Defenestrated

The transfer window has slammed shut. And it is hard, at twelve hours remove, to see how it could have been worse for us, at least in terms of our play-off aspirations. The Board – bless em – were ultimately unable to resist the pressure from Ipswich and from Norris and Chuck was unveiled at Portman Road at 6.00 pm yesterday in deal costing Ipswich £2 million, of which Argyle receive £1.25 million – probably double what we would have got in the summer, true, but nevertheless the extinguishing of our promotion ambitions. We managed to secure Jim Paterson, a left back from Motherwell, for £250,000. And we lost out on exciting young Oldham centre-half Neal Trotman, who preferred to stay in the North-West and moved to Preston; and also failed to persuade Northampton right-back Jason Crowe that his ambitions would be better served coming to us than staying where he was.

Ambition – or the lack of it – has been cited by every player (and manager) we’ve lost to a rival in the last three years. “I just didn’t feel my ambition was matched by Plymouth’s” – that’s almost a verbatim quote from Holloway, Ebanks-Blake and now Norris. The side that got us to the dizzy heighs of fourth in October has had its guts ripped out – our first-choice strike-force, the engine and the flair in midfield and the best young prospect we’ve had in years (not to mention the manager) all gone, replaced by unproven journeymen and callow youth. But that’s OK, because we still have three million in profit. Ocean Finance can sleep easy, knowing their interest payments are secure for a while. Meanwhile, players prefer to stay in League 1 than come to us. Presumably our ambition doesn’t match theirs, either.

Pfffffft. We have a game tomorrow – Hull at home. They gave us a fright in the Cup, where our defence struggled with the muscle of Dean Windass. Seip will have a late fitness test, but other than that there are no new injury worries. So expect the team to look something like:

McCormick

Connolly
Seip/Doumbe
Timar
Paterson

Clark
Summerfield
Nalis
Halmosi

Maclean
Fallon

Subs:
Easter
Folly
Sawyer
Hodges
Mackie/Jutkiewicz

We’ve not won in the League since Boxing Day. We need something – a performance at least – to lift us after the week’s disappointment. If we take the game to Hull, we can cause them problems. If we sit back, like we did in the second alf of the Cup game, we will get murdered. The power of positive thinking. COYG!

Category: Team News

Tags: Team News

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