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IN THE SPOTLIGHT

Posted on: Tue 04 Mar 2008

CRUEL as we are, Jimmy Abdou was our headline act for tonight's crucial Championship clash with bottom club Colchester United.

Jimmy had a bit of a 'mare in Saturday's 3-0 defeat at West Bromwich Albion, ruining a superb run of form for the tireless French midfielder.

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To be fair, manager Paul Sturrock was not interested in blaming individual mistakes at the Hawthorns, and has shown in faith in the core of the side that enjoyed a fabulous four-match winning streak before the West Brom loss.

Jimmy started the game with customary energy in his boots, although he was floored by a heavy challenge in the first couple of minutes - Johnnie Jackson must be a closet Wolves fan.

The thing you have to admire about Jimmy is his bouncebackability, and he showed that in abundance in the early stages by breaking up play and generally not dwelling on any negative vibes he may have been feeling from the weekend.

Added to that is the fact his boundless energy makes him the perfect midfield partner for the experience of Lilian Nalis.

Those energy bubbles will have received an extra boost on 10 minutes when Argyle took the lead through an own goal from Paul Ifil following a delicious Gary Teale cross.

The good news was slightly tempered seconds later by Krisztián Timár finally picking up his tenth booking of the season and a subsequent two-match ban after weeks of walking the suspension tightrope.

Jimmy played out the remaining time of his headline performance without incident, so we shifted our focus to the provider of Argyle's opener.

Teale has already shown flashes of quality in his brief Argyle career, and a blossoming right-flank partnership with Paul Connolly, but you feel there is more to come from a man with his reputation in the game.

The early indications from Teale are that he is an orthodox winger, in the sense that he loves to hug the touchline.

He showed just such a tendency on the half-hour mark, chasing a hopeful punt forward and firing in a sensational driven cross that visiting 'keeper Dean Gerken could palm into the path of our two strikers. Unfortunately, Jermaine Easter and Steve MacLean left it to each other, and Colchester escaped.

This was the Teale we were all expecting. He looked bright and lively on the ball, while maintaining a Halmosi-like willingness to help his full-back. It is getting very hard not to be very excited about our two wide men.

Halmosi, therefore, was the natural choice for 'Spotlight' duty at the start of the second-half. The Hungarian missed out on the February Championship Player of the Month Award yesterday, finishing fourth behind Liam Lawrence (Stoke), Paul Dickov (Blackpool) and Fraizer Campbell (Hull).

I know we don't get to see these players every week and I freely admit to being biased, but, all three must have enjoyed truly astonishing form to have surpassed Péter in the voting.

After a quiet start to the second period, Péter burst into life by presenting Easter with the chance he needed to break his recent goal-duck, although, to be fair, Péter's involvement was probably more down to luck than judgment.

The ball fell to our man on the edge after Argyle indulged in a game of penalty box pinball, and the most magical of all Magyars drove the ball into the danger area, where Easter was lurking to divert into the net.

A minute later, Péter secured an indirect assist for Argyle's third by winning the free-kick that MacLean expertly curled past Gerken.

Kevin Lisbie then kept Argyle honest with a superbly taken goal on 65 minutes, scampering through the Argyle defence and lifting the ball past Luke McCormick with aplomb.

The three goal advantage was soon restored with Gary Sawyer scoring his first ever Argyle goal after latching onto a far post cross from opposite full-back, Connolly.

We turned to substitute Rory Fallon for the conclusion of tonight's 'Spotlight', and the big Kiwi must have been relishing the opportunity to pile more misery on a withering Colchester defence.

Rory's quest to join the scorers was somewhat hampered by a lengthy rhythm-braking stoppage for a nasty injury to Izale McLeod.

The game drifted to a satisfactory end for the Pilgrims with Teale arguably the pick of our 'Spotlightees'.

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