Character Reference

JOHN Sheridan was delighted with the character his Pilgrims showed as they took Leyton Orient to a penalty shoot-out in Tuesday’s Capital One Cup clash.

Last season’s Sky Bet League 1 play-off finalists arrived at Home Park heavy favourites and lived up to that expectation for most of the first half, thanks to a goal and assist from Dean Cox, who then set up Mathieu Baudry for the second after 38 minutes.

However, Reuben Reid nicked one back for Argyle before the opening 45 minutes were over, and the Greens were dominant from that point onwards. Reid muscled his way through the O’s defence and beyond ‘keeper Gary Woods to level the scoring and take the game to extra-time.

Romain Vincelot then made it 3-2 to the visitors, but Carl McHugh levelled the scores once more on 108 minutes, deflecting Kelvin Mellor’s shot past Woods.

In the end, Orient won a back-and-forth shootout 6-5, but Sheridan will take plenty of positives from the game, and was impressed with the team’s desire to get back into the match.

“For the second half and all of extra-time, I thought we were tremendous – we showed a lot of good things,” said John.

“A good thing that has come out of the game is that the lads showed a lot of character.

“We got ourselves back in the game at 2-2. Reuben deserved his goals, and he is the main man who has got us back in the game.

“To play how we did in the end is very pleasing for me. I think everyone will appreciate it when I say that we should have won the game.

“We hit the post, hit the bar, and we had a penalty to win it. That’s life, but I will take a lot from the game.”

The gaffer is eager to carry his side’s showing against more established opposition to their League 2 campaign, and predicts great things if they can do it.

John: said “If we play like that against any team at home in or league, we will win a lot more games than we lose.

“It is just a shame that we have not got through, because it would have given us that little bit of confidence.

“Sometimes with a lot of lower-league teams, they do not tend to get the breaks that other teams do, but Orient are a good team.”