Next Match: Scunthorpe United (A) Tuesday 28th September 2010

Saturday 13 February 2010

More Plymouth Misery

We're one day before Valentines Day, so I had a busy day ahead today aside from the match with lowly Plymouth Argyle. I was whizzing home after this game to start cooking a romantic meal for the missus, and then throwing on a shirt and hitting the town for a few drinks, hopefully secure in the knowledge that the Reds had won another priceless 3 points in their push for the playoffs, and condemned the relegation-haunted visitors to yet another away defeat. Football. It's shit sometimes, isn't it?

To be honest, Plymouth are becoming something of an unwelcome niggle this season for us. Obviously, we all know the story about abandonments, postponements, and so on. But today should have been our opportunity to put a few things straight. Sadly, things never quite work out like that. And so, I now have to cook a romantic meal for a gloating Sheffield Wednesday fan, and then take her out round the town, feeling as helpless as the team looked on the pitch today.

The pub beforehand was subdued. Did everyone know something I didn't?? Maybe they knew that all good things come to an end; that our talk of the playoffs was premature and that there's still lots of work to be done before we can truly kiss goodbye to the dogfight going on below us. Maybe. Or maybe people just knew that Plymouth were harbouring an absolutely woeful away record, and we were just the team to hand them the charity they needed. Deep down, I think I even knew that myself.

Talking to one of the Green Army beforehand, he seemed to have already accepted his clubs relegation from this division. To be fair, they haven't been given much reason to be confident all season, and particularly away from Home Park. On paper, this was a routine home win, and the bookies certainly saw it that way. I was so, so close to sticking some money on the away team today; I have a reputation for being able to change the course of footballing history by betting on something, because inevitably the opposite always happens. I bet on Liverpool and Chelsea all those seasons ago in the FA Cup, simply to help the Reds cause. It cost me some hard earned money, although it was totally worth it. The only thing that stopped me today was the fact that I'd look a bit of an oddball walking into the bookies in Barnsley, in my Barnsley shirt, and sticking money on the away side. Besides, I haven't done it all season, so I decided not to start now and jinx it. Maybe, thinking back, deep down I knew we weren't destined to win today. Events on the pitch certainly indicated that was the case. It was your stereotypical 'not our day today' sort of performance.

The game was dreadful from start to finish. We shaded a first half in which chances were few and far between, although the chances that were created mostly came for us, and mostly ended up high up in the sparsely populated away end. Our wastefulness has been coming to the forefront more and more these last few games, Preston aside, and today it was glaring. The pitch wasn't great either, with mud patches all over and a sizable puddle in the final third towards the Ponty end, which was rolled away during the half time interval. We pride ourselves on being good hosts here at Oakwell, so maybe we were just making Plymouth feel more at home by playing the vast majority of the game on a cabbage patch. It certainly didn't help the team play the decent brand of football we've been pushing for recently.

The second half was just shocking. We were terrible. Plymouth looked more urgent, more aggressive, and far more likely to score than we did, which was reflected in the scoreline. Robins made changes, such as bringing Danny Bogdanovic on, but it never really looked like it was gonna work. For some reason, today wasn't our day. Or maybe, as I said before, Plymouth are just destined to enjoy all their meetings (and non-meetings) with us this season. If I had to go for a Man of the Match today, I'd probably go for Colace, because he took his goal well and was probably the best of a very bad bunch. I was stunned that Teixeira got it, because I didn't think it was his vintage best at all. Maybe the club think that giving him MOTM awards every week will convince him to come here at the end of the campaign, which is genius if that is the case, but I don't think he was our most outstanding player today. It was probably a very tough call for the sponsors though.

Without wanting to sound bitter, I do think we've seen no worse this season than Plymouth. They were difficult to watch, with plenty of gamesmanship and very little quality, although they're scrapping for their lives and probably are willing to do anything to pick up points, particularly at this stage of the season. And, as I said to my dad after the match, many of our fans will consider them the worst we've played this season, but they may well reciprocate that feeling, which doesn't bode well for the rest of the campaign. The best team won today, and they deserved their 3 points, so fair play to them.

I was straight home after the game, as I said before, so I didn't hear much reaction after the game, apart from on Radio Sheffield, which was full of the usual Blunt bleating, and only the occasional opinion of one of our lot. One bloke was straight on there going on about dropping Luke Steele, although I don't think the lad did too much wrong to be fair. He might have been caught out for the third, but I don't think many keepers would have been in a different position than Luke, and 99 times out of 100 that shot could fly anywhere. Basically, it was a freak, and I don't think Steele was bad at all today. His kicking seemed to have improved too. The second lad I heard on the radio was far more optimistic, pointing out that we were still in a fantastic position, much better than anyone expected, and that we should get behind the Reds. He's right, but it doesn't stop this one from stinging like Hell.

Scunthorpe away on Tuesday looks far more daunting now. They got a tonking today too, and will be hoping to put it right just the same as us. Last time I was there it was a disaster, we never started, and that can't happen again. That lad from Radio Sheffield is right; we're in a far better position than expected. But it won't last if we don't start beating the teams below us in the league. It's a massive game now, and I'm feeling the nerves already.

Thanks for reading.

2 comments:

  1. we were bad but they were worse, how we lost this one?????

    ReplyDelete
  2. Allow me to explain:

    Plymouth scored 3 times.

    You dingles only managed one.

    Easy really, isn't it?

    ReplyDelete