Blanchard happy with passing style

The French defender is happy with Argyle's style of player, despite two defeats (filler story)-

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The Pilgrims have dropped from 15th to 18th position in the division, after losing 2-1 to Cheltenham Town last Tuesday and 1-0 against Rotherham United last Saturday.

​Those two results came after Argyle had built up some momentum with three consecutive victories – two in League Two and one in the Johnstone's Paint Trophy – by playing some fluent passing football.

Blanchard is convinced that, overall, the Pilgrims are making progress, but admitted they were nowhere near their best against Rotherham at the weekend.

The Home Park side will have a chance to make amends for that below-par performance when they play away to Blue Square Bet South club Dorchester Town in the FA Cup first round on Sunday.

Blanchard said: "We didn't get too high after those three victories. We have been saying from the beginning of the season that we want to keep improving our game.

"We have been looking to play another way, one that's going to bring us more wins than defeats. We are not down because we have lost the last two games. We know what we are capable of.

"We have got another game now [against Dorchester] and that's the brilliant thing about football, you can change the momentum."

Blanchard was Plymouth's stand-in skipper against Rotherham because Darren Purse was ruled out of the match by a toe injury.

Purse had an injection yesterday which it is hoped will allow the 35-year-old centre-back to resume playing without so much pain as before. He took to Twitter last night to say: "Injection done this morning. Very sore but nothing a couple of days rest and recreation won't cure."

In Purse's absence from the field of play at the Millers' New York Stadium, 19-year-old centre-back Curtis Nelson was recalled to the Pilgrims' starting XI – and responded with a resolute performance.

Blanchard paid tribute to the performance of Nelson on his return to the Argyle team. "He did really well," the Frenchman said. "He was good in the air and with his positioning, and I think we kept our concentration and focus all of the game."

Despite their best efforts on the day, even from the early stages of the game against Rotherham it was clear that Argyle were going to be put under plenty of pressure.

Blanchard said: "It was very hard concentration-wise, because the ball was always coming back at us. They [Rotherham] are a big side, with [Alex] Revell, [Ian] Sharps and [Kari] Arnason as well, so physically and mentally it was a really tiring game.

"We didn't impose our way to play. We followed the way they wanted to play. We didn't set our own tempo," the former Tranmere Rovers defender admitted.

"Against Cheltenham, we were braver to take the ball and put it on the floor and keep it more up front as well, to allow the defence to relax a bit. We didn't manage to do that on Saturday."

The Pilgrims were spared a heavy defeat at Rotherham by some resolute defending and a fine display from Jake Cole between the posts.

Cole made some excellent saves, especially in the first half, as the former Barnet goalkeeperdemonstrated his shot-stopping abilities.

Blanchard said: "He [Cole] came for crosses as well, which was really important for us because Rotherham were bigger than us. Defensively, I think we did really well. We tried to set the line as high as possible, but when the ball keeps coming back then you can concede a goal."

'Erald