Argyle's Resolution

ARGYLE boss Derek Adams says that no win ever comes easily in Sky Bet League Two...

... yet he acknowledges that his side are still continuing to do well, with Argyle's 2-0 win against Crawley epitomising the Pilgrims' resilience.

The Pilgrims have won three out of their last four and overcame a challenging Crawley side at Home Park to win 2-0. Argyle have finished the festive period top of the league, with the win against Crawley returning the Pilgrims to the top.

"Any game that you play in this league is difficult," said Derek. "We have seen that throughout the season. To win 15 games from 23 is a very good record and we continue to do well.

"I think in the first half we were very dominant, we didn't move the ball quick enough. At times I thought we were better in the first half than we were in the second half. I did not think we could have done a lot more in the game to open up the opposition. We didn't pass the ball well enough at times today.

"From our point of view we just did not complete enough passes. We had a lot of space at times and probably chose the wrong option. We went a wee bit long which is not like us, but if we had shortened it down and moved it from side to side we would have created more chances."

Derek said Crawley would have been happy to go into the break with the game goalless, and that Argyle's passing needed to be sharper for the Pilgrims to take the lead.
 
"They were quite happy to get in 0-0 at half time," said Derek. "That was their game plan. If we had passed the ball quicker then we would have had more opportunities. We were just a wee bit laboured in our passing today. We didn't knock it about as quickly as we possibly can. We probably didn't play the seven and ten yard passes we were looking for and sometimes we give the ball away too often."

The Red Devils chances against Argyle were few and far between, but they did have an appeal for Connor Smith to be dismissed when the Argyle midfielder pulled down Enzio Boldewijn on the halfway line, to stop him going one-on-one with Luke McCormick. Crawley also had a penalty claim dismissed.

"I think that Connor had just got caught the wrong side," said Derek. "There was players coming back into play that were covering around. It's not an obvious goal scoring opportunity so a yellow card was correct.

"I didn't really think it was a penalty. I thought that Yann just got to the ball before the player. That's the way I saw it at the time, in full speed." 

Argyle head to Barnet on Monday in hope of retaining their lead of Sky Bet League Two with a victory.

"We have got very little time to prepare," said Derek. "We will come back in tomorrow. We will leave at 12 o'clock and travel to Barnet. We will have to be ready for the game on Monday. It is a 3 o'clock kick off. The turnaround is very difficult but we will have to get there."