The Red Zone

AARON Bentley's dismissal in Sunday's 2-1 home defeat by Oxford United means it is now nearly four years...

...since Argyle scored a league goal after having a player sent off.

The last Pilgrim to net when we were down to 10 men was Onismor Bhasera in November 2011, when he nabbed a dramatic late equaliser as we drew 3-3 with Stourbridge in the FA Cup.

However, the last time we netted a league goal after a red card was in February 2011, when Yala Bolasie scored a penalty as we beat Colchester 2-1 at Home Park after Chris Clark was sent off with the scores level at 1-1.

For a goal scored in open play when we were outnumbered, you have to go back to Joe Mason's double in a crazy game at Huddersfield in January 2011: Joe scored in the first minute; Curtis Nelson was sent off in the 10th; Joe scored again in the 15th; Huddersfield were 3-2 up by half-time; Stephane Zubar was red-carded early in the second half; and we clung on with nine men without conceding again.

Since Baz's goal, we have had 15 red cards and played a man short for a total of 534 minutes, conceding 20 goals in the process.

Funnily enough, we actually did pretty well when a man light in 2010-11, but given that we had 11 red cards that season, we did have a lot of practice.