Poor Night for Pilgrims
ARGYLE manager Derek Adams was left to bemoan his side’s inconsistency after the Pilgrims’ 2-0 Sky Bet League One defeat at Shrewsbury Town’s Montgomery Waters Meadow.
Following the previous Saturday’s 2-1 home win and good display against Fleetwood Town, hopes were high of another good return at what has recently been a happy hunting-ground
However, Argyle never reached anything like those standards and went down to goals from Greg Docherty, after 35 minutes, and Fejiri Okenabirhie, midway through the second half.
“It was an extremely poor performance from us,” said Derek.
“The players haven’t performed well. They performed well on Saturday but, tonight, Shrewsbury were better than us. They were first to the ball; they passed it better; and they got more opportunities on goal.
“Over the 90 minutes, we didn’t have any performers that did well. It was a strange performance from Saturday to today. It was a big difference.
“If you look at it, we had a lot of running power on Saturday – tonight, we didn’t have that running power. We were out-run by Shrewsbury at times; on Saturday, we out-ran Fleetwood.
“We just didn’t have the head of steam that Shrewsbury did have. They were at home and they got the first goal; if we had scored the first goal, it might have been different.
“They got the first goal and we were having to chase after that, and we didn’t do the chase very well.
“We were on top of things on Saturday and the players were bang at it; tonight, they haven’t put in the performance that they did on Saturday.
“All players want to play every game – it is up to them to be consistent in every game. Consistency from football players is only really good at the top level; at this level, you do get ups and downs.
“It’s something that we don’t try to do – we try to win the games but tonight we weren’t able to play to our levels.”
Defeat left the Pilgrims in the League One relegation zone with more than half the season left to play, although they are far from adrift of the pack.
Derek said: “We’re still well in striking distance and we have been able to pick up a number of wins recently to do that but, if we perform like we did tonight, we are not going to be able to give ourselves that opportunity.”
To compound a miserable night for the Pilgrims, defender Yann Songo’o left the ground limping, with fears that he might be injured or Saturday’s Emirates FA Cup tie at home to Oxford United.
Derek said: “He was struggling before the game with a groin injury and I think he’s aggravated it later on in the game.”