jabba the gut
Active member
With a fit midfield we are. With a struggling Doherty, no Matt Oakley, no in-form Gow (and not the version who's been a liability at times) and a Molesley who hasn't played much due to his rush of blood at Preston and who's head went yesterday, there's not quite as much in it.
That's a bit simplistic. Bhasera's a decent player, Blanchard was playing in League 1 not that long ago and was their player of the year, Branston and Wotton can still do a job at this level, Guerreri has decent ability judging from the game at SJP - although like many of his type in the lower-leagues he can get a bit aimless and flatter to deceieve - and Tyler Harvey is supposedly a highly-rated prospect.
It can be a little misleading at times though. It's not as if Arg*le have been marooned at the foot of the table, the league is quite tight. They're only actually six points of being smack bang in mid-table and could theoretically finish in the top-half. If you look at their record, they haven't really been hammered that many times. Their main problem has been scoring more than a goal a game, but their defence seems to have been quite good - only three teams have conceded fewer goals (including us). In their last seven games, they've only lost to Gillingham - by a single goal - and have beaten Southend and Fleetwood and drawn away to Bradford, so it seems an awful lot of teams don't "want it" when they play them.
In hindsight it was always unrealistic to expect us to roll over them, or even to be reasonably sure we would win, especially with some big players out or not fully fit. I agree we were depressingly sh*te and they weren't great, but I think we've been a bit fooled as to how bad they really are, partly out of wishful thinking and partly from hearing and reading the usual doom-mongering from their fans that you always get when teams are in their position. In any case, derbies can just be weird sometimes - probably BECAUSE of the pscholgical pressure, rather than because players don't feel it. Paradoxically, nerves and lack of confidence can make some people appear sluggish, lacklustre and unable to get themselves into gear, which can be misinterpreted as laziness. I think Logie suffered from that sometimes.
I think managers get blamed too much sometimes, but I think Fletcher was a big part of their problems. It seemed to me that Fletcher was too inexperienced for the situation he was pitched into - he only did his coaching badges a month or so before he got the job full-time - and was mainly there because Brent wanted a cheap option he could get away with, in a way he couldn't have done without Fletcher having had the respect of the Plymouth fans at the beginning. There was a startling incident between Fletcher and Purse at SJP that demonstrated to me that perhaps Fletcher wasn't in control as much as he should have been.
Is that what they call a world-beating performance these days? A one-nil win at home, with the goal coming from virtually their only dangerous shot on goal, numerous errors (including a comedic free-kick attempt) and where the opposiion dominated the opening 10-15 minutes and could have scored two goals with a bit of luck ? (Admittedly from our only two meaningful situations as well).
Well I'm glad you told me before I made the time to watch the next World cup, because if that's a world-beating performance, then it's going to be a tournament with less quality than Euro 96 - and that's saying something.
Are you suggesting that we're the only team that has ever played like sh*te in a derby? Because I would suggest you're very mistaken. In fact I don't recall Ar**le being too clever when we beat them at SJP in league 1. They probably created about two chances, if that.
He probably knows already. He never said he didn't - he just made the mistake of letting us know what he was really thinking about his approach to motivating the players, correctly implying that there are pros and cons to different options. In hindsight he would have been better off treating us like children and manipulating us with some cynical tub-thumping BS that he knew we wanted to hear, like a lot of managers do. After all, it seems as though most of us have a tendency to behave like Verruca Salt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory most of the time anyway.
More? Like a hundred-and-ten per cent, eight days a week?
Speak for yourself.
I'm not saying I wouldn't have been in orbit right now if we'd beaten them - I was literally praying for a week before and even during the game - but if you offered me a win in a game that would get us promotion and being hammered 5-0 by Argyle, I'd take the former and book myself a counsellor for the latter.
