TOPIC: Performance v Plymouth

I thought today we were poor. Good marker as to how far we have came but how far off we are. I thought we were poor in the middle of the park with not being able to get a hold of the game. Joyce for me today was very poor. Also not direct enough when going forward. Why stop to check back and stop the momentum and 9/10 play the ball backwards? just put the bloody ball into the box and gamble on it.

I agree. Joyce was poor. Grainger's crossing was off as well today. I do like the long throw but felt we were using it too much today from too far out. Wish we would vary it up and play it short to Gilliead on occasions. Watching Kennedy on the left wing in the second half wasn't pretty either and I hope Curle has someone lined up to play there.

I'd like us to go back to 442 next Sunday. Hope Dicker starts as well.

Them defending in numbers made us look worse especially 2nd half. They just shut up shop and tried the break on 2 or 3 occasions.
Didn`t like the return of the long ball especially with no Jabo

Did their keeper have a save to make?

On this occasion, maybe John Coleman was right - us playing our home matches "away" is giving an unfair advantage to the opposition.

Too many long balls from back to front today, reminiscent of last season really. Disappointed with Curle's tactics really (I'm a Curle fan before anyone jumps on it). The long ball game doesn't suit Asamoah, Wyke, Joyce or Atkinson and only really works when Ibhere is on the pitch. Just hope it's not the way we're going to go. Too often it was a case of get the ball in the box and hope it drops kindly.

Plymouth had all the hallmarks of a promotion team for me. Strong, physical and organised. Maybe not the best team but very effective.

If it wasn't for those pesky deflections we could have been saying it was a workmanlike draw against the top of the league team. Tbh I thought it was just a crap match. They looked solid as said above but didn't look owt spectacular.

Listening to curle at end of match he said there was plenty of positives to take from the performance. To me there wasn't many at all. As said further up I can't remember McCormick hardly having to make a save.

We were very poor in the first half. Joyce should of been subbed at half time. Didn't think Asamoah was too good either. Dicker improved us when he came on, their keeper made two decent saves to keep us out on the second half and Ellis missed that header just one of those days lots of huff and puff just no end result.

Thought Derek Adams and Craig Brewster got their tactics right in the first half. They played with 3 central defenders and let our back 4 have the ball by sitting off us whe we had the ball in our o half. Rather than play though midfield as we did earlier in the season, We launched 40 yard balls into their back 3 who won almost everything. The stuff they didn't win their midfielders picked up the second ball most of the time and then broke quickly.

Bit better in the second half but we really missed Jabbo today, our front 2 worked hard but were poor. wYkes touch was not great and asamoa didn't pester their back 3 too much. Really missed Jabbo today, if nothing else their back 3 would have known they were in a game and the ball would have stuck upfront a lot more than it did today. We have got a decent squad but today showed we are short in some key areas. graingers supply from LM was great against Notts county but then today he plays LB and we start with Sweeney LM probably to stop Jarvis but we got it wrong today I think.

We weren't played off the pitch, we had a couple of poorer individual performances to what we've been used to recently. We didn't make many chances and didn't threaten going forward.

However, if you take out the two deflections, they also had very few clear cut chances. Yes, they attacked more frequently and were first to every ball and every second ball.

It was a poor game of football from both teams to be honest, I wasn't too disgruntled to be honest.

You can see why they're top of the league, but you can also see a hell of an improvement from us from recent years.

Dicker to return next week in place of Joyce. Gillesphey to slot in at LB allowing Grainger to move forward and replace Sweeney, then if Jabo is back him to replace Asamoah.

Why are people surprised by us playing long balls today? It's how we beat Notts County - get it forward to Jabo and Wyke then scrap for the knockdowns, or get it wide and get crosses in he box.

The passing through midfield stuff disappeared a few weeks back. Just seems like if we win no one really cares.

I mentioned it after the Crawley and Notts County games but on the other hand I was quite pleased Curle had more than one way of playing and more than one way of getting a result. However it's looking more like its gonna become the norm and if Jabo's not playing it'll mean more defeats than wins IMO. Fair enough mix things up, have a plan B, but don't discard the passing game altogether especially as quite a few of the players were starting to look a lot more comfortable playing it after a shaky start.

In fairness and in hindsight, this wasn't a game that required two holding midfield players (Joyce and Kennedy/Sweeney). Dicker should have been played from the start with a holding midfielder held back to come on and either support the midfield late on or replace like-for-like. It wasn't Joyce's best performance and we needed a creative player in the middle to play Asamoah in rather than punt it up to the front two. There is a place and time for holding midfielders, but yesterday Plymouth came to defend and break and we were too defensive instead of creative - we got it wrong on this occasion.