Plymouth Argyle: Season 3, Oct — Nov 2013

Seasons Greetings from Canada and I’m delighted to bring you yet another update to my Football Manager Story. Last time saw Plymouth get off to a terrific start in The Championship so let’s see if we could continue that good form…

October 2013

We started off the month against a very defensive minded Burnley who lined up with two DM but that didn’t prevent a well worked goal between Walton, Jacobs and Gameiro who finished off the move with a neat side footed shot. Walton provided the through ball that Geynrikh delicately lobbed over the Burnely keeper 5 minutes into the second period and a few minutes later he steered the ball into the net from a corner to open up a commanding lead. Burnley did manage a consolation goal but to my surprise we never looked in danger of losing this one.

Next up was a trip to money laden Leicester who if you remember offered me a big salary and an even bigger transfer budget last season.Well we weren’t intimidated by their wealth as Ekong headed in from a corner inside the opening ten minutes to give us a confidence boosting lead. That was doubled by Gameiro who timed his run perfectly to drive home a deftly through ball by Daniel Redmond out on the left flank. The excitement of a two goal advantage went to our heads as we found ourselves quickly pegged back by Leicester and we went into the interval at 2-2. An encouraging half time talk produced two second half goals – a cheeky back heel by Gameiro to set up Geynrikh and a tap in by substitue Odelusi to cap off a remarkable away win.

The international break did not do us any favors at all as we tasted our first defeat of the season against a bouyant Derby County attack at Home Park where our defence was guilty as charged of ball watching. Figuring that I needed to shake things up a bit I sent out a revised starting eleven to take on Cardiff in Wales where we threw away a one goal lead with just minutes remaining on the clock and two points to boot!

We had a chance at securing a win away at Preston as their morale was absolutely atrocious.We soon took advantage of that with a briliant counter attacking move orginating from our own penalty area, inspired by Geynrikh and cooley finshed off by Gameiro after 13 minutes. A “barn-stormer” of a shot by Geynrikh doubled our lead before the break but a more confident Preston came out after the interval and pulled one back by the hour mark. A tightening of the formation subdued the Preston revival and a second goal by Gameiro finished the home side off with 7 minutes remaining on the clock.

Next was our highly anticipated League Cup 4th round game at the Britannia Stadium. Ten minutes in we silenced the Stoke fans as Geynrikh broke free of their back four and buried the ball into the corner of the net for the opening goal. Stoke responed with a shot aginst the wood work but threat would be as close as they would come until just after half time when we pushed up too much for a corner and they equalized on the counter attack. From there is was end to end stuff but the game ended in deadlock. Early into extra time Howard Webb reduced Stoke to ten men but try as we might we just couldn’t get the ball over the Stoke goal line and inevitebly fell victim to the ensuing penalty shoot out.

That defeat signalled the end of first attempt at a visit to Wembley and also the final game of the month which saw us move up one place in the table to second.

Injury Report:

The squad is at full strength with no players on the injury roster.

November 2013

We began November with the visit of 5th place Hull City who totally outplayed us as we suffered our biggest defeat for some time losing by a score of 3-0. We followed that with a difficult trip to London to take on QPR who after falling behing to an early second half goal by James Wallace quickly equalized though we did managed to come away with a point.

We returned to Home Park for the visit of runaway leaders West Ham in front of a capacity crowd of just over 16,000. We got off to a magnificent start with Wallace clearing the ball to Geynrikh who left his marker in a trail of dust, rounded the keeper and tucked the ball into he net as cool as you like. West Ham though were unfazed and mounted a 15 minute assault on our goal that evened up the score thanks to poor marking on a corner. Things were now looking good for the Hammers but just before half time we launched one more attack that resulted in a cracking 25 yard shot by Zeytulaev into the roof of the net. The second half saw us totally supress the Londoners with substitue Oyenuga finishing off a wonderful afternoon with a glorius individual effort originating inside our own half to show we were back in business.

After that triumphant win over West Ham we had to remain focused as 3rd place Barnsley were our next opponents and were in good form. It was an afternoon of all guts but unfortunately no glory in an even matched that resulted in a goaless draw but I was more than happy with this away point.

We ended November hosting Ipswich Town at Home Park which saw an opening twenty minutes of Geynrikh causing the visiting defence all kinds of trouble that eventually led to his strike partner Oyenuga firing home the opening goal. A brilliant piece of work by James Wallace set up Oyenuga for his second just on the half hour – his twisting turn and shot heading into the top left hand corner of the net. We pushed for a killer third goal but got caught on the conter and it was suddenly 2-1. Loris Karius in goal had an outstanding afternoon preventing Ipswich from gaining an equalizer and Oyenuga was unlucky not to complete his hat-trick when a second half shot deflected narrowly past the post.

Results Summary:

League Table:

West Ham look pretty much look unstoppable except for our win over them of course :)

Injury Report:

The squad is at full strength with no players on the injury roster.

Super Sevens:

My strikers lead the Super 7’s table though I’m happy to see goalkeeper Loris Karius squeeze onto the list.

Finances:

At almost 2.5  million this is the best bank balance I’ve had since taking over the club.

 Fixtures:

Not looking forward to this at all as we have a very difficult set of games over the Christmas holidays.

 That’s it for this update, so just in case I don’t do another post before December 25th I’d like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and have a safe and happy time with those who mean the most to you. As always thanks for reading this post.