: hmmm? With about fifteen to go, Albion got lucky when the Pilgrims coughed up posession in a dangerous area and Wallace, finding himself in a more familiar wide-right position, had enough muscle-memmory of how to play there, and did all the right wing work in pulling one back for Molumby to bundle over the line from inside the 6-yard box. The penalty, just a couple of minutes later, saw the luck even out, with Styles's arm, parallel to the ground, preventing the ball from travelling further across the area, after the driven ball had first struck him under the chin. We've all seen them given: we've all seen them waved away, but the attacker was given more than enough time to get off the drive from inside the box, as was the case for Plymouth's eventual winner, where an attacker was allowed two attempts at getting off goalbound strikes from the left side of our box. Even before that, Palmer had had to save a one-on-one inside his six-yard box, after which Diakite (not Cole?) had replaced Wallace, leaving Diangana as the lone "striker", and although Cole would get a run out for the stoppage time minutes after we had fallen behind, it didn't make the Albion seem any more likely to nick another goal, and the draw. Hopefully, the teenage striker we've brought in on loan from Spurs can at least remove any need to play with two false nines for the rest of the season, although he might need to play ninety minutes in every game until Maja gets fit? In passing, I wanted to mention that I saw our five goals from the Pompey game, just before I watched the seven Corberan's Valencia shipped against Barcelona, and would note that our ex-manager's ability to organise a defence is going to be severely tested at his new club. Northants Baggie:I am a lawyer and the first thing one must do in this woeful circumstance is to give those supporters who travelled all the way to the west country their money back. Secondly to bring an action at law against those third rate deadbeats who wear the once proud baggies shirt. An action at law for fraudulent trading. They are not playing the beautiful game. This is not like the olden days, the golden days of once upon a long ago, the days of wine and roses. Those days are now a long way back in the mists of time. It is just s simply awful. And much as I adore Tony Mowbray the old adage 'never go back' still applies. If we ever go up I want it to be as champions, not via the play-offs. But I really do not want to go up at all. I fear we would be the first team to be relegated without a single point. Let us just trudge on in a mediocre division where anyone can beat anyone. Oh, just one more thing. Has anyone at the top at The Hawthorns heard of the transfer window? You should come out of the hospitality suite and sit with the fans - those poor souls who travelled all the way to Plymouth and returned home broken hearted at what has become of a fine old club. Shameful, from top to bottom. But what can you expect from a board of directors who infamously once sold the club to a new owner and then gave him money so that he could prop up his ailing business half a world away. It was almost laughable. But I don't want my beloved Albion to be a laughing stock. I want them to be something better than that. Hippothirteen:From the sublime to the ridiculous (last week v this week). I live in Plymouth so this is my local match. Couldn't get in the away end this time so had to sit on my hands in the Lyndhurst. Still having seen us score 5 last week and playing the bottom team shorn of confidence, surely this would be a walk in the (Home) park? And yes at 1-0 up game on. Both Mowbray and Brendan here have said it correctly; how on earth did we lose this match? In two words, the squad. Firstly selling O'Shea, Kipre and Townsend then getting injuries to Bartley and Ajayi means we are having to start Styles, Holgate and Heggem. Styles was my MoM last week but he ain't the tallest and Argyle kept lumping the ball down their right channel. And effectively that's where both their goals came from. Secondly we depend on MJ and Tom to be the creative sparks. Last week they were able to get behind Pompey, but yesterday with Argyle defending deep and in numbers the crosses were hopeful at best and Jed had zero chance of scoring with a header. We dominated possession but didn't really create many chances. Our subs have made no diff at all this year and so it proved again. (Ex-Baggies Chris Wood scoring a hat-trick and BTA scoring a worldie didn't improve my mood). Pen/no pen? Well it hit his hand in the box so they can and do get given. How both Heggem and Styles failed to stop his shot for the second was dire defending. So was it as bad a result as it seemed? Yes in a word. And to make it worse sat with the Green Army I had to look like I was celebrating as they pinched it. Only positive is I retired last year so won't have to endure a green banter onslaught on Monday. |
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