Pilgrims Rob Wolves

Plymouth Argyle hosted Wolverhampton Wanderers and with the same result as last year’s Home Park fixture the tables were somewhat turned. Last year saw Argyle dominate a game and have more shots and possession than the travelling side, only to let in a goal which deflected off the wall and was probably the only Wolves chance of the game. This year saw an organised and clinical team rip through a shambles of an Argyle display creating chance after chance and then being robbed by what was the only clear cut chance the home side had all day.

A familiar Argyle 11 walked out on the pitch, the same 11 that started at West Ham on Wednesday night, the only thing similar however to the midweek display was the line up itself. Where do I begin to comment on a display like that? From the start Wolves dominated possession and bombarded the Argyle defence with wave after wave of attacking football keeping the ball down and dissecting what looked like a bewildered Plymouth side.

When Argyle did gain possession the ball was either smacked up field or given to an orange shirt. The flare and style we had seen from Buzsaky recently was replaced with error after error as the Hungarian continued to give away pass after pass. Sylvan Ebanks-Blake looked fed up and failed to chase much in the box at all, whether this was a protest at having to run for lofted ball after lofted ball, or he was just having a tired temper tantrum I am not sure but the Wolves fans must have been wondering what all the fuss was about. Even the resilient Norris was a shadow of himself giving balls away and even taking a few dives here and there.

With Wolves having nearly all of the possession in the first half and earning about 15 corners to our 0, it was hardly a surprise when the ball ended up in the back of the Devonport net for Argyle to go 1-0 down. The only two people on the pitch who seemed to be providing anything near the standard we would expect in a green shirt were Timar who was winning everything in the air, and Luke McCormick, who not only seemed to have shown a vast improvement from his last Home Park appearance but was the only reason we were not about 4-0 down when half time came.

The teams emerged unchanged after the break although the Wolves team were out and ready at least 5 minutes before the home team emerged. When they did come out on to the pitch they looked like a team who were being beaten down, there was no spring in their step and their heads were low. I would like to think this is because Holloway had just given them a stern word or two at half time, however if he did it failed to pick them up as the second half started much as the first.

The defence were making blunder after blunder, the midfield seemed intent to give away more balls than they would put forward and the attacking line just didn’t seem bothered. A double substitution was the first positive thing to happen for Argyle all afternoon, Fallon and Chadwick came on for Buzsaky and Ebanks-Blake changingt he formation to a more attacking 4-3-3. Buazsaky should have probably been taken off 15 minutes into the game, and although Sylvan did not seem pleased at his removal from the pitch one of the strikers had to go and neither of them were performing so I am assuming it was the captains armband which made the final decision.

The change seemed to lift Argyle somewhat and we started to push forward a bit with some new energy about the team. I am not going to claim that we took it to Wolves as they still dominated the game, we did however start to create something and it wasn’t long before a long ball forward found the head of Fallon which directed the ball toward Chadwick. Chadwick then broke the back line and rounded the keeper to slot home a fine goal in an otherwise dismal performance. This was however to be the one bright piece of attacking from us all day and the rest of the encounter seemed to drag on painfully to end with a 1-1 score line and an undeserved point for the home team.

You could look at this in a couple of ways really, after being robbed of 3 points already a couple of times at home maybe lady luck was finally on our side. What I do know is that the team playing today were not worthy of a Championship fixture, let alone the praise they received on Wednesday for their Premiership performance. If the team is that tired from 3 fixtures in the 2 weeks then we could get embarrassed when Crystal Palace arrive on Tuesday, hopefully Holloway will have a plan and possibly some corporal punishment up his sleeve.