The Real Dons Match Thread

COYG!

Homeslice wrote:

Spent the afternoon out on a boat then went for a swim when I got home, so just catching up. Great start to the season, and with the Ashes won back as well, just about a perfect day

Yeah, what a great day.

Clarke will retire after the fifth test (i was reading some of the Australian newspapers yesterday, no punches pulled from the media down under. One paper had an interview with Extras, who was the leading Aussie scorer in that dismal first innings).

Good start looking forward to seeing the goals later.

Spent the early part of the day at Wembury beach. The National Trust cafe doesn't open 'til 10.30am, how traditional. It's not as if they stay open late either. Jennycliffe, and then a leisurely stroll through Edgcumbe to Cawsand. Perfect weather. I'm another that has banned Sparks from my auditory glands, so no comms to irritate.
Very happy indeed for the new manager. He has impressed everyone with his talk, manner and desire, let alone a very welcome view on how the game should be played. Wingers are back, or will be.... woopppeeee. And his new signings did the damage where it matters. He sounds as revolutionary as Holloway did. Nice to see someone being rewarded so early on for his big step way down South, after being treated so shabbily by Ross County's "new lairds" after all he had done. I like his candour, regardless of results. Looks a bit like Bryan Robson unfortunately though.

Angry wrote:

Good start looking forward to seeing the goals later.

less of the positive vibe please Angry, tighten up

Wimbledon huffed and puffed for 15 minutes pinning us into our own half.....then things settled down......we scored either side of half time.....game over.

Wimbledon where good at blazing it over the crossbar......but our defence where in control......we could have scored more in the second half......a few Wimbledon fouls that the Ref was lenient with....they got only one yellow.....but a comfortable win in the end.....when these players jell we could be a serious promotion side.

zyph wrote:

Wimbledon huffed and puffed for 15 minutes pinning us into our own half.....then things settled down......we scored either side of half time.....game over.

Wimbledon where good at blazing it over the crossbar......but our defence where in control......we could have scored more in the second half......a few Wimbledon fouls that the Ref was lenient with....they got only one yellow.....but a comfortable win in the end.....when these players jell we could be a serious promotion side.

Excellent stuff. I look forward to Tuesday night.

VillageGreen wrote:

zyph wrote:

Wimbledon huffed and puffed for 15 minutes pinning us into our own half.....then things settled down......we scored either side of half time.....game over.

Wimbledon where good at blazing it over the crossbar......but our defence where in control......we could have scored more in the second half......a few Wimbledon fouls that the Ref was lenient with....they got only one yellow.....but a comfortable win in the end.....when these players jell we could be a serious promotion side.

Excellent stuff. I look forward to Tuesday night.

Gillingham trounced Sheffield U 4-0 at home..... .

Czarcasm wrote:

Southampton? When we ended up relegated?

That's right. It was the League 1 season. The Southampton team included Jose Fonte and Morgan Schneiderlin, with Lallana, Oxlade-Chamberlain and Wotton on the bench.

zyph wrote:

VillageGreen wrote:

zyph wrote:

Wimbledon huffed and puffed for 15 minutes pinning us into our own half.....then things settled down......we scored either side of half time.....game over.

Wimbledon where good at blazing it over the crossbar......but our defence where in control......we could have scored more in the second half......a few Wimbledon fouls that the Ref was lenient with....they got only one yellow.....but a comfortable win in the end.....when these players jell we could be a serious promotion side.

Excellent stuff. I look forward to Tuesday night.

Gillingham trounced Sheffield U 4-0 at home..... .

Minor details, tis a cup tie and DA will approach the game accordingly. If Argyle lose, they lose. I hope that they go out fighting in that event.

Well done to Derek Adams and the team, may even be tempted to play golf early next Saturday to facilitate a trip to HP. Good to see other players apart from the strikers getting among the goals, something sadly lacking for many years. Early days of course but quite encouraging.

Promotion is now a certainty.

POI wrote:

Promotion is now a certainty.

Early days yet, but when the team fully gel, the season will get interesting.

[quote="POI"]Promotion is now a certainty. [/quote

POI knows

Beat Pompey next week and the bookies will be paying out.

Started writing a brief review and apparently waffled more than expected, so here we go.. All in all a very good day out and a huge shout out to Roy for selling me the ticket so I could actually attend!

Right then..

McCormick - 7 - A little shaky at times. Kicking, as it always is, was rather average and actually quite sloppy at all. Did pretty well when tested but certainly didn't have to do anything groundbreaking.
Mellor - 6 - First half a 5 and the second a 7. He grew into the game. Got all sorts of problems from the fella on Wimbledon's left in the first half but as time went on he grew more confident and started showing a bit more defensive solidity. Think we still need a new right back but there were good signs at least.
Nelson - 7 - Did pretty well I thought. Worked well with his defensive partner and was in general pretty solid. Strong in the air and his distribution was all very good. More signs he's a defender bordering on just too good for this league.
Hartley - 7 - Similar to his partner he put in a relatively solid defensive display. Very solid in general and didn't really make any major mistakes either. Both given 7's because while both I felt were decent, neither pushed on quite enough to put the sort of impressive display in that earns them an 8 from me.
Boateng - 8 - Pretty impressive I thought once he worked his way into the game. Very strong in the tackle, as well as his ability to drive with the ball too. Just wish he was a little more keen to shoot at goal occasionally. Was my first time seeing him so I had imagined the Yaya Toure comparisons were a little premature and of course the ability is very different but you can see what people mean. He could be pivotal for us this season.
McHugh - 8 - Did well again in midfield. A good ball winning midfielder but one with genuinely fantastic distribution as well. He needs to push up a touch more when we're going forward sometimes but certainly defensively and when we attacked on the counter he was pretty much very good. A pleasing display and a stroke of genius from Adams to include 3 fantastic centre backs in a back 4.. You just play one of them in central midfield! Wonderful stuff, extremely likeable player too.
Sawyer - 7 - Mr Dependable as ever. Looked good on the left hand side and worked very well with Wylde too. Not a lot to say about him he just put in his standard solid performance, wasn't troubled all that much by Wimbledon's left, partly because they appeared to target it less and partly because him and Wylde actually formed a very solid partnership on that side.
Jervis - 7 - Another who grew into it. Very powerful when running though and his effort when attacking is certainly admirable. Were times when he was a tad clumsy and didn't realise the ball as soon as you'd like but overall a positive start. Found a lot of space on the right hand side and in the second half looked very good. Probably a 6 first half, 8 in the second. Either way it's all good stuff.
Carey - 8 - He's just a very talented footballer all round. A wicked left foot and fantastically skilful on top of it. His set-pieces seem positive and I love that we have a midfielder who isn't afraid to have a shot on goal. I thought he'd be pivotal for us when he first signed and he's just looked better and better. Took him a little while to really get in but once he did he was very lively. Sharp, strong, skilful, distribution was good.. His awareness needs a bit of work but all in all a very positive performance from another debutant.
Wylde - 8/9 (MOTM) - For me he was genuinely very good all game. He was happy to track back and put in good last minute tackles but going forward he came into his own. Ran havoc around Wimbledon with that wicked left foot of his, cutting in and out, swerving, twirling, etc he's got it all. Incredibly quick too and a good cross on him, and having watched it a good few times over.. A very tidy goal from him indeed! Thought all our debutants did well today, but he was my personal stand-out. The real winger we've craved.. He's like a much more talented, much harder working Nathan Thomas - or a properly good winger as I like to think. Really excited to see him again now, and I don't really hype players up all that often.
Reid - 8 - Thought Reuben looked pretty darn good today. Lively, strong, hard-working he was another who linked up with the rest of the attacking side very well. Willing to out a real shift in he looked lively today, and he's not at all selfish which he has been at times in the past (who could blame him, everyone was afraid to shoot) but now he's looking virtually back to his best, and as has been pointed out the fact we have actual wingers now means he's expending less energy by drifting out to the right hand side, and can play as more of a focused target man, giving us a wonderful option in the box when we went forward. Finishing from him wasn't too good but I'm adamant he's only going to get better from here.

Purrington - 5 - At left wing.. Why?!
Tanner - 6 - Did little of real note bar one very good little run, other than a dodgy pass to McCormick he had little impact.
Brunt - 6 - Put in his usual shift.

So with all things considered it was a pretty decent performance. High quality attacking football that eventually paid off, despite a rather slow start. In fact it was a very slow start, for the first 20 minutes I watched on feeling genuinely quite worried about how poor and sloppy we looked but for whatever reason we grew stronger and stronger. Wimbledon did go all out to begin with and I think that caught us off guard, but after a little while we managed to get into the game and start hitting them on the counter.

By late-ish in the first half we were much the better side and a good goal from Wylde felt like a reward for an improving performance. In the start of the second half we pushed on and started playing better, and after Carey's goal we really looked like we might have been on for a very prolific first game under Adams. It wasn't to be and after the enthusiasm and adrenalin had worn off we seemed content to sit a little deeper and kill the game on. Wimbledon never really troubled us after the second goal other than from Carey's bizarre run into his own box, but really we looked pretty safe.

A good, solid start to Adams Argyle career with really positive performances from the debutants as well. Looking back it's certainly a great (and perhaps unusual) start to the season but I guess now we get our heads down, move on and get ready for Gillingham before a very difficult test against Portsmouth on Saturday. A potentially week for Adams and the club I feel so would be great to push on.

COYG!

The first was a pearler, the second excellent though it took a nick off a defenders swede.

Great result, the real Wimbledon won too

Paven wrote:

Started writing a brief review and apparently waffled more than expected, so here we go.. All in all a very good day out and a huge shout out to Roy for selling me the ticket so I could actually attend!

Right then..

McCormick - 7 - A little shaky at times. Kicking, as it always is, was rather average and actually quite sloppy at all. Did pretty well when tested but certainly didn't have to do anything groundbreaking.
Mellor - 6 - First half a 5 and the second a 7. He grew into the game. Got all sorts of problems from the fella on Wimbledon's left in the first half but as time went on he grew more confident and started showing a bit more defensive solidity. Think we still need a new right back but there were good signs at least.
Nelson - 7 - Did pretty well I thought. Worked well with his defensive partner and was in general pretty solid. Strong in the air and his distribution was all very good. More signs he's a defender bordering on just too good for this league.
Hartley - 7 - Similar to his partner he put in a relatively solid defensive display. Very solid in general and didn't really make any major mistakes either. Both given 7's because while both I felt were decent, neither pushed on quite enough to put the sort of impressive display in that earns them an 8 from me.
Boateng - 8 - Pretty impressive I thought once he worked his way into the game. Very strong in the tackle, as well as his ability to drive with the ball too. Just wish he was a little more keen to shoot at goal occasionally. Was my first time seeing him so I had imagined the Yaya Toure comparisons were a little premature and of course the ability is very different but you can see what people mean. He could be pivotal for us this season.
McHugh - 8 - Did well again in midfield. A good ball winning midfielder but one with genuinely fantastic distribution as well. He needs to push up a touch more when we're going forward sometimes but certainly defensively and when we attacked on the counter he was pretty much very good. A pleasing display and a stroke of genius from Adams to include 3 fantastic centre backs in a back 4.. You just play one of them in central midfield! Wonderful stuff, extremely likeable player too.
Sawyer - 7 - Mr Dependable as ever. Looked good on the left hand side and worked very well with Wylde too. Not a lot to say about him he just put in his standard solid performance, wasn't troubled all that much by Wimbledon's left, partly because they appeared to target it less and partly because him and Wylde actually formed a very solid partnership on that side.
Jervis - 7 - Another who grew into it. Very powerful when running though and his effort when attacking is certainly admirable. Were times when he was a tad clumsy and didn't realise the ball as soon as you'd like but overall a positive start. Found a lot of space on the right hand side and in the second half looked very good. Probably a 6 first half, 8 in the second. Either way it's all good stuff.
Carey - 8 - He's just a very talented footballer all round. A wicked left foot and fantastically skilful on top of it. His set-pieces seem positive and I love that we have a midfielder who isn't afraid to have a shot on goal. I thought he'd be pivotal for us when he first signed and he's just looked better and better. Took him a little while to really get in but once he did he was very lively. Sharp, strong, skilful, distribution was good.. His awareness needs a bit of work but all in all a very positive performance from another debutant.
Wylde - 8/9 (MOTM) - For me he was genuinely very good all game. He was happy to track back and put in good last minute tackles but going forward he came into his own. Ran havoc around Wimbledon with that wicked left foot of his, cutting in and out, swerving, twirling, etc he's got it all. Incredibly quick too and a good cross on him, and having watched it a good few times over.. A very tidy goal from him indeed! Thought all our debutants did well today, but he was my personal stand-out. The real winger we've craved.. He's like a much more talented, much harder working Nathan Thomas - or a properly good winger as I like to think. Really excited to see him again now, and I don't really hype players up all that often.
Reid - 8 - Thought Reuben looked pretty darn good today. Lively, strong, hard-working he was another who linked up with the rest of the attacking side very well. Willing to out a real shift in he looked lively today, and he's not at all selfish which he has been at times in the past (who could blame him, everyone was afraid to shoot) but now he's looking virtually back to his best, and as has been pointed out the fact we have actual wingers now means he's expending less energy by drifting out to the right hand side, and can play as more of a focused target man, giving us a wonderful option in the box when we went forward. Finishing from him wasn't too good but I'm adamant he's only going to get better from here.

Purrington - 5 - At left wing.. Why?!
Tanner - 6 - Did little of real note bar one very good little run, other than a dodgy pass to McCormick he had little impact.
Brunt - 6 - Put in his usual shift.

So with all things considered it was a pretty decent performance. High quality attacking football that eventually paid off, despite a rather slow start. In fact it was a very slow start, for the first 20 minutes I watched on feeling genuinely quite worried about how poor and sloppy we looked but for whatever reason we grew stronger and stronger. Wimbledon did go all out to begin with and I think that caught us off guard, but after a little while we managed to get into the game and start hitting them on the counter.

By late-ish in the first half we were much the better side and a good goal from Wylde felt like a reward for an improving performance. In the start of the second half we pushed on and started playing better, and after Carey's goal we really looked like we might have been on for a very prolific first game under Adams. It wasn't to be and after the enthusiasm and adrenalin had worn off we seemed content to sit a little deeper and kill the game on. Wimbledon never really troubled us after the second goal other than from Carey's bizarre run into his own box, but really we looked pretty safe.

A good, solid start to Adams Argyle career with really positive performances from the debutants as well. Looking back it's certainly a great (and perhaps unusual) start to the season but I guess now we get our heads down, move on and get ready for Gillingham before a very difficult test against Portsmouth on Saturday. A potentially week for Adams and the club I feel so would be great to push on.

COYG!

Cheers Josh ====== Are you Greensam in disguise

Hahaha I did wonder if I'd get that response!

Like Sam says.. You plan to write a little and you get into it and totally lose track of time! Spent about 20 minutes thinking and writing all that out!

Cheers Josh, I do like a nice report.

Well done to Josh for managing to get that much detail from that awful view! Haha

The way I saw it was, we started shit. I was quietly cautious not to get too carried away by the Adams appointment. My hesitations were of how naive he might be to FL football opposed to the Scottish footballing ladder, would he be able to carry his methods and success across the boarder? The opening 15 minutes did nothing to allay my fears. In all honesty, Wimbledon should have put the game to bed during that spell, but to our credit we got through it without conceding.

Mellor was dreadful in that half, clearly being targeted as our weak link. However as the game progressed we first of all managed to control Wimbledon better and then worked on actually playing some football. By the end of the half we were on top in both scoreline and performance. It was still frustrating and sloppy, but we had improved.

The second half started fantastically; obviously, we scored. But it was clear that Adams had managed to iron out those first half faults during the break and the players came out confident and played some terrific football. Even Mellor looked very good in the second half. We clearly tired as the match went on, and for the last 5/10 minutes we sat deep and allowed Wimbledon too many crosses into the box. Fortunately their strikers couldn't finish for toffee yesterday.

It was particularly pleasing to see not only the goals scored by the new players, but created by them also. Their impact in our attacking is very clear, as we now look a far more positive and attacking side.

My hesitations about Adams are completely gone. I know chaps like X'y and Greenskin will laugh at my knee jerkish positivity, but it was very good yesterday and its got me very excited about the season. COYG

SwimWithTheTide wrote:

Well done to Josh for managing to get that much detail from that awful view! Haha

The way I saw it was, we started shit. I was quietly cautious not to get too carried away by the Adams appointment. My hesitations were of how naive he might be to FL football opposed to the Scottish footballing ladder, would he be able to carry his methods and success across the boarder? The opening 15 minutes did nothing to allay my fears. In all honesty, Wimbledon should have put the game to bed during that spell, but to our credit we got through it without conceding.

Mellor was dreadful in that half, clearly being targeted as our weak link. However as the game progressed we first of all managed to control Wimbledon better and then worked on actually playing some football. By the end of the half we were on top in both scoreline and performance. It was still frustrating and sloppy, but we had improved.

The second half started fantastically; obviously, we scored. But it was clear that Adams had managed to iron out those first half faults during the break and the players came out confident and played some terrific football. Even Mellor looked very good in the second half. We clearly tired as the match went on, and for the last 5/10 minutes we sat deep and allowed Wimbledon too many crosses into the box. Fortunately their strikers couldn't finish for toffee yesterday.

It was particularly pleasing to see not only the goals scored by the new players, but created by them also. Their impact in our attacking is very clear, as we now look a far more positive and attacking side.

My hesitations about Adams are completely gone. I know chaps like X'y and Greenskin will laugh at my knee jerkish positivity, but it was very good yesterday and its got me very excited about the season. COYG

Not at all Powelly. Can't really comment on the game as I wasn't there but from most reports it was very good and tallied with your own view, excellent news. A battle scarred old sweat like myself would of course always bring words and phrases like honeymoon, injuries, suspensions and paper thin squad into any dialogue about the seasons prospects but so far so good-there should be a bit more revealed about the composition and quality of the squad in the two upcoming home games.

Victory will always feel positive

Just saying if they played a side that was decent at finishing they would have been 4 nii down in that first 20mins and it would have been game over ..just saying but sort your defence out Del bhey