Cheltenham Town we're top of the League and can't wait for Plymouth Argyle test

Czarcasm wrote:

Lucky for Garita that Bradley spared his blushes.

9 points ahead of Pompey in 4th. That's the only stat that matters going forward, but our strikers general non-scoring could yet hurt us.

Good three points today, now time for Jimmy, to step up to the plate and let Adams, sign a quality goal scoring striker, we have the money.

We mugged them of 3 points

Lots of scrappy little mistakes today but understandable after the game on Wednesday.

Happy to take the win.

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Songo'o lack reactions and awareness cost us the goal!!!`

Cracking cross from Carey and header from Sonny.

akagreengull wrote:

Cracking cross from Carey and header from Sonny.

i thought it was fox!

Yes, it was Fox.

I stand corrected, still a great ball in.

Another win that was plucked from the jaws of...well, a draw. We seem to be very good at doing that. Hope it lasts for longer than it did last season.

When are Beefcake Brunt and Frank Spencer back again......??

Excellent result.

Three points is three points.

The greens are going up !!.

Tgwu wrote:

Johnson view on the game

Who feckin cares what he says, Argyle won 2-1. The greens are going up !!.

VillageGreen wrote:

Excellent result.

Three points is three points.

The greens are going up !!.

Erm not so fast. VERY long way to go yet. Donny are champions leaving only 2 auto places up for grabs. And there's another very good consistent team - Exeter - coming late into the mix a bit like Bristol Rovers last season. Given how terribly we play, how lucky we have been, players on short contracts soon to expire, and how we haven't strengthened again all points to a repeat of last season's debacle. I really don't see Argo being in the auto places next May. In fact I see us at best in a lower play-off position. All bren'ts fault again.

VillageGreen wrote:

Excellent result.

Three points is three points.

The greens are going up !!.

Love the enthusiasm, but I make it still twenty games to play, sixty points up for grabs, far to early to be saying we are going up as it is to proclaim Donny as champs given we have a game in hand.
Calm down a bit Village , your post reads like one of the Avivas down on the farm. COYG

Angry wrote:

we won

we have a week and a bit till our next game away to Yeovil (31st) as the Blackpool game has been postponed due to there FA Cup 4th round game being held on saturday. So Del Bhey has lots of time to add 2-3 good additions to the squad before the window shuts as im sure he wont be making any on the 31st due to our game.

2 or 3 good signings   i wouldnt hold your breath on that one angers

RegGreen wrote:

Angry wrote:

we won

we have a week and a bit till our next game away to Yeovil (31st) as the Blackpool game has been postponed due to there FA Cup 4th round game being held on saturday. So Del Bhey has lots of time to add 2-3 good additions to the squad before the window shuts as im sure he wont be making any on the 31st due to our game.

2 or 3 good signings   i wouldnt hold your breath on that one angers

The only signs of any kind we'll be seeing are for sale signs.

VillageGreen wrote:

Excellent result.

Three points is three points.

The greens are going up !!.

Freathy wrote:

VillageGreen wrote:

Excellent result.

Three points is three points.

The greens are going up !!.

Erm not so fast.  VERY long way to go yet.  Donny are champions leaving only 2 auto places up for grabs.  And there's another very good consistent team - Exeter - coming late into the mix a bit like Bristol Rovers last season.  Given how terribly we play, how lucky we have been, players on short contracts soon to expire, and how we haven't strengthened again all points to a repeat of last season's debacle.  I really don't see Argo being in the auto places next May.  In fact I see us at best in a lower play-off position.  All bren'ts fault again.

Long way to go yet, i seem to remember a serial Twat from this parish predicted promotion with games to spare last season, Brent needs to back Adams or risk another failure.

They were saying on the channel 5 programme last night that Doncaster and Argyle look like they could take 1 and 2, with other teams in the mix for 3rd spot.

I know there is a long way to go, but I think Argyle will hang on in there. If they just keep plodding away, those games will come and go in a flash.

They have turned the corner and are on the home stretch now. If they do somehow cock it up again, I would be most annoyed.

Looking at the top five in League Two, Carlisle, Pompey and Wycombe are way behind Argyle, 6, 9 and 11 (with Pompey and Wycombe having a game in hand). After those, you can go down to 11th place.

Luton and Colchester currently sit in the Play-Off areas (Luton have a game in hand), with Barnet Exeter, Cambridge and Grimsby close behind (Exeter and Cambridge have a game in hand).

As an outside option, Blackpool are 13th on 36 (with a game in hand).

No one can catch Argyle at the moment, they could close the gap, but that is about it. I would have liked to have seen Argyle a couple more points ahead, but that's football.

If the players are true to their word about learning from the mistakes of last season, then good on them.

Most annoyed ? My sainted aunt.

I like freathys thought of putting Brents head on a spike, most annoyed? I think we will all be feckin livid on this site.
Down on the farm they would probably just shrug their shoulders and mutter something about punching above our weight.

I would be slightly peeved!

There are some interesting fixtures next weekend.

Carlisle United v Barnet 15:00

Crewe Alexandra v Cheltenham Town 15:00

Luton Town v Cambridge United 15:00

Mansfield Town v Leyton Orient 15:00

Newport County v Hartlepool United 15:00

Notts County v Crawley Town 15:00

Portsmouth v Exeter City 15:00

Stevenage v Grimsby Town 15:00

Yeovil Town v Doncaster Rovers


In an ideal world, draws at Carlisle, Luton, Pompey and Yeovil would be very good for Argyle ahead of the trip to Yeovil on the 31st.


There will be 8 days left of the transfer window from tomorrow (Monday), I really hope Adams can bring in one or two more players to cement that final push. I suppose Jimmy will have to be persuaded in that area, no mean feat.

Well…we never do it the easy way do we.

Sorry for the even later than usual report here but I’ve been ill for most of Sunday and Monday and it got to the point where I’d written so much of it, I wasn’t going to led it not see the light of day no matter how tardy it was. Hopefully some of you will find it enjoyable anyway.

It’s game like that that win promotions…right? A game in which, let’s not make any bones about it, we really didn’t play too well for much of it. It was a gritty, horrible game for the most part in which we could never get our passing game going. The pitch appeared to be rock hard in some places, and a mushy, muddy slush in others where the frost had melted. In truth, the game shouldn’t have been played. That appeared, by their body language, to be the opinion of all of Argyle’s staff and players who examined it before the game and it’s my opinion to. Not only was the pitch not suited to our style, but we were naturally exhausted from the excellent effort on Wednesday night. Moreover, Cheltenham are experiencing an upturn in form of late following a spate of loan signings. All in all, the omens weren’t looking great for Argyle and there’s a fair bit of evidence to support the notion that we were best off waiting to play the Robins on another day.

But, play we did and we had to make the best of it. We led a first half that we didn’t play especially well or badly in. We weren’t dominated but nor were we anywhere near our best and in truth didn’t look good value for our 1-0 lead. Both sides had a few decent chances and the balance of play was fairly even with, if anything Cheltenham shading it. But we had scored the game’s only goal, Sonny Bradley rising to nod in a set piece that a defender haplessly tried and failed to clear off the line. After a split-second’s hesitation, the goal was awarded and the away end went up.

In spite of our unsatisfactory performance, I wasn’t too displeased going into half-time. I never really buy into the notion that you have to play scintillating football in each game for the win to be somehow worth it. I was too young to really remember the first Sturrock title-winning season but I’ve read a lot about it. It seemed as though a lot of games were like the one against Cheltenham. Games where we allowed the opposition a few chances but we were simply more adept at scoring them than they were against us. And that’s fair enough, it’s just a legitimate way to win games as brushing teams aside us. So then, so far, so good.

Not without a bit of luck…we were very lucky not to give away two penalties. Threlkeld appeared to bring down one of their wide players and Songo’o was very lucky to get away with a clear handball when he jumped with his hands above his head and blocked the ball with his arm. But, ultimately, winning. And the referee, whilst he gave the big decisions in our favour, gave every little decision in Cheltenham’s favour almost to the point of parody so all things considered, their complaints about refereeing injustice seem somewhat hollow in light of this.

Derek Adams however found a way to improve things even more. He brought on the new boys Sokolik and Blissett for Jervis and Slew and switched from a 4-1-2-3 to a rare 3-5-2. Unless I’m forgetting a game, that’s the first time we’ve seen that formation used this system. It did the job however and it resulted in the only really good 20 minute spell in which we had during the game from minutes 45 to 65 or so.

We were creating chances in this spell and had territorial dominance, again for the only time in the match. We matched Cheltenham man for man and our superior personnel saw us in control. Here’s where I’m going to have to have a little moan, however. I’d have moaned had we not scored our late winner so it’s only fair to moan anyway.

We didn’t see the game out at all well. We got sucked in to the blood-and-thunder, ill-tempered match that Cheltenham wanted it to be. They were a niggly side who often left a bit over the top. They weren’t Wycombe or Westley levels but they weren’t at all a nice side. This, plus the bizarre incident when the referee didn’t appear to notice that Threlkeld had got hurtling over the advertising hoardings and into the away end, seemed to fire our lads up more than we needed to be.

We went flying into tackles when we could just as easily have stood the man up. We had our back three and the wing-backs playing far higher up the pitch than was warranted for a side defending a 1-0 lead, which meant we often had to rush men back when Cheltenham were countering. As such, this meant we had a much worse shape than if our positional play was right to begin with. I’m not saying we should have sat ultra-deep, but we were 1-0 up. We just had to take the sting out of the game a bit and we didn’t. For some reason we made it end-to-end and seemed to have a bizarre ‘we’ll show them’ attitude in spite of us already being in the lead.

Such strength of character however, though calmer heads should indeed have tempered it, did see us right in the end. We were determined to right our wrong and when we got a free-kick in a good area in the last minute, an inch-perfect cross from David Fox was met at the post by that man again, Sonny Bradley. The utter elation of the players at full-time was genuinely something to behold. Every one of them jumping up and hugging eachother in the centre-circle. Was it the best performance? No. Could it have gone the other way without too many complaints? Yeah, it could have. But did we dig deep and do the business when it mattered most? Absolutely yes.

Player-by-player.
Luke McCormick-7. His good recent run of form continued with another solid game between the sticks. He got down well to make a few smart saves in the first half, commanded his area well and his kicking was better than could have been expected given the atrocious surface. He made one major goof however, which brings his score down from an 8. More on that in a minute…

Threlkeld-6. Not a bad game but not a great one either. I felt his positional play was a bit off. Certainly in the first half he left too much space for their left-wing-back to exploit and, as I said, was fortunate not to concede a penalty. On the ball however, he did mostly the right things hence a score of 6.
Songo’o-4. 4 seems a very harsh rating but hear me out. I do very much think Songo’o has improved since moving back to centre-back but today he made a series of gaffes which meant he was somewhat lucky to be on the winning side. Primarily, he missed his chance to head the ball away for Cheltenham’s goal and whilst the man on the line (Blissett) was more to blame, ultimately the initial ball was Songo’o’s to win. That doesn’t account for the breakdown of communications which saw them gain the corner, however. After Bradley hooked the ball away following a goalline scramble, the ball bobbled and fell somewhere between McCormick and Songo’o with no attacker between them and the ball. Instead of one or the other taking command, their indecisiveness contrived to see the ball knocked out for a needless corner. With that, the handball, and the near own goal that saw McCormick have to dive at full-pelt to prevent it nestling in, it was far from his finest game.
Bradley-8. 8 seems harsh but there were maybe a couple of times where he went in a bit too heavily for the challenges and gave away fouls, and he got turned once or twice in the first half. Those minor niggles aside, Sonny put in another absolutely herculean performance. He won the overwhelming majority of defensive headers against their number nine. His play out of defence was as reliable as ever and, of course, he came up trumps when it was most needed for the two goals that won us the game. I didn’t think we could find a defender better than the ones we had from 2014 to 2016 but we’ve managed it here. What a colossus he is.
Purrington-7. Very interesting performance from him. At times he played with something that, for all his real strengths, I had never seen from him before which was a bit of genuine swagger and (in a good way) arrogance. He’s had an excellent season but if there’s been one weakness, it’s that he’s been perhaps at times a bit too cautious and done the simple things too often. Here however, he tried some take-ons and some fantastic one touch flicks. He only gets a 7 because his positioning went a bit awry later in the game. But if he can combine this new confidence with his usual consistency then we could have a truly amazing defender on our hands. He’s already a very good League Two full-back in any case.

Fox-9 MOTM. As good as Bradley was, there’s only one guy who can claim man of the match for me. Last season, Carey was at the heart of how we played. This season, whilst Carey’s final ball has been as good as ever, Fox has been at the heart of how we’ve played. I agree with the consensus on here that says he does the things you don’t immediately notice. It’s the little one touch passes where his anticipation of how much space he’s in and who is around him betters the vast majority of his League Two fellows. It’s the anticipation to smartly drop just where he needs to be to intercept the ball. It’s the ability to put in a crunching tackle or block when needed too. It’s the fantastic passing and crossing that’s as good as anyone in this league. He demonstrated all of these qualities against Cheltenham and that’s why he’s my man of the match.

Carey-8. Whilst he isn’t the star man anymore, I completely reject the narrative that he’s having a bad run. He too is often doing a lot of work that goes unnoticed. He was persistently good against Cheltenham in doing the quick yet incisive passes that, whilst not killer balls in themselves, find the men in enough space to move the ball towards goal. That’s not to mention his often unnoticed movement. When he takes a man with him, that creates more space for the other players to exploit.
Donaldson-6. I’m still not a fan of his in all honesty. He has large spells in the game where you go ages without actually seeing him touch the ball. He keeps shape well and yes, when he did have stuff to do with the ball against Cheltenham, he did more good than bad. He’s closer to a 7 than a 5 but his tendency to go missing at times means he’s a 6 overall for me.

Jervis-7. He had a good half of constantly tiring and wearing down their defence with his energy and close control of the ball. He did his best, was possibly our most promising couner-attacking outlet and unfortunately had to be sacrificed at half-time for the necessity of changing shape.
Slew-6. Like Donaldson(although for Slew it isn’t a regular feature), he had a bit of a quiet game but, when he did have the chance to use the ball, he was solid if unspectacular.

Garita-7. Now here’s a player who divides some opinion. The majority consensus of him appears to be that he’s useless- that he shot his bolt with one good game against Exeter and hasn’t offered anything for us since. I would take a different point of view. He isn’t a goalscorer, granted but he offers a lot in other ways, as did Jimmy Spencer when fit who also wasn’t a regular scorer. He’s flawed, yes. He isn’t fit enough to last a full 90 and his decision making on the ball is poor. But his physical strength to shrug off defenders and then find an incoming runner with a deft pass is more than acceptable and he’s an absolutely fine player for the kind of style we play. Ok, he may have missed a penalty against Newport but look at how much better we were when he was on the pitch. Ok, he missed a poor one vs one chance against Cheltenham but look at how the ball stopped sticking (in spite of having the new people’s darling Blissett) when Garita was subbed off. He offers a lot, for me.

Blissett- 7. Although I do think his performance was somewhat overrated (didn’t hold the ball up as well as Garita, should have done better to prevent Cheltenham’s goal), he did serve the purpose of what he came on to do which was quite simply to be an absolute wrecking ball. His pace and his dribbling were both very threatening and his energy was perfect for facing tired legs.
Sokolik-6. A good safety first option. Didn’t let much get past him but crikey, there were times where he could have hit the ball down the middle to give our strikers something to play for rather than boot it out for a throw-in. I don’t expect any League Two defenders to play like Carles Puyol but part of the Adams’ style requires passing with an idea rather than just getting rid of the ball. Hopefully he’ll adapt, it is his first game after all and he still looked very strong in the tackle.
Tanner-7. Did what Tanner does past which is tirelessly run at defenders and force them into errors. He may be somewhat one-dimensional but his one dimension is good.

If u wanna do this for a living at some point, getting a report out from a Saturday game ready for publishing the following Wednesday morning may lead to a dearth of uptake for yer services kiddo.