Pleasure and Pain

THE Green Army were not alone in believing Blackpool had mugged Argyle by scoring a last-minute equaliser in Saturday’s 2-2 Sky Bet League One draw; manager Derek Adams thought so, too.

The Pilgrims led 2-0 at half-time at Bloomfield Road, thanks to Ruben Lameiras’s first Argyle goal and a wonder-strike from Graham Carey, before conceding twice after the interval with the second coming in the fourth minute of injury-time from substitute Viv Solomon-Otabor.

Derek said: “Blackpool have stolen two points. We should have had three points; they don’t deserve to win the game. We deserved to win the game – we were 2-0 up and we should have won the game. Blackpool are a very lucky team. 

“We are obviously disappointed because we have lost two goals in the second half without Blackpool being a real threat. They scored two scrambled goals and probably find themselves lucky to get a point.

“To go in at 2-0 at half-time was thoroughly deserved. The way we defend, I didn’t see that Blackpool were going to breach us in open play. 

“They have [scored] a couple of goals with a bit of a scramble and they were never going to cut us open – that was never going to be the case; they couldn’t find a way through us. 

“I didn’t see Remi Matthews making many saves in the game. They had a number of corner-kicks. Other than that, we dealt well with the threat of the long high ball into the striker.

“They have obviously stolen the points because, in the 94th minute, they have got the goal.  We should have cleared the ball and we had opportunities to do that long before it became a problem.” 

As well as the late equaliser, the Pilgrims were left to rue a header from David Fox, after good approach work from Ryan Taylor, which hit the post. 

Derek said: “He should have scored; he should have made it 3-1 for us. If he had done that, it was game over and there was no way back for Blackpool.” 

Nevertheless, Derek was in buoyant mood as the Pilgrims – who were promoted alongside Blackpool in the summer – head into 2018 on the back of a six-game unbeaten league run.

He said: “We’re in League One and with 30 seconds to go, we were in 15th position. We feel we should have more points than we do. We have had a very good 2017 and we continue to go from strength to strength as a football club.”