Marvin Hungry for More

THE frustration goes on for Marvin Morgan.

After five months on the sideline with a shoulder injury, the Argyle striker was denied a timely boost on his road to full recovery by Bristol Rovers goalkeeper Steve Mildenhall in the dying moments of the Pilgrims 2-1 Sky Bet League 2 defeat at the Memorial Ground on Saturday.

Mildenhall made a fine save to keep out a header by Marvin from fellow substitute Tope Obadeyi’s cross, a feat which had the Argyle No. 10 seeking out first-team coach Sean McCarthy for his view on things.

“I thought I’d scored and I was about to celebrate,” admitted Marvin afterwards. “Obviously Macca’s a striker and I said to him: ‘Should I have scored, or was it a bad miss?’  He said: ‘You know I’d tell you [the truth] – it was a good save’.

“It’s frustrating. You come back from injury; a couple of sub appearances; you start to get back into it; you need a goal and I thought that was it, and it would have been 2-2, which would have been even better. It wasn’t to be.”
 
Marvin’s return to the fray after months working alongside Performance Manager John Harbin and physio Paul Atkinson has merely sharpened his appetite for more, but he knows he faces a battle just to get place in John Sheridan’s starting 11, such is the form of Reuben Reid and Lewis Alessandra.

“I have got the bit between my teeth now,” he said. “I have got to try to get back into the team. It is going to be difficult. I’ve had this before when you have been injured and you come back and you can’t get into the team.

“I am a realist about this. Rubes and Lewi are outstanding and are carrying the team with their goals and their general. So I have got to keep working hard in training and keep coming off the bench and try to get goals.”

Maybe at Wycombe on Tuesday, when – with veteran Pilgrim Paul Wotton’s Memorial Ground rallying call still ringing in their ears – Argyle will try to keep their play-off bid going.

Marvin said: “Wottsy hit the nail on the head when we were leaving. He basically said that if we go to Wycombe on Tuesday and win, that’s what we want. We don’t want a draw [at Bristol] and a draw at Wycombe – okay, that’s two good results, but, if you think about it, you’d take a loss and win all day long.”