PLYMOUTH ARGYLE V OXFORD UNITED

Got to be good result surely?

Not the worst result today but the chase is now 2 from 5. Even outsiders Wimbledon now looks like a tough fixture.

By May well be down to 6 or 7 place at best. There is no way this team can be promoted.

Great results for Yeovil and Torquay today, four wins on the trot for the Gulls, the great escape is well and truly on.
COYGULLS.

A home draw is never a good result for me, but the manager and the few players we have are doing their best. Oxford with their far bigger budget dispite averaging a couple of thousand less than Argyle, will be disappionted i would imagine.

Yeh well done Tanner good on you for stepping up when Brent wouldn't. Not a disaster as a loss would have been but a draw at home makes us firmly third placed in the form table. Let's hope Pompey or Rovers don't catch us, if we were five games from the end I would relax but were not.

Freathy wrote:

By May well be down to 6 or 7 place at best.  There is no way this team can be promoted.

Agreed, but xthrobber Ade the Creep and Just another Nerd would disagree!

Amsterdamage wrote:

Yeh well done Tanner good on you for stepping up when Brent wouldn't. Not a disaster as a loss would have been but a draw at home makes us firmly third placed in the form table. Let's hope Pompey or Rovers don't catch us, if we were five games from the end I would relax but were not.

Bristol Rovers will be soon in another galaxy from Jimmy's Argo, like Bournemouth before, Englands biggest Village club will remain just that for the forseable future.

Never mind promotion. Look at the pension pot !

Unusual game for a top of the table clash. Oxford are ok, but not world beaters that is for sure. They had their moments.

Get out of jail card played by Argyle late on again.

I will take that point with both hands though.

It is still in the hands of Argyle and only they can screw it up.

Anything the players and manager achieve this season will be nothing short of a miracle given the farcical showing from Brent. He should be ashamed that his so called professional team can't even field a full bench of substitutes. At the end of the day, he owns 95% of the club and is entirely responsible for that. The sooner he sells up and fecks off the better.

On the other hand what the manager and players are achieving by just staying in the automatic promotion spots is incredible really given the lack of numbers and injuries we have had throughout the season.

Can't disagree with Jon L, it has been an achievement just to still be in with a shout.

Argyle have got to grab the chance now and push that much harder.

Accy play Pompey on Tuesday, Rovers have got AFC.

What was the attendance?

VillageGreen wrote:

Terrible game for a top of the table clash. Oxford are ok, but not world beaters that is for sure.

Get out of jail card played by Argyle late on again.

I will take that point with both hands though.

It is still in the hands of Argyle and only they can screw it up.

That would come a very long way down the list of "terrible games" in my experience. Very good performance attacking wise from Argyle in the first half but Oxford were always very dangerous on the counter and with the pace in their team and the numbers they got forward it was obvious how they score so many goals away from home. Looked as if Hartley was surprised by McCormick not collecting the corner for their first goal with disastrous consequences but Argyle fought back to their credit and deservedly equalised when an excellent corner from Jervais [who had his best game for some months] was headed home by Nelson. The aforementioned Oxford potency was in evidence for their second, a classy move finished off with a 20 yarder into the top corner and seemingly Argyle had the stuffing knocked out of them for the remainder of the half. Tanner on for the injured [presumably] Hartley and Argyle were desperately unlucky not to take the lead when Reid [who did his job as target man admirably throughout in spite of some cretinously ignorant opinions of some supporters] headed against the bar from a superb cross from Jervais and failed to convert the rebound which was blocked on the line. Oxford came on very strongly without creating too many chances and Argyle were rewarded for their tenacity when Tanner headed home a Carey corner. Oxford hit the bar from a very good position, a few bits and pieces at either end but a hard fought draw was the right result in my book-a strange game as far goals against the run of play was concerned but certainly not a bad one.

pretty much sums it up for me greenskin but luke did seem a bit out of sorts for there first goal and the ref was talking to one of our players when they took the corner. we were caught napping comes to mind.

Greenskin wrote:

VillageGreen wrote:

Terrible game for a top of the table clash. Oxford are ok, but not world beaters that is for sure.

Get out of jail card played by Argyle late on again.

I will take that point with both hands though.

It is still in the hands of Argyle and only they can screw it up.

That would come a very long way down the list of "terrible games" in my experience. Very good performance attacking wise from Argyle in the first half but Oxford were always very dangerous on the counter and with the pace in their team and the numbers they got forward it was obvious how they score so many goals away from home. Looked as if Hartley was surprised by McCormick not collecting the corner for their first goal with disastrous consequences but Argyle fought back to their credit and deservedly equalised when an excellent corner from Jervais [who had his best game for some months] was headed home by Nelson. The aforementioned Oxford potency was in evidence for their second, a classy move finished off with a 20 yarder into the top corner and seemingly Argyle had the stuffing knocked out of them for the remainder of the half. Tanner on for the injured [presumably] Hartley and Argyle were desperately unlucky not to take the lead when Reid [who did his job as target man admirably throughout in spite of some cretinously ignorant opinions of some supporters] headed against the bar from a superb cross from Jervais and failed to convert the rebound which was blocked on the line. Oxford came on very strongly without creating too many chances and Argyle were rewarded for their tenacity when Tanner headed home a Carey corner. Oxford hit the bar from a very good position, a few bits and pieces at either end but a hard fought draw was the right result in my book-a strange game as far goals against the run of play was concerned but certainly not a bad one.

It was a strange game, agree. It did not have that top of table (2nd Vs 3rd) about it.

im going to do a greensam for this report not to mock but to basically rant lol

McCormick: not his best game dont know what he was thinking with his corner call that resulted in the own goal.

Mellor: i will be amazed if he is offered a new contract in May, his worse game that i have seen him play and del bhey was very pissed with him at times as he had the attitude of someone who didnt care.
Hartley: worse game i have seen him play which shocked me as he is usually the most consistent player we have, balls up with the og gave the ball away many times and got injured for his troubles. hope its not serious but he was walking very slowly off the pitch with the dr and physio.
Nelson: good header for the goal, made some good tackles but he was nearly caught off guard many times due to oxfords pace
Sawyer: nothing amazing

Simpson: tried bless him but didn't get supported when he won the ball
Purrington: utter bollocks and thats being nice. He didnt have a clue most the time in midfield and in defence he wasnt that much better.... If i were Del Bhey i wouldnt be in a rush to play him in midfield again and put Harvey there if he is determined not to sign anyone.

Jervis: i think he has given up trying to score now sadly still did moderately ok
Carey: didnt have his best game today at all despite setting up the tanner goal.
Wylde: tried a few runs did ok nothing amazing

Reid: i felt sorry for him he actually had a good game he battle for the ball won it many times set a few attacks off when he did that but didnt get any decent service at all, i dont think his team mates like him very much as a few times he was in a perfect postiton to be set up on goal and the player chose to ignore him and pass to another often resulting in that player losing the ball. He did come close twice.

Subs

Tanner: battled hard and won us a point.. could have scored before that if he reacted quick enough at the corner post when he had the ball from a cornerkick.
Nardiello: how can you rate a guy who was on the pitch for 3 minutes? I would have brought him on sooner in truth.

I generally thought Rooney was going to get his 1st team debut today as he was called over at the same time as Nardiello and appeared to be getting ready to come on only not too. Shame really but never mind.

Overall we won a point today and we were very lucky to even get that. We were shite for a team chasing promotion. so many errors made by the team it was fortunate Oxford only managed to get 2 goals.
i will take this point as a victory as its all we could have won as we certainly didn't play like a team that wanted to go 3 points clear in 2nd place and often played like we were 2-1 up and had no desire to go for it till we did equalise. Oxford will feel hard done by but they too werent at their best but they at least looked like they wanted the 3 points so they will be pissed.

Del Bhey seriously needs to getting moving in the loan market next week max out our quota for the season if need be because we are only going to limp towards the finish line and miss out on automatics if we carry on as we are.

Greenskin wrote:

VillageGreen wrote:

Terrible game for a top of the table clash. Oxford are ok, but not world beaters that is for sure.

Get out of jail card played by Argyle late on again.

I will take that point with both hands though.

It is still in the hands of Argyle and only they can screw it up.

That would come a very long way down the list of "terrible games" in my experience. Very good performance attacking wise from Argyle in the first half but Oxford were always very dangerous on the counter and with the pace in their team and the numbers they got forward it was obvious how they score so many goals away from home. Looked as if Hartley was surprised by McCormick not collecting the corner for their first goal with disastrous consequences but Argyle fought back to their credit and deservedly equalised when an excellent corner from Jervais [who had his best game for some months] was headed home by Nelson. The aforementioned Oxford potency was in evidence for their second, a classy move finished off with a 20 yarder into the top corner and seemingly Argyle had the stuffing knocked out of them for the remainder of the half. Tanner on for the injured [presumably] Hartley and Argyle were desperately unlucky not to take the lead when Reid [who did his job as target man admirably throughout in spite of some cretinously ignorant opinions of some supporters] headed against the bar from a superb cross from Jervais and failed to convert the rebound which was blocked on the line. Oxford came on very strongly without creating too many chances and Argyle were rewarded for their tenacity when Tanner headed home a Carey corner. Oxford hit the bar from a very good position, a few bits and pieces at either end but a hard fought draw was the right result in my book-a strange game as far goals against the run of play was concerned but certainly not a bad one.

Changed to it "unusual game".

What was the attendance?

Les Miserable wrote:

What was the attendance?

10091, quite a lot of posh twats there too in the away end

With a bit of January investment that would've been 13-14k. Ah well.

Angry wrote:

Les Miserable wrote:

What was the attendance?

10091, quite a lot of posh twats there too in the away end

Very poor considering the large away following and the top of the table thing. I blame people like me for not going. I'm fairly fit and wasn't a bad player in me yoof, might've got on the bench today, fackit.

Oxford is well known for educated w@nkers, aka posh twats..............

Oxford was always one of those boring fixtures back in the 70s, 80s or whenever it was. Never any atmosphere, never anything to remember aside from boredom. I didn't bother today, I did think about it but whether another block in the Lyndy would be opened or not was the deciding factor. Apparently it was an half decent game but hey ho, I'm 22 quid better off.

I'm not sure where we go from here. 6 subs? Not good. It looks like we've a full-on injury cisis again and as we hit the sharp end of the season that is not good.

The starting XI was a surprise with the presence of 2 left backs making shape somewhat difficult. Basically we seemed to line up with a flat back four, Roobs on his tod up front, Jervis and Wylde on chalky boot duty with Simpson and Purrington tucking in leaving Carey to maraud.

Sadly the game seemed to pass Purrington, in his unfamilar role, by forcing Carey to stay deep but it didn't look unbalanced and we gave as good as we got.

Their 1st goal was a shocker. A well taken but basic inswinging corner caused Luke to panic and the back post man to fall over. The ball hit him and went in. Total headfuck stuff. Dreadful.

We looked threatening going forward though. Every time we stuck in a cross to the back stick it caused mayhem. From one such cross Hartley had three bang bang bang chances to score but we ended up with a corner. Back post. Hartley. Free header. He missed. He could easily have scored 4 times in a minute.

Another back post cross from a corner (was it Jervis who took it?) saw Nelson power home another free header. Very reminiscent of Lindsay or Mark Smith from years ago. A proper CB-up-for-a-corner goal.

Hartley went off at HT which saw Sawyer move in, Purrington move back, Carey go wide and Tanner take his place. This was a massive shift in personnel even if our shape stayed the same and we never really settled. Oxford upped their intent and we struggled to hang on but hang on we did until Mellor did wonderfully to beat his first man and abysmally to lose it to the second one. Moments later it was 1-2. We never even had the sniff of a hope to stop it.

Talking of sniffs... Oxford fans let off a flare/smoke bomb at the start. Very smelly. And there was a weird smell, kind of like somebody was playing with Swan Vestas, at the back of the Lyndy. Somebody, a youngish middle aged fella and not your (possibly) expected chavvy youngster type got evicted and the smell dispersed. God knows what that was all about.

Oxford should have had the game won but another back post corner, Carey this time, found Tanner's noggin and he buried his header with as little fuss as Nelson had done earlier (it really is a simple game when it ccomes down to it). Home Park celebrated and heaved a sigh of relief simultaneously.

Reid, who had a good game but saw little worthwhile service, went off and Nardiello came on to play the Tyler Harvey not-touch-the-ball cameo and 2 minutes of injury time saw the game finish.

Oxford probably shaded it but didn't dominate enough to deserve the win and we'll happily grab that point with both hands.

An open, entertaining game played between two teams who wanted to play football (Wycombe take note) and without a booking, I think.

A word is due to the ref as well: I don't think he got a single call wrong. Very, very unfussy and competent.