Sheffield Wednesday vs Argyle - preview
By: Jim |
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There’s currently much wailing and gnashing of teeth among the Argyle faithful, following Saturday’s dismal performance at home to Ipswich. A combination of comedy defending and lacklustre movement in the midfield, aided by a refereeing performance of startling incompetence has brought all the doom-merchants out of the woodwork, along with the vicious scapegoaters. Luke Summerfield was nowhere near being the worst Argyle player on the pitch on Saturday - step forward Marcel Seip and Karl Duguid - but to hear some fans talk, you would think he was single-handedly responsible not only for Saturday’s defeat, but the credit crunch, the Iraq War and the death of Diana as well. Luke has won most of the midfield battles he’s fought this season - and if you look at the players he’s been up against, Guy Moussi, Ben Watson, O’Toole and Williamson of Watford to name just a handful, that’s no mean achievement.
Having said that, though, there’s a case for resting him tomorrow. Well, to be honest, on the basis of Saturday, there’s a case to be made for resting most of the team. Mat Doumbe’s ankle looks set to continue to keep him out, so David McNamee will continue at right back, despite not having impressed on Saturday. Steve MacLean’s cameo sub appearance on Saturday did him a lot of good and he may well replace Fallon in attack; Nicolas Marin should also start at the expense of Jamie Mackie. The biggest dilemma is at the back: Seip and Cathcart’s partnership has been at the heart of Argyle’s recent success and it would be foolish, in my view, to break it up on the basis of one bad game. Chris Barker, on the other hand, has been struggling for a while now and Jim Paterson has never let Argyle down at LB. Wednesday are unbeaten at home and although they’ve come off the back of two straight defeats - at Barnsley and Birmingham - are likely to offer a stern test. Some extra competitiveness in central midfield, perhaps in the guise of a rehabilitated Walton, might well be appropriate. So imagine a reshuffled team looking like:
Larrieu
McNamee
Seip
Cathcart
Paterson
Marin
Walton
Duguid
Clark
MacLean
Gallagher
——————–
Barker
Timar
Summerfield
Fallon
Mackie
Wednesday will find out tomorrow if on-loan midfielder Jimmy Smith’s red card has been rescinded.
Richard Hinds and Marcus Tudgay are both definitely out, while question marks apparently sit over the fitness of Spurr, Beevers, Wood, O’Connor, Simek and Akpo Sodje. Expect former Argyle favourites (wink) Leon Clarke and Peter Gilbert to feature. Offer me a point now, and I’ll gladly accept it.
Category: Team News
Argyle 1 PNE 0
By: Jim | 4 Comments
In the end, I suppose, the result was more important than the performance. Two games into a crazy, crazy period of five games in fourteen days (including a double trip to Sheffield - did the FA think we were going to *stay up there?), Argyle needed to bounce back from their undeserved defeat at Derby on Saturday. And thanks to a Rory Fallon goal from a Clark corner, God’s footballer stretching to loop his header over Lonergan when everyone assumed Clark had overhit it, bounce back they did.
That goal came at the end of easily the best period of the game - the first twenty minutes. Both sides had started like an express train: in fact, the opening period felt more like the last ten minutes. Passing was slick, movement slicker and gaps and spaces opened up and were exploited by both sides. It was hammer and tongs stuff, end to end, with Summers, Gallagher and Mackie in particular causing PNE all sorts of bother, while for the Lilywhites (in yellow) Ross Wallace, McKenna and Nicholson responded in kind. The game was aided by referee Andy Penn taking a liberal approach to challenges, though the one big decision he was called on to make - waving away Argyle claims for a penalty after Mackie went down - he got spot on.
Once Argyle scored, however, most of the sting went out of their play as they seemed to want to calm the game down and consolidate. And an ankle injury to Doumbe after twenty-five minutes seemed to finish them as a creative force. The Frenchman was replaced by Paterson, who went to central midfield and Duguid dropped into right back. This was hard to fathom: I’m not sure if Pato has *ever played central midfield, and the Duggie/Summers partnership in midfield has been the key to our revival in fortunes. They understand one another, play off each other and somehow Duggie gives Luke the confidence to play as we all (OK, some of us) know he can. All of a sudden, the confidence drained from the players: passes went astray, the simplest task of keeping possession became an impossibility, it was as though we were doing our level best to invite PNE back into a game we really should have put to bed. The forwards became detached from the midfield and from each other - at times we were so static it was like watching Acorn Antiques - and we waited for the inevitable equaliser.
Which never came. For a side who’d beaten Reading on Saturday, Preston were, not to put too fine a point on it, bloody awful. They barely threatened, beyond that first twenty-minute spell, and seemed singularly unwilling to take advantage of the opportunities Argyle were offering them to establish a foothold in the game. The Greens continued to create chances - mainly through the sheer dogged persistence of Mackie, who ran himself into the ground, and the occasional brilliant flash of Gallagher. Those moments were, however, the exception rather than the rule and as the game degenerated the crowd became more and more nervous. Sturrock chose not to freshen things up, when the game was crying out for MacLean’s wise head and link-up play, and as Argyle tired, referee Penn suddenly decided to blow for everything in the last ten minutes. Fallon was booked, after clearly winning the ball in a tackle with Sean St Ledger - who confirmed his status as the Championship’s biggest cheat by rolling around as though he’d been shot and during the totally unjustified four minutes of added time Penn gave another freekick for a perfectly legitimate tackle by Barker on the right hand edge of the Argyle area. The ball was swung in and met by Mawene: Larrieu’s instinctive reaction save won’t be bettered this season. The ball pinged around and fell to St Ledger five yards out - with the goal yawning he could only fire over. The PNE bench held their heads - justice, though, was done.
Seip and Larrieu stood out for Argyle: also young Cathcart, whose partnership with Seip is going from strength to strength. Fallon, despite his goal, looked leggy and lethargic; Gallagher off the pace somewhat. Summers was Summers, mixing the sublime with the occasional decidedly ropey. Paterson fought hard, but a central midfielder he is not and if Doumbe is out for a while we need a different solution from moving Duggy to RB, because we need him in the middle. Clark worked hard, but visibly tired towards the end. As for PNE, nothing in their play yesterday leads me to think they’ll be in the shake-up come the end of the season. To be honest, with a cheat like St Ledger in their ranks they don’t deserve to be.
Category: Team NewsThis Is The Modern World
By: Jim | 4 Comments
Amid all the strangely new-found concern about indebtedness and clubs being used as cash-cows by overseas investors, who should be there popping up in the background but Premiership Chief Executive Richard Scudamore. As well as denying that indebtedness was a problem (his bizarre argument was that as long as the level of your debt didn’t exceed your income all was well), he went on to suggest that last year’s Big Stupid Idea, Game 39, was inevitable in some form or other, on the basis that the fans – the fans! - demanded it. By the fans, of course, he meant the growing hordes of TV viewers in (mainly) South-East Asia and the US, who choose their team by who knows what method and whose connection with the club is limited to an annual purchase of a replica shirt and for the lucky ones a once-in-a-lifetime trip to the Emirates, the Bridge or Anfield, rather than the poor benighted supporters who actually turn up at the ground, pay the money, and create the atmosphere.
Scudamore’s argument is of course disingenuous: what he means is, how can the clubs fail to turn down such a lucrative marketing opportunity. And in one sense, of course, he is right: the rich, largely untapped overseas markets are full of potential customers, newly turned on to the glories of Premiership football. And there lies the rub. What Scudmore and the 20 PL chairmen are after are not, in any recognisable form, “fans” or “supporters” but customers. And there is a massive, massive difference: in fact, they are polar opposites. A customer’s relationship with a business is hard-nosed, based solely on (however crude) a cost-benefit analysis and as soon as the costs outweigh the benefits, the customer moves on, either to another business or to keeping his money in his pocket. A fan’s relationship with his club is based on anything but cost/benefit: it is based on passion, identity, community, history. Being a fan has to do with who you are, where you are from, your past as well as your future. The relationship you have with your club is burned into your psyche in intangible and hard-to-define ways, and the notion of walking away because you don’t like the current product or of supporting another team because they are more successful or more glamourous is as unthinkable as changing who you are and where you come from. And moreover, I submit it is impossible to be a fan based exclusively on TV/internet/mobile phone contact. The fan experience mediated through Sky Sports or ESPN is inevitably going to be weaker, simply because someone else is in control of what you see, hear and sense. You see what the TV director wants you to see, hear only those (bowdlerised) chants the director wants you to hear. And when the goal goes in, the experience of jumping around your living room is a cruel pastiche and entirely unsatisfactory shadow of leaping up with all those around you at the ground.
This is important because it strikes at the heart of the modern mantra driving all sorts of initiatives, Game 39 included: that football is a business and needs to behave as such. This is the Big Lie: the central theme which has dominated football administration since 1989, the year the Super League, as it was then known, was first mooted. Football is a business and if it is to survive must become more businesslike. Rubbish. Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish, rubbish, RUBBISH! Football is not now, never has been, never will be, a business. It is a game, played for entertainment, for fun. It is an expression of community, in perhaps its messiest form. It is not a business. Businessmen are involved with it, but it is not a business. And the reason it is not a business is because it has fans, not customers. Because it deals with loyalties, relationships and communities beyond the crude cost-benefit. And it has been the failure to understand, to acknowledge this fairly basic fact that has got football in the mess it currently is in. Fans are being ignored in favour of customers, because, it is argued, without more customers success is elusive. Scudamore cannot open his mouth without offering hymns of praise to the modern god, Brand. History, culture, community, all subverted into this city-worker’s wet dream.
Already one set of fans have had their club stolen from them. Ask Wimbledon fans how they feel about MK Dons’ branding. Wrexham, Rotherham, Bournemouth, Luton – all right, even Leeds – victims of the pursuit of customers at the expense of fans. But it will not be until a major Premiership club or two go the same way that the game will really sit up and start to re-evaluate its relationship with the people that keep the chairmen in cigars, the agents in bling and the players in gas-guzzlers. West Ham and Portsmouth are current favourites: what happens when the credit crunch really bites is anyone’s guess. One thing you can be sure of, though: it will be the fans that stay and the customers that go. Along with the Americans, Russians, Norwegians, Saudis…..
Category: Team NewsArgyle 1 Forest 0
By: Jim | Add Comments
There’s a definite sense that Sturrock is at last getting this Argyle side how he wants it. His uncompromising stance over some of the bigger egos in the squad, coupled with his insistence on “honesty” from his matchday eleven is starting to show dividends: and this third win on the bounce bore all the hallmarks of a traditional Sturrock performance. Argyle were committed, organised, direct and above all, manifestly a TEAM. Much of the game wasn’t pretty; until Marin came on there was no-one out there offering much in the way of breathtaking tricks and skill; but there were performances to admire all over the pitch. Three superb saves from Romain Larrieu - two from Nathan Tyson, one from a Chris Cohen freekick - dealt with all Forest had to offer, and it was he who drew the Man of the Match award from young diver Tom Daley. But in truth, that could have gone to any one of half a dozen. Seip was majestic, absolutely majestic at the back: calm, confident, and at least two steps ahead of Cole and Tyson; Cathcart (until the injury that forced him off shortly after half-time) strong, impassable and determined. It is surely no coincidence that Argyle’s only wobbly period was the ten minutes immediately following his replacement by Timar.
Up front, Fallon continued to reinvent himself - reincarnate himself, almost - as Mickey Evans Mark II. If Gallagher was quieter than usual, it was more than made up for by Chris Clark’s energy and pace down the flanks. But it was in central midfield though that Argyle were the biggest revelation. Summerfield bossed, simply bossed the game: always available, always moving the ball left to right to right to left. Moussi and Perch were utterly anonymous and with Duguid giving one of the great ‘unseen’ performances, Forest simply had no answer. McCleary, when he came on, gave them a little pace, a little quality, but it was too little too late.
Had referee Kevin Friend been a little less devoted to the sound of his whistle and allowed the game to flow at least a bit, Argyle might well have added to the single, slighty fortuitous Fallon goal, coming after the hapless and hopeless Wes Morgan slammed a clearance into his legs. They certainly should have had the chance to double their advantage from the penalty spot - Bennett’s haul back on Mackie being missed only by Mr Friend and his assistant colleague on the Lyndhurst side. Mackie’s disappointment at his persistence not being rewarded was palpable: moments later, his burst through the middle and shot had Smith beaten all ends up, only to clip the top of the crossbar.
One last thing. Andy Cole. Having gone public in the Nottingham press earlier in the week at his dissatisfaction at not being in the starting line-up and claiming piously that he’d never been paid for doing nothing in his life, you would have expected a performance of Premiership quality or at the very least, honest-to-goodness, die-for-the-team commitment. Instead we saw a sulky, lazy, can’t-be-bothered, complete lack of interest. Marked out of the game by Seip, he refused to move for his teammates or go looking for the ball and seemed to expect chances to be delivered to him on a plate. I don’t know what Forest are paying him, but if I were a fan I would be demanding his contract be terminated forthwith. I haven’t seen such a cynical one last pay-day since Jim Beglin was at Argyle. For a European Cup winner to behave in that way is an utter, utter disgrace and to treat a football club, and more importantly its fans with such egregious contempt absolutely shameful.
Category: Team NewsArgyle v Nottingham Forest - preview
By: Jim | Add Comments
It’s irresistible force meets immovable post time tomorrow at HP - something’s gotta give. Argyle’s home form has been abysmal thus far, with only a point from the opening day 2-2 with Wolves to show from the three games, while Forest’s away form is even worse: played three, lost three, three goals scored, ten conceded. But we should not get carried away: that record includes a 5-1 stuffing by the Wolves at Molineux, a narrow 2-1 defeat to third placed Preston, and a 3-1 beating at the Liberty Stadium thanks in part to a dodgy penalty decision, having dominated most of the game. They have scored in each of their away games; we’ve conceded in all our home games. Forest give the impression of a side one result away from kick-starting their season and they will fancy this fixture as the place to get it. Anyone who thinks the new rejuvenated Argyle will have a romp in the park tomorrow is sadly deluded.
One piece of good news for the Greens is the absence of Robert Earnshaw. Earnie is one of those inbetween sort of strikers - too good for he Championship, not quite good enough for the Prem (see also Rob Hulse, James Beattie, Andy Johnson). He has an irritating knack of scoring against us,and has five already this season, so he will not be missed tomorrow. Forest’s line is likely to led by either or both of Andy Cole - frustrated at missing out so far - and one-time Argyle target Nathan Tyson, whose goal against us for Wycombe in the 03-04 season still stands out as an example of raw pace and power. In the midfield, expect a return for former Yeovil playmaker Arron Davies and starts for Guy Moussi - already being heralded as find of the year by some - and former Argyle loanee Lee Martin. Add Chris Cohen into the mix and that is a pretty formidable midfield. At the back, Forest have in my opinion the best keeper in the Championship, in Paul Smith, and the only player to survive from the last time we played Forest here - Wes Morgan. New loan signing Joel Lynch is expected to be on the bench.
As for Argyle, few changes are expected. There’s a case for bringing Nicolas Marin in on the right in place of Jamie Mackie; Jim Paterson misses out again, so Barker keeps his place at LB; with Easter departing for Millwall on loan there’s a space on the bench - perhaps for Puncheon? Expect a line-up fairly close to:
Larrieu
Doumbe
Seip
Cathcart
Barker
Mackie
Summerfield
Duguid
Clark
Gallagher
Fallon
——————-
Mpenza
Marin
Timar
Folly
Puncheon
As far as a result goes, I hesitate to call it except to say that I think there will be goals. A repeat of 2004’s 3-2 wouldn’t surprise me at all.
Just time to invite you to check out the latest edition of the Argyle Podcast, now at http://argylepodcast.wordpress.com, which includes the most cringemakingly awful football song known to humanity. Hope to be back later on with a match report and photos, etc. COYG!
Category: Team NewsThe only way is up
By: Jim | 1 Comment
Thanks to holiday, and now a dose of pleurisy, coupled with a torn inter-costal muscle, I have missed Argyle’s last two home games. Apparently they have been our worst performances for some time. We now sit ignominiously at the foot of the CCC and our rivals are rubbing their hands in glee as our predicted demise looks assured. Pasoti and the other messageboards are in meltdown and the rumour mill has gone into overdrive, with Sturrock’s sacking or resignation a matter of hours, days or weeks away, depending on who you believe.
From my sick bed, this all looks rather bizarre. Why back a manager to the extent that Sturrock has been backed, only to sack him when success is not immediate? Surely, surely, we need time to allow Mpenza, Marin and Gallagher (not to mention the new central midfielder that’s supposedly coming) to bed in? The side itself is a complete new build, lacking in confidence, but not without ability as the Wolves result showed. Anyway, who would replace Sturrock? Those calling for Darren Ferguson need to realise one thing straight away: there’s about as much chance of Ferguson coming as Jose Mourinho. From the available candidates, the best two are either about to take over at Cheltenham (Martin Allen) or would be utterly unacceptable to the fanbase because of the controversial nature of their departure from Home Park the last time. Other than them, we are down to the usual list of jobbing (i.e. useless) out-of-work managers: Reid, Gregory, Cotterill, Robson. No-one with any sense is coming here.
I could whinge about the abject failure of the Board to do the decent thing and sell to the Ball/Warren/Jones consortium when it became apparent that they simply couldn’t compete at this level. I could ask what benefit the much-vaunted Japanese investment has brought, other than allowing the existing Board to dispose of a small percentage of their shares for no doubt a handsome profit. But that would be old ground. What I will confess to is a nervousness that the Board are fans - and thus alarmingly prone to behaving like fans. The fifteen-year-olds are baying for Sturrock’s blood. My worry is that the Board will listen to them.
Sturrock’s new Argyle needs time to grow and gel. Above all, it needs the support of the fanbase, not a hysterical over-reaction to a few bad games. Argyle fans need to grow up, get some patience and start to realise that some things take time. We are five games in, for heaven’s sake. Now is not the time to panic. There is no-one out there to wave a magic wand and make things happen instantanteously. Argyle fans need to stop whining, start supporting, and above all get off various players’ backs - and the manager’s. To quote a member of yesterday’s opposition: “We need a twelfth man here. Where are you? Where are you?”
Category: Team NewsThe boy’s a bit good
By: Jim | Add Comments
Following our humiliation in front of a teatime nation a fortnight ago, coupled with the news that striker Jermaine Easter had unspecified personal problems which could only be resolved by leaving Argyle and leaving Plymouth, it’s fair to say that even the cheeriest of Argyle supporters was in low spirits. It’s never nice to be laughed at by Peter Beagrie: its even worse when you deserve it. Luggy’s “New Revolution” appeared to be in tatters and all those pundits confidently predicting our relegation as part of the pre-season previews were getting to claim their money early. No creativity, no ideas, no chance.
The tide began to turn on Saturday morning, when it became clear we’d signed Blackburn striker/attacking midfielder Paul Gallagher on a season long loan. Gally went straight into the side for the Burnley game, did enough to keep the GA cheerful and helped secure a point (0-0) at a ground where we never, never do anything other than get beat. But nothing could prepare us for Monday’s transfer deadline day. Two crackerjack signings - Nicolas Marin from Ligue 1 Lorient: a right winger with pace, skill and a finish to better Halmosi’s. And, most unbelievably of all, Emile Mpenza, former Man City bull up front: strong, powerful and with a definite eye for goal, signing for a year. While some of are muttering a precautionary “Taribo West” under our breath, all of a sudden, there is genuine excitement about this season and about our prospects. There’s nothing like a couple of high-profile signings to get the football pulse up. And, apparently, there has been a surge of interest in tickets for the Norwich game next Saturday and in season tickets, A fickle bunch, these Plymouthians.
We should strike a note of caution. Both Mpena and Marin have had nothing like a pre-season, so are likely to be severely lacking in match fitness. Argyle also tend to blow it in front of a big crowd. There are still serious questions to be asked about central midfield, where even my championing of Luke Summerfield is starting to wobble a little. Luggy failed to sign Glenn Whelan before the window slammed shut, but from Tuesday, emergency loans of up to three months are possible, which would allow Whelan to join now with a view to a permanent move in January. But the squad now needs culling. Easter presumably is a goner; I would think also Folly; and maybe two or three of the younger pros (Smith, McCrory) may be sent out on loan. There has also been rumours of a surprise departure: Jamie Mackie apparently is less than chuffed with the way things are.
All in all then, it has been a bumpy start to the season. Including the League Cup our record reads, P5 W0 D2 L3 F2 A7. We haven’t scored since the opening day of the season - a full 394 scoreless minutes. Here’s hoping Sturrock and the boys use the international break - and that we put half a dozen past Norwich in a week’s time. Check back later in the week for a full match preview.
Category: Team NewsReading 2 Argyle 0
By: Jim | 1 Comment
I hate the South East. I mean, I *really hate it. From the moment one of the infamous Reading FC stewards yelled “Oi! No cameras allowed!” while I was taking pictures (through the stupid extra netting they put up at the MadStad) of the flipping warm-up, you could sense that the afternoon was not going to be pleasant. Surrounded by ex-Prem opulence, corporate obsequience and above all damn *branding*, the entire ambience was of meekly sitting there while the money boys gave it to you good. It was a brutal experience.
To give Ibrahima Sonko the freedom of the six-yard box once may look like misfortune. To give it to him twice is not just careless, it’s criminally negligent. Rory may well have “held his hands up in the dressing room” - it’s still not bloody good enough. Kebe ripped Barker to bits all afternoon. Walton looked exhausted from the kick-off, three games in a week being understandably beyond him. Doumbe and Seip were calm and assured, for the most part. Summers was involved with most of our good stuff (all heralded, by the way, from the time when Steve MacLean came on and we actually began to play some football, pressurize the decidedly dodgy Reading midfield) but also had an alarming tendency to scuttle sideways, Ray Wilkins-like. Puncheon was our most creative player, happy to take on and beat three players at once. If MacLean had got more than a quiff on his exquisite cross with about 20 left, we might have seen some fireworks late on. As it was, Reading fairly quickly re-established the grip they had on the game and if Convey had not been so profligate in front of goal could easily have embarrassed us further.
Some points to ponder:
1) Mackie isn’t ready to start. Nowhere near. Not on the wing, not up front, not at all. Use him as a 15 minute impact sub by all means, but don’t start with him. Let him run at a tired defence that hes got more of a chance of beating. Ingimarsson and Sonko laughed at him all game.
2) MacLean must start. He’s our best player. Keeping him on the bench because some of our idiot fans have a downer on him just isn’t good enough.
3) Jermaine Easter looked absolutely fed up.
4) Puncheon is great, but he needs the ball so……..
5) buy a central midfielder this week. And a striker. Please.
Category: Team NewsReading v Argyle - preview
By: Jim | Add Comments
For reasons too complicated to go into here, I have failed to provide a full preview for tomorrow’s game at the Madjeski. Argyle’s creditable performance at home to Wolves on Saturday has been - at least in part- undone by their capitulation at the Kennel. It will be very interesting to see how they react. Reading were ordinary in their 0-0 borefest at the City ground - competent without being penetrative and will be desperate to launch their “Back To The Prem campaign. For Argyle McNamee and Sawyer continue to struggle; MacLean probably did enough on Tuesday to start; Puncheons wiles may well be needed from the off; Timar still looks a long way from being ready. So expect a side looking something like:
Stack;
Duguid
Seip
Cathcart
Barker;
Clark
Walton
Summerfield
Puncheon;
MacLean
Fallon
Subs:
Larrieu
Paterson
Doumbe
Mackie
Easter
COYG!
(full preview available at the podcast
Category: Team NewsLuton Town vs Argyle (Carling Cup) - preview
By: Jim | 1 Comment
Seven years ago, Luton came down to Home Park for a game that, some would say, was the catalyst for all the success the club has enjoyed in that period. Luton were expecting to take the division by storm and had set a cracking pace: Argyle had recovered after a shaky start and were looking to challenge for the play-offs. The Hatters’ then-manager, Joe Kinnear, had made a number of derisory and ill-conceived comments about the Greens, doing Sturrock’s team talk for him, and the rest, as they say, is history. Despite falling behind to a 13th minute Dean Crowe goal (Crowe had earlier that season rejected Argyle after only a few days’ trial), the Greens fought back and strikes by Martin Phillips and David Friio ensured we went in at half-time 2-1 up. 2-1 up, but a man down: Mickey Evans having been unjustly sent off for a supposed elbow on Luton centre back Russell Perrett. In the second half, Luton laid siege to the Argyle goal but a combination of heroic defending and a little bit of luck saw us home. That season was defined by the race for the title between the two sides, Argyle sneaking it by 5 points - 102 to 97.
Fast forward seven years. While both sides have been promoted to the Championship, only Argyle have managed to stay there. Luton’s demise has been dramatic and unpleasant, relegated two divisions in as many seasons and staring a third in the face due to an unprecedent points deduction, for a combination of illegal payments to agents and entering administration (again). They started their League Two campaign on Saturday on -30, and their defeat at home to Port Vale has kept them there.
Whilst even the hardest-hearted Pilgrim can sympathise with Luton’s plight, we need to keep focussed on the business in hand tonight. We could really do with a decent run in the Carling Cup, both as way of getting our signings familiar with each other, and to act as a filip for the fans (and for the money). To that extent, I hope Sturrock plays most of the first team tonight. Craig Cathcart is expected to get his first start; McNamee and Sawyer are still injured; Larrieu may well get the nod over Stack; Puncheon could do with starting; and it wouldn’t be a bad idea to give Yala Bolaisie a run-out. Rotate the strikers a little bit and you end up with a possible line up something like:
Larrieu
Duguid
Cathcart
Seip
Paterson
Clark
Walton
Summerfield
Puncheon
MacLean
Easter
——————-
Stack
Mackie
Folly
Doumbe
Barker
Fallon
Bolaisie
Passions will no doubt be running high. The Kennel is a tight little ground and the Hatters fans a passionate lot. Anyone expecting a walkover is likely in for a disappointment - Argyle will need to be at their most professional to get through this - anything less and a shock is very possible.
Category: Team News
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