Things are starting to shape up pretty well but a win tonight would really make me believe that we are promotion candidates. For much of the Wimbledon match we were sloppy but as in the previous game we managed to start and finish well. I doubt if we’ll get away with that against stronger opposition. Plymouth have had a mixed season so far and are currently mid-table but have conceded almost two goals a game so I’m confident we can get a couple ourselves. The return of Willis is a great bonus as he shores up the defence very well and with Wyke finally having the confidence to bang in the goals we bought him for I think we’ll be able to get another win tonight. Apparently LJ has said some of the lads looked a bit leggy on Saturday so maybe we’ll see Winchester starting. I’ll be watching the game with my Sunderland bubble and my match prediction is a 3-1 win.
There was some doubt whether the match would go ahead due to the rain but the team news came through around 6.00 so I figured we must be on. There were several changes with Power, Embleton and Leadbitter on the bench while Winchester, Sanderson and Diamond were starting.
The pitch looked in bad nick as we kicked off and I wondered why, as 2020 must’ve seen it used less than in any year in its history. I was glad Plymouth weren’t playing in green like they used to and maybe still do at home. McGeady went on a good run and put in a decent shot in the second minute, which boded well. Plymouth produced a decent low shot themselves five minutes later but Burge had it well covered. Not long afterwards Plymouth were ahead after a low cross from the right was knocked in by Lewis despite Burge, Wright and Willis being in close attendance. They’d had the better of it, to be honest, and we’d started ineffectively. The wet heavy pitch was making the ball slow up at times but Plymouth were handling it more assuredly. We had a penalty shout in the eighteenth minute when Wyke went down but had to settle for a corner, which went nowhere. We started to have much the better of things at last and I thought O’Brien had flicked in the equaliser but it went for another corner. Ditto for a McGeady effort just afterwards but it felt like a goal was coming. Winchester was booked for a foul on his home debut just before the half-hour mark. Our passing was getting sloppy again and we were showing too much of the ball to the Plymouth defenders so our good spell didn’t last too long. Willis was replaced by Power with ten minutes to the break – it looked like he was having problems with his knee – and the picture was getting gloomier. We won our sixth corner and it was time we made one count – well, we won another corner which Sanderson headed wide. We got yet another corner when a decent McGeady effort was turned out and that was it for the first-half. Parts of the pitch were looking like a tatie-field. We needed to convert one or two of all the corners we were likely to get in the second-half.
I hoped to see Maguire on sooner rather than later but there’d been no further changes as we kicked off. Within twenty-five seconds we’d won a free-kick and Lewis had been booked but nothing came of it. There was a right kerfuffle a few minutes in involving Winchester and in my bubble we were baying for a red card but it resulted in no cards and a free-kick for Plymouth. Not to worry, as we were soon level and it was the much-improved O’Brien who headed home from a MacFadzean cross from the left. He did spoil things a bit not long afterwards for booting the ball away after being offside and getting needlessly booked. Four minutes later Plymouth were ahead again when we failed to close them down following a throw-in on the right edge of our box and Edwards was allowed to run and blast the ball wide of Burge and into the net. This took the wind out of our bubble, apart from much effing and blinding, but the game soon looked like it had another goal or two in it. I think Scowen needs a lot of shooting practice as he regularly blasts the ball high or wide. We made a double change with twenty minutes left with Embleton and Maguire coming on for MacFazean and McGeady. Diamond had a decent long-range effort that Cooper in goal got at the second attempt and then we brought on Leadbitter for Winchester, who’d done nothing especially bad or good. As full-time loomed it was time for a rain dance as we didn’t look like scoring. There were a surprising six minutes of stoppage-time but we failed to come up with a decent effort and it ended 1-2.
This was a poor sloppy display all round and Plymouth managed to contain us without too much trouble. A very disappointing result.
