Fresh Coat

The Pilgrims take a break from picking up points in order to pursue a place in the next round of the Johnstone's Paint Trophy at AFC Wimbledon on Tuesday.

However, with a Wembley final on offer to League 1 and 2 clubs, Pilgrims’ manager Derek Adams has no inclination to take the foot off the gas and will not entertain the notion of rotating his squad at a venue where Argyle were victorious on the opening day of the season.

“It’s a competition we’d like to try and progress in,” he said. “It’s a difficult tie that we’ve been given and we’ll have to deal with that.

“We’ve got to take every game seriously and we’ll go there and try to win the match. It’s important we do that.

“I’m looking forward to it. It’s one we did well in at the start of the season, winning 2-0, and we can take confidence from that.

“I can’t see myself making four or five changes – there will be minimal changes; if I have to make forced changes, I’ll do that, but that’s not the road I’m going to go down.”

Definitely not travelling to South London will be striker Reuben Reid, whose hamstring problem ruled him out of Saturday’s 1-0 home win over Newport County, and midfielder Josh Simpson. 

“He picked up a wee groin injury on Thursday in training,” said Derek, of Josh. “We’ll assess him over the next week or so. He’ll not be ready for Tuesday and we’ll see how he is for Saturday.”

New loan signing from Bolton Wanderers Oscar Threlkeld could come into contention. Derek said: “There’s an opportunity to play him; there’s a few others that could get some game time.”

Academy goalkeeper Cory Harvey, younger brother of first-teamer Tyler, is set to be Luke McCormick’s understudy for the foreseeable future following regular back-up James Bittner’s recent back operation. 

“He’s had nerve damage,” said Derek. “He’s had that for a good year now, maybe longer, and he had a tidy-up operation; he’s going to be out for a number of weeks now.”