At Your Peril

BEING the underdogs suits Argyle, according to Derek Adams.

The Pilgrims’ manager steered his side to a shock 1-0 Carabao Cup first-round win over Championship side Bristol Rovers at Ashton Gate as Argyle produced a fine team performance to knock out last season’s semi-finalists with a first-half goal from Yann Songo’o. 

Derek said: “When we are not arrogant and when we don’t think we are better than the opposition, we’re a good team; when we think we are better than the opposition, we have a real problem.” 

A year earlier, at the same stage of the competition, City beat Argyle 5-0, and Derek said: “It was a different team this year.

“We’ve shown that, performance-wise, we defended well. We had to – Bristol City are a very good side – and we took our goal exceptionally well, a great ball in from Graham Carey and a very good header from Yann Songo’o into the top corner. 

“We went in at half-time, knowing we had a lead to defend and did that perfectly well. 

“We have shown that we can defend; we know our jobs; we know our discipline; and we got a goal that we could defend. 

“We stopped [Bristol City] playing out from the back; we stopped them playing to the centre-halves; we stopped the central midfield payer from coming in and getting the ball. 

“So we set a trap – we allowed the goalkeeper to kick the ball and then we had to win the second ball from there.”