Plymouth Argyle: Season 4, Season Finale

Hello friends and as metioned over the weekend with the weather so cold in Toronto the final chapter of this season wouldn’t be too far  away being stuck in doors most of the time. So here it is…

April 2015

The month started off with some bad news that Zeytulaev would be out for at least 5 weeks which was pretty much the rest of the season. So we headed north to take on Newcastle and threw caution to the wind with a fluid mentality in order to survive relegation. Marc Pelosi who swicthed to the right found some space down the flank but instead of crossing pulled the ball back to RB Colin Watson who floated the ball into the box and out of nowhere Jaguare glanced it in with his head to give us the lead after 22 minutes. Yu Hai then began an inspirational performance on the the left side being brought down in the box with Geynrikh scroing from the spot after the half hour.

Early in the second period with Livermore and Coady breaking everything down Newcastle could throw at us,Livermore’s long ball to Hai found the Chinese international all alone but his effort went agonizingly wide of the post. Minutes later Hai’s turn of speed created another penalty but this time Geynrikh was lazy in his approach and missed. It didn’t matter as Newcastle were reduced to 10 men in the 63rd minute and they were done and dusted giving us an anstonishing away win!

We weren’t so lucky at home to Blackburn where after taking the lead through a converted penalty by Genyrikh we threw away all three poiints with some slack marking allowing the visitors an equalizer four minutes from time.

Next was away to Chelsea and a brillant defensive effort saw us go into the interval at 0-0 but after the break we lost all confidence with our passing going astray and our full backs shying away from tackles. Chelsea took full advantage and ripped us part like a bunch of Viking raiders scoring four, though we did manage a consolation goal from the spot as Yu Hai was brought down in a rare attacking opportunity.

The final game of April was at home to Man United who had crushed us 7-0 ealrier in the season. Any hope of scoring against them was severely reduced as both my strikers Genyrikh and Rodrigues were injured in training so it would be up to 17 year old Iosif Baesue to lead our attack. We gave a vailant performance in the 1st half just as we did as Stamford Bridge but one moment of lost concentration saw United take the lead 10 minutes into the second half from a corner.Who dares wins, so we went on the attack, pinned United back but didn’t quite have the edge to upset the United back four and so another defeat.

May 2015

Four games left then in our inaugral Premier League season and would it once and done in the top flight? Two points above the drop and away to Wolves next and we will finsh the season back in the Midlands at Birmingham.

We got off to a fantastic start at Molineux as a brilliant individual run by Brazilian Jaguare saw his shot curl around the Wolves keeper and into the back of the net after just 11 minutes. That would be the one and only shot on goal as Wolves completely shut down our attack keeping us on the back foot and coming up with an equalizer early in the second half. Three Wolves players were left ummarked as we were too busy watching the right winger who had the ball before creating the goal. Still, we came away with a point to aid our survival.

The following game meant a trip to London to face West Ham and we couldn’t have asked for a better start as Yu Hai’s vicious low driven cross defelcted off a West Ham defender and it was 1-0 after 8 minutes. Even with the return of Genyrikh we struggled to make anything happen up front which is becoming somewhat of a concern and just before half time we gave away a penalty which Tevez struck…. and was brilliantly saved by Loris Karius!! That seemed to deflate West Ham who in the second period were reduced to ten men and handed us another own goal four minutes from time leaving us needing just one point to stay in the Premier League!

Table after West Ham game.

With only a point required to stay up we were about to play what could be our penultimate game in the Premier League and it was at home to Arsenal. Within the first 20 minutes 2 midfield players were injured and I took off Zeytulaev ( who had just returned from injury) as he seemed to have picked up a knock.The game was totally lost in midfield as Arsenal had no real urgency to attack and at the other end Yu Hai came the nearest to scoring. Despite the drearyness on the field we got the point we needed to the relief of the Home Park Fans and we were staying up in the EPL!!

Birmingham have two games to play but can’t catch us!!

The final game of the season was purely academic now as Birmingham were already relegated and it was lucky for us as they played their hearts out in front of their home fans winning this seven goal thriller. Of course the winning goal would naturally come from a corner kick.

Final Table:

So we made it but only just!

Our final place in the table did come with a tidy little payout of £4.2million that the board immediately put towards a stadium expansion which was totally unexpected. Our capacity will now be around 24,500

Our Premiership survival also attracted a new sponsorship deal, almost double that than before.

Finances:

The top flight has indeed been good for our bank balance, now sitting at over £11 million. We’ve come a long way financially over the past few years. I like that!

 The last piece of news for this update is the intial budget for next season. A slight increase in salaries but a whopping £25million for players. Where did we get 25 million from? I may though adjust this in early June to bolster the salary budget to get closer to 200k that I would prefer.

Anyway, that’s it. Another season is done and Plymouth will once again play in the EPL next season.  I hope you have enjoyed this update and the season as a whole and even though we didn’t win anything I trust the story itself made up for that.

Thanks for reading this and I look forward to your comments.