For all those who don't like my long match reports, the short version is here: lily-livered, timid, incoherent dross. Sheridan sort it out or clear out. The long version is as follows:
Yet another clunky, disjointed, poor Sheridan performance I'm afraid. No urgency, no cohesion, no creativity and no pace. It was like something out of the Carl Fletcher, late 2012 catalogue. Can't take set pieces, can't defend set pieces. Lots of possession and control in the midfield but no imagination or force of matter to get the final ball into the box. Nobody to force the matter and make something happen. Very vulnerable to counter attacks and vulnerable to teams who aren't as talented as us in terms of personnel but are much more organised as a team unit.
I know I'm going to sound a bit like Steve Evans here but what ACTUALLY happens in our training sessions? It certainly isn't fitness optimisation because virtually our entire squad is walking wounded. Whether they are overtrained or undertrained or simply wrongly trained, something is going wrong fitness wise. Such an incredibly large amount of injuries simply cannot be a coincidence. So, it isn't fitness optimisation. It certainly isn't set piece defence because we are quite possibly the worst Argyle defence in terms of organisation from set pieces that I have seen in my 13 years as a supporter. From open play our defending is exemplary and everyone knows exactly where they are and what they're doing. The last time we conceded from open play with 11 men was 8 games ago at Northampton. The last time we did so in a home game was in August. Why then, can a defence which is so obviously a very capable defence, not be at all able to organise themselves for a set piece correctly? I can only put it down to the coaching. How can we so regularly not put ourselves in the right place to win headers? How can we so regularly switch off whenever the time comes to clear a second ball? How can this chronic weakness not have been addressed in the many training sessions we must have had?
So, it isn't fitness optimisation, it isn't defending set plays and it certainly isn't attacking either. I genuinely think we would be no worse of an attacking team if Sheridan said 'we won't train you to play as a team, just go out there and wing it'. In fact, that more or less is what is happening. Most sides in this league of ours are good TEAMS. They may be full of donkeys, they may be lump it and hoof it merchants, they may not have players of proven pedigree. Many of the teams around or above us (Morecambe, Stevenage, Exeter, Wycombe) are teams in every sense of the word. They actually can't afford to sign players like Reid or Cox but their managers can make the best out of the players they do have. Whatever your views on Sheridan's budget, I genuinely think it would be difficult for him to do worse than 10th in the league with this bunch of players. A far superior bunch of players to the team that came 10th last year.
How he can turn proven promotion players into a team that look like they're a load of strangers who just met that morning is more or less the complete opposite of the midas touch. That's why regrettably I have to call for a change. Sheridan deserves credit for assembling an excellent squad of players on a budget that whilst contentious is not THE best in the league by any stretch. But his tactics are not just poor, they are at times non-existent. We put a good display together about one game every three or so and we're doing far far worse than the sum of our parts. We don't get the basics right. Set pieces and passing is so disjointed and stranger-like. It literally could be a bunch of players shoved together that morning. There's never any hint of a team move as practised on the training ground. This current Argyle team is an interesting experiment to see what would happen if you sign a bunch of good players and let them play without a manager to organise them or whip them into shape. An absolutely and utterly shambolic performance. Morecambe who are a mid-table side with no stand-out players (except Redshaw) had the better of us today and really they were very unfortunate indeed not to win the game 2-1 or 3-1. We controlled the midfield for large spells of the game but we were too timid and clueless to translate that into killer passes and we were as vulnerable to a counter attack as I've ever seen us being. Even under Fletcher.
As for individual players, whilst many of our individuals had average games, very few of them had awful games. Which backs up my thesis that there is no small degree of ability on that pitch if only it could be harnessed correctly. The two exceptions to this are Flanagan and Bittner, both of whom were noticeable liabilities. I'll give Bittner credit that his distribution was fantastic- but I don't care how good his distribution is if he's a terrible goalkeeper, which (whilst I won't judge him just on one game). He got his decision making all wrong, his handling was flappy and he can't command his area at all going by today so far. He's like a version of Jake Cole with the weaknesses extenuated and the strengths lessened. Hopefully this was just an off day for him and he's usually capable of better. The worst player on the pitch however was comfortably Flanagan. I have no idea what happened to him after a good debut, he had a decent game last week but today he was absolutely abysmal. Running around here there and everywhere leaving enormous gaps behind him which Morecambe exploited. Terrible on the ball too and gave it away numerous times. Simply did not look like a footballer. The rest of them all did ok if not brilliantly.
Nelson and McHugh were, as usual, solid, reliable and good distributors of the ball for 98% of the game but unable to prevent a set piece coming in. I honestly think Peter Hartley is the last saviour of our play-off hopes simply because he is big and beefy enough to head away set pieces. We never concede from open play and Hartley's ariel ability may, MAY just ensure we sneak enough 1-0 wins and clean sheets to limp, kicking and screaming into 7th place. Mellor did ok in the first half but vanished in the second. His form over the past month or so hasn't been good enough compared to beforehand but still a very solid defender even if not up to much going forward compared to how he used to be. He has a real tendency to hold onto the ball for too long and it costs us.
Reuben and Alessandra both did ok when they got the ball and also showed a lot more spark and initiative to put themselves into attractive positions to receive a pass than they did last week but both of them got extremely tired and were useless for the last 20 minutes. They were partly let down by the players behind them, Bobby Reid and Ollie Lee both had absolute stinkers in the second half after an alright first half. OllIe Lee as far as I'm concerned is nothing more or less than the second coming of Simon bloody Walton. He can pick out good passes occasionally (and did so to begin with) but he can't do much apart from that. He's slow, he's lethargic and the game passes him by. How the hell he was ever a championship regular god only knows as I don't actually think he's much cop in League Two. Bobby had one of those second halves where he tried everything and no-one could accuse him of shirking out of the game but almost nothing he tried actually came off.
Three players who I thought did especially well were McCormick, Cox and Purrington. Luke had an excellent half and was unlucky to injure his hand when making a vital save. Let's hope he isn't out for long because he's back on his best form without a doubt. Cox made the most of an unfamiliar position. Again, he was a pivot who was very tidy on the ball and recycled possession. He was in an unfamiliar advanced position but he still actually did the basics right unlike many. He passed into space ahead of a player rather than just panicking and losing the ball. Again he makes the difficult stuff look easy, plucking loose balls out of thin air that other players wouldn't get to in the first place and would have to tackle to regain them. As much as I like him however, we do slightly miss the real bluster and business of O'Connor. Those two in the pivot of a 4-2-3-1 would be decent.
Purrington however was the stand out player. People say that Harvey hasn't impressed when he's played but up until today I thought that was actually more true of Purrington than it was ever true of Harvey. He's looked so nervous when he's played this season and scared to leap into the tackle, to bomb forward with the ball or try anything too ambitious with the ball at his feet. All of the criticisms of young players being men amongst boys and being targeted I thought were true of him until today but all credit where it's due because I thought that was a very good performance from him. The amount of times that he was the only player who was bothering to press, tackle or get stuck in when Morecambe had the ball I actually lost count of. Whilst the wing-back role still doesn't come naturally to him, he got up the line a lot better than in previous games. Very good distribution all day long and the only thing he really did wrong was not being decisive enough in the final third. But then again, absolutely nobody was. I still think it was a much improved performance and one where he stood his own as a player and was not to be judged with the 'kid gloves' of judging him as a youth team player.
The subs were alright but far from spectacular. Brunt looked like a big battering ram who will get stuck in but perhaps the less said about his ability on the ball the better. Lively though. The Nathan Thomas situation is getting beyond a joke now. There are many people who for some reason (perhaps to appear smarter than the Devonport End) see it fit to denigrate his every move. They'll judge every misplaced pass or cross as evidence that he shouldn't get more game time. The thing with Thomas is that he's a scattergun. He will run like hell, he will always pick up the ball and he'll try anything. It won't always work but when we're playing like a pile of crap, the longer you have him on for the more likely something will work and he'll give our game some much needed spark. He was literally on for 20 seconds before he clipped a beautiful cross to Reuben that needed a last ditch intervention from a Morecambe defender to put it out for a corner. That's after he was warmed up for 2 minutes when we were playing woefully, sat back down for 2 minutes for no apparent reason before being stood back up again. Was that to make a point to those cheering him, or what? A truly laughable set of events. Even when Thomas is stood in the touchline, he still can't get on the pitch. The ironic chants from the Devonport End last week of 'we forgot that you were here' never seem more true.
I can't remember the last time League One looked as far away as this.
McCormick-8(Bittner 4)
Nelson-6
McHugh-7
Flanagan-2
Mellor-5
Cox-7 (Thomas 6)
B Reid-5
Lee-4
Purrington-8 MOTM
R Reid-6
Alessandra-5
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Sat Jan 24, 2015 7:04 pm
