Hard game tonight. Can't see us holding out like against Rotherham. Thing is can we play better going forward? Pessimism rules. 1-3.
The mosquito stings
Again wasn't in a position to watch or listen to the match. Could only follow on BBC live feed, so perfectly willing to be corrected by someone who was there/watched on ifollow. First half looked about even as, even though they had more shots and possession, a lot of their shots were from outside the box, and we had more shots on target. Second half looked like a repeat of Saturday. Backs to the walls again. From a purely results perspective, of you'd offered two draws from these tricky away games, I expect most of us would've accepted gladly. However, I do find it more than a little worrying that, in these two games, we've given up 44 shots against us, with us mustering less than a third of that number in response (13). I know we still have a number of absentees, most of which are attacking options (Onyeka, Long, the ongoing Lowery saga, Knight and whatever's going on with Gomes). But that sort of openness at the back, combined with a rather blunt cutting edge, doesn't fill me with confidence for the rest of the season. Well done the lads though, on two good results this week. Roll on the weekend.
Considering all of the injuries+illness, that was a really good performance (again) tonight.
In my opinion this is becoming a strong 'squad', not just a strong starting XI.
Just to clarify regarding Gomes ...
"Alex bench didn稚 include midfielder Madger Gomes after he became the latest player to suffer with illness."
We've had quite a lot of shots against us (compared with our own shot count) in the last couple of games but then if you look again and look at shots on target, you'll notice the gap is just a couple over the 2 games.
We do need to keep the ball better and for that we need 3 midfielders. I'm not sure about 5-2-3/3-4-3 as it tends to make us play too deeply.
Also why isn't Macfadzean getting a look in? We know Rio quite likes playing RB so surely that would have been a better option.
Finally, McGarry really annoyed me when PA scored as he was too busy wittering on about possible substitutions and then suddenly Argyle pop up and score. When listening, it's often difficult to know what's happening and whose got ball. When will he learn that just saying "foul" or "free kick" tells us nothing on its own. We need to know who fo, who was fouled and who did the fouling!!